Southern Tiwa language
language
The Southern Tiwa language is a Tanoan language spoken at Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and Ysleta del Sur in Texas.
Classification
Southern Tiwa belongs to the Tiwa sub-grouping of the Kiowa–Tanoan language family. It is closely related to the more northernly Picurís (spoken at Picuris Pueblo) and Taos (spoken at Taos Pueblo). Trager stated that Southern Tiwa speakers were able to understand Taos and Picurís, although Taos and Picurís speakers could not understand Southern Tiwa very easily. Harrington (1910) observed that an Isleta person (Southern Tiwa) communicated in "Mexican jargon" with Taos speakers as Taos and Southern Tiwa were not mutually intelligible.
Dialects
Southern Tiwa had three dialectal variants
Sandía
Isleta
Ysleta del Sur (Tigua)
Trager reported that Sandía and Isleta were very similar and mutually intelligible.
In August 2015, it was announced that the Tiwa language would be taught to children at Isleta Elementary School in Pueblo of Isleta, as a part of the school's transfer from federal to tribal control.
Sound system
Consonants
Southern Tiwa has 29 consonants:
Stops /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ and /b, d/ may be fricated in different positions as [f, θ, x] and [β, ð] respectively.
/ɾ/ can also be heard as a trill [r] and a retroflex [ɽ].
Vowels
Southern Tiwa has five vowels that have both an oral and nasal contrast.
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