Тева тілі: Пуэбло халқының тілі және ерекшеліктері

Tanoan language spoken by the Pueblo people

Tewa is a Tanoan language spoken by some Pueblo people, mostly in the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico north of Santa Fe, and in Arizona. It is also known as Tano, or Tée wah (archaic). There is some disagreement among the Tewa people about whether or not Tewa should have a written form, as some Pueblo elders believe that their language should be preserved by oral tradition alone. Because of this, it was not until the 1960s that the language was written down for the first time. However, many Tewa speakers have decided that Tewa literacy is an important aspect in passing down the language and so orthographies have been created for this purpose. The language has struggled to maintain a healthy speaker base; however, because of efforts to preserve the language starting in the 1980s—both by native speakers and linguists—this problem is not as dire as it for some other indigenous languages. Tewa has a fairly large phoneme inventory with 45 distinct individual sounds. Twelve of these are vowels, which can be either long or short. Tewa, like other Tanoan languages, also makes use of tones, of which it has four.

LabialDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalplainsibilantplainlab. Plosive/Affricatevoiceless ⟨t⟩ ⟨ch⟩ ⟨kw⟩ ⟨'⟩ejective ⟨ch'⟩ ⟨kw'⟩ voiced ⟨j⟩ Fricativevoiceless ⟨th⟩ ⟨sh⟩ ⟨xw⟩ voicedNasal ⟨ñ⟩ Trill Approximant ⟨y⟩

The voiced postalveolar affricate occurs in the Santa Clara dialect. All alveolars shown are apico alveolar. and are dorso prevelar before front vowels and dorso velar before back vowels. Spirantization can also occur, causing to be pronounced like or is apico dental. ranges from to to ranges from apico dental to ranges from to ranges from to is pronounced as if proceeding velar or glottal consonants, , or an external transition.

There are 9 types of syllables in Tewa: CV, CV:, CVN, CVh, CVʔ, CV', CVʔN, V, and VN. N here stands for nasal, and as seen, there are some constructions where the only consonants available are :, h, or nasals, and as such these have been specified in order to create maximum specificity, instead of just referring to these constructions with just the C for consonant.

Tewa has three tones, high, low, and glide. Within two syllable words, the only combinations found are high high, low low, low high, and high low.

The use of stress in Tewa is still relatively unknown. In two syllable nouns with the pattern CVCV and the tone pattern high high or low low, there is heavier stress placed on the first syllable. Roots also tend to show heavier stress than affixes if each is the same syllable and tone type. A stronger stress is associated with a higher tone and greater vowel length. However, because of the complex use of tone, syllable type, and contour segments more research does need to be done.

Tewa has what are called both "free" and "bound" roots. Free roots are defined as those roots which can be converted directly into a word, sometimes be the addition of a word superfix. Within free roots, there are two additional types, isolated and non isolated free roots. There is a very small number of isolated free roots, as these are roots that are neither combinable with other roots nor affixable. Non isolated free roots are roots that are combinable with other roots and/or are affixable. A limited non isolated free root is one which can combine only with affixes, but not with other roots. A universal non isolated free root is one which can combine both with other roots and affixes. Bound roots are defined as those roots which cannot be converted directly into a word.

Tewa has 15 types of verbs, and a few example verbs and their conjugations are shown below. Meaning Habitual Progressive Completive Potential Imperative Combining Stativedividewiyende'wiyende'wiyewiyéwíyéwiyewiʔyenentercʔuyaʔcuremaencʔúcʔúncuwavecureget (pl. obj. )hónde'hónde'hógihónhó'gíxonxo'ginstirwí:re'wí:re'wí:wí:wí:wí:wíʔinreturnbunde'bummá:bunbu:nbunbunbuʔunbitexunde'xunde'xu:gi:xu:nxú'gíxu:gi:xu'gin

Verbs can be divided into two classes, S and A, standing for stative and active, based of the pronomial prefixes which they contain. In general, S verbs deal with identity, quality, feeling, condition, position, and motion. Class A verbs are, in general, transitive verbs.

Nouns are divided into two classes: class N, which is affixed with set marker / n/, and class non N, which does not have this affix. Class non N is the larger of the two, containing almost all nouns in Tewa, which are, for the most part, mono or di syllabic. Class N nouns are mostly designations for age sex differentiation, kinship terms, and forms which translate as pronouns.

Class Z words are neither particles, verbs, or nouns. They are affixable with suffixes like / á/, / ân/, / bo/, and / ho'/, / reʔ/, / an/, / we/, and / ge/, but unlike nouns and verbs they do not occur with the specific affixes which delineate those classes (/wé: / or /pi / and / ví/ respectively). These compromise words whose English equivalents involve time, location, manner, interrogation, etc.

Tewa sentences follow subject object verb order, however there are simple sentences in Tewa such as "handiriho gi c'u" (that's how we got in) which are simply a subject and a predicate. There are also many ways to say what would be translated as the same thing in English in Tewa. For example, there are three ways to say the sentence "The man and the woman are entering":

Tewa has a noun hierarchy in order to determine which noun phrase goes in which position, however this only influences passive sentences. In Tewa, this is a simple binary distinction between animate and nonanimate noun phrases. However, unlike in other languages with a noun hierarchy, such as Navajo, Tewa also marks the subject with the postposition dí, meaning that there is not a concrete need to adhere to the noun hierarchy as that information is already morphologically encoded into sentences. Because of this, younger Tewa speakers tend to not use the noun hierarchy and instead rely on the morphology present in passive sentences.

Esther Martinez, who lived to be 94 years old, was nationally known for her commitment to preserving the Tewa language. Her San Juan Pueblo Tewa Dictionary was published in 1982. The Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act is named for her, and as of September 15, 2012, members of the New Mexico congressional delegation have introduced legislation to extend the program for another five years. Digital language documentation efforts were underway as of 1995. Tewa language programs are available for children in most of the Tewa speaking pueblos. The Santa Clara Pueblo Tewa Language Revitalization Program also sponsors cultural activities, such as visiting Crow Canyon. Children's stories in Tewa have been digitized by the University of New Mexico, and are available online. A 2012 documentary film, The Young Ancestors, follows a group of teenagers from Santa Fe Preparatory School as they learn the Tewa language in a self study program with the help of a mentor, seventh grade literature teacher Laura Kaye Jagles.