Proto-Uto-Aztecan is the
hypothetical common ancestor of the
Uto-Aztecan languages. Authorities on the history of the language group have usually placed the Proto-Uto-Aztecan
homeland
A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethn ...
in the border region between the United States and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, roughly corresponding to the
Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Ariz ...
and the western part of the
Chihuahuan Desert
The Chihuahuan Desert ( es, Desierto de Chihuahua, ) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lo ...
. It would have been spoken by
Mesolithic foragers in
Aridoamerica
Aridoamerica denotes an ecological region spanning Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, defined by the presence of the culturally significant staple foodstuff ''Phaseolus acutifolius'', a drought-resistant bean.Pratt and Nabhan ...
, about 5,000 years ago.
Homeland
Reconstructions of the botanical vocabulary offer clues to the ecological niche inhabited by the Proto-Uto-Aztecans. Fowler placed the center of Proto-Uto-Aztecan in Central Arizona with northern dialects extending into Nevada and the
Mojave desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...
and southern dialects extending south through the Tepiman corridor into Mexico. The homeland of the Numic languages has been placed in Southern California near
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth.
Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the ...
, and the homeland of the proposed Southern Uto-Aztecan group has been placed on the coast of
Sonora.
A contrary proposal suggests the homeland of Proto-Uto-Aztecan to have been much farther to the south; it was published in 2001 by
Jane H. Hill, based on her reconstruction of maize-related vocabulary in Proto-Uto-Aztecan. By her theory, the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan were
maize cultivators in
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
, who gradually moved north, bringing maize cultivation with them, during the period of roughly 4,500 to 3,000 years ago. The geographic diffusion of speakers corresponded to the breakup of linguistic unity. The hypothesis has been criticized on several grounds, and it is not generally accepted by Uto-Aztecanists. Using
computational phylogenetic methods, Wheeler & Whiteley (2014) also suggest a southern homeland for Proto-Uto-Aztecan in or near the area occupied by historical Cora and some Nahua.
Nahuatl forms the most basal clade in Wheeler & Whiteley's (2014) Uto-Aztecan
phylogram. A survey of agriculture-related vocabulary by Merrill (2012) found that the agricultural vocabulary can be reconstructed for only Southern Uto-Aztecan. That supports a conclusion that the Proto-Uto-Aztecan speech community did not practice agriculture but adopted it only after entering Mesoamerica from the north.
A more recent proposal from 2014, by David L. Shaul, presents evidence suggesting contact between Proto-Uto-Aztecan and languages of central California, such as
Esselen and the
Yokutsan languages
Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an endangered language spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, missio ...
. That leads Shaul to suggest that Proto-Uto-Aztecan was spoken in
California's Central Valley area, and it formed part of an ancient Californian
linguistic area.
Phonology
Vowels
Proto-Uto-Aztecan is reconstructed as having an unusual vowel inventory: . Langacker (1970) demonstrated that the fifth vowel should be reconstructed as as opposed to , and there has been a long-running dispute over the proper reconstruction.
Consonants
and may have actually been and , respectively.
Lexicon
The following are selected Proto-Uto-Aztecan reconstructions from Stubbs (2011).
[Stubbs, Brian D. 2011. ''Uto-Aztecan: A comparative vocabulary''. Flower Mound, Texas: Shumway Family History Services.]
;Abbreviations
*''NUA'' = Northern Uto-Aztecan
*''SUA'' = Southern Uto-Aztecan
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{Mesoamerican families
Uto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan