Sierra Otomi

Sierra Otomi a.k.a. Highland Otomi (Otomi de la Sierra) is a dialect cluster of the Otomi language spoken in Mexico by ca. 70,000 people in the highlands of Eastern Hidalgo, Western Veracruz and Northern Puebla. The speakers themselves call the language Yųhų (Eastern Highland) or Ñųhų (Texcatepec and Tenango).^[2] Lastra 2001 classifies it as an Eastern Otomi language together with Ixtenco Otomi, Tilapa Otomi, and Acazulco Otomi. The three varieties of Sierra Otomi—Eastern Highland, Texcatepec, and Tenango—are above 70% lexically similar; the Eastern Highland dialects are above 80%, and will be considered here.

Sierra Otomi
Highland Otomi
Yųhų (otm) Ñųhų (otx, otn)
Native to	Mexico
Region	Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo
Native speakers	(72,000 cited 1990–2007)[1]
Language family	Oto-Manguean Oto-Pamean Otomian Eastern Sierra Otomi
Official status
Regulated by	Secretaría de Educación Pública
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: otm – Eastern Highland otx – Texcatepec otn – Tenango
Glottolog	east2556  Eastern Highland texc1235  Texcatepec tena1241  Tenango
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Distribution

Municipalities with significant Sierra Otomi populations include the following (Dow 2005:236). Many of these municipalities also have Tepehua, Totonac, and Nahuatl speakers.

Hidalgo Acaxochitlan Huehuetla San Bartolo Tutotepec Tenango de Doria Tulancingo Puebla Francisco Z. Mena Pahuatlán Pantepec Tlacuilotepec Tlaxco

Veracruz Benito Juárez Chicóntepec Coatzintla Coyutla Huayacocotla Ixhuatlán de Madero Temapache Texcatepec Tihuatlán Tlachichilco Zacualpan

Phonology

The phonemic inventory given below is based on the particular phonology of the Otomi de la Sierra dialect as documented by Voigtlander and Echegoyen (1985), phonemic inventories of other dialects vary slightly from that of Otomi de la Sierra.

Consonants

	Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m				n
Plosive	p	b			t	d			k	ɡ	ʔ
Affricate					ts	dz
Fricative	ɸ		θ				ʃ		x		h
Flap					ɾ
Semivowel							j		w

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
Close	i	ĩ	ʉ		u	ũ
Open-mid	e		ø			õ
Mid	ɛ	ɛ̃			ɔ
Open			ɑ	ɑ̃

Orthography

Alphabet

• a - [ɑ]
• a̱, ä - [ɔ]
• b - [b]
• ch - [t͡ʃ]
• d - [d]
• e - [e]
• e̱, ë - [ɛ]
• f - [ɸ]
• g - [g]
• h - [h]
• i - [i]
• j - [x]
• k - [k]
• l - [l]
• m - [m]
• n - [n]
• ñ - [ɲ]
• o - [ɔ/o]
• o̱ - [ø]
• p - [p]
• r - [ɾ]
• s - [s]
• t - [t]
• th - [θ]
• ts - [t͡s]
• u - [u/w]
• u̱, ʉ - [ʉ/ɨ]
• x - [ʃ]
• y - [j]
• z - [z/d͡z]

Other letters

• ą - [ɑ̃]
• ę - [ɛ̃]
• į - [ĩ]
• ǫ - [ɔ̃]
• ų - [ũ]

Tones

Tones are usually not marked.

• a - low tone
• á - high tone
• ǎ - rising tone
• à - falling tone^[3]

Notes

1. Eastern Highland at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Texcatepec at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Tenango at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Lastra 2006 p 57, Wright Carr 2005
3. "Sierra Otomi language". Omniglot. Retrieved 31 August 2021.

References

• Dow, James W. 2005. "The Sierra Ñähñu (Otomí)." In Sandstrom, Alan R., and Enrique Hugo García Valencia. 2005. Native peoples of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
• Voigtlander, Katherine; Artemisa Echegoyen (1985). Luces Contemporaneas del Otomi: Grámatica del Otomi de la Sierra (in Spanish). Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
• Wright Carr, David Charles (2005a). "Precisiones sobre el término "otomí"" (PDF). Arqueología Mexicana (in Spanish). 13 (73): 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 8, 2005. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
• Lastra, Yolanda (2006). Los Otomies - Su lengua y su historia (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Instituto de investigaciones Antropológicas. ISBN 9789703233885.
• Lastra, Yolanda (2001). Unidad y diversidad de la lengua. Relatos otomíes (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Instituto de investigaciones Antropológicas. ISBN 968-36-9509-4.