Skip to main content

Search from vocabulary

Content language

Concept information

Preferred term

optOpata  

Type

  • Language

Definition

  • Ópata (Also Teguima, Eudeve, Heve, Dohema) is the name applied to two closely related Uto-Aztecan languages; Teguima and Eudeve spoken by the Opata people of northern central Sonora in Mexico. It was believed to be dead already in 1930, and Carl Sofus Lumholtz reported the Opata to have become "Mexicanized" and lost their language and customs already when traveling through Sonora in the 1890s, but in a recent (1993) survey by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (Now INALI) fifteen people in the Mexican Federal District self identified as speakers of Ópata – this may not mean however that the language is actually living, since linguistic nomenclature in Mexico is notoriously fuzzy. And no studies documenting the language spoken by those fifteen persons have been published. If the fifteen persons were in fact speakers of one of the Ópata languages then the languages are severely endangered and if not they are probably already extinct. Sometimes Eudeve is called Opata, a term which should be restricted to Teguima. Eudeve (Also called Heve, Dohema) and Teguima (Also called Ópata, Ore) are distinct languages, but sometimes have been considered merely dialects of one single language.

Entry terms

  • Opata language

ISO 639-3 code

  • opt

Notation

  • opt

In other languages

  • Opata

    French

  • Idioma ópata

    Spanish

URI

http://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/opt

Download this concept: