Mayo is an

Uto-Aztecan Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...

language. It is spoken by about 40,000 people, the Mexican Mayo or ''Yoreme'' Indians, who live in the South of the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a separate ent ...

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the ...

and in the North of the neighboring state of

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities and ...

. Under the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples"Law of Linguistic Rights, it is recognized as a "national language" along with 62 other indigenous languages and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

which all have the same validity in Mexico. The language is considered 'critically endangered' by UNESCO. The Mayo language is partially intelligible with the

Yaqui language Yaqui (or Hiaki), locally known as Yoeme or Yoem Noki, is a Native American language of the Uto-Aztecan family. It is spoken by about 20,000 Yaqui people, in the Mexican state of Sonora and across the border in Arizona in the United States. ...

, and the division between the two languages is more political, from the historic division between the Yaqui and the Mayo peoples, than linguistic. Programming in both Mayo and Yaqui is carried by the CDI's radio station XEETCH, broadcasting from Etchojoa, Sonora.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Morphology

Mayo is an

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...

language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone ar ...

s strung together.

External links

Nominal and Adjectival Predication in Yoreme/Mayo of Sonora and Sinaloa

References

Sources

*Collard, Howard and Collard, Elisabeth Scott. 1962. Vocabulario Mayo, Vocabularios Indigenas Marianno Silva y Aceves. Num. 6. *Aguilar Zeleny, Alejandro S. 1995. "Los mayos," In Etnografía contemporánea de los pueblos indígenas de México. México: Región Noroeste Instituto Nacional Indigenista. *Acosta, Roberto. 1983. Apuntes históricos sonorenses: la conquista temporal y espiritual del Yaqui y del Mayo Imprenta Aldina. Mèxico (1a. ediciòn). México: Gobierno del Estado de Sonora. * Hagberg, Larry. 1989. "Stress and Length in Mayo." In Shipley, William, (ed.). In Honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival Conference on Native Essays in Honor to Mary Hass. Halle: Mouton. *Lionnet, Andres S.J. 1977. Los elementos de la lengua cahita (yaqui-mayo) México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. *Spicer, Edward Holland. 1969. "The Yaqui and the Mayo." In Wauchope, R., editor. Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol 8. Austin: University of Texas Press. *Hagberg, Larry and Zamarrón, José Luis Moctezuma. 2001. "Investigaciones sobre la lengua mayo." In Zamarrón, José Luis Moctezuma and Hill, Jane H. (eds), Avances y balances de lenguas yutoaztecas; homenaje a Wick R. Miller p. 195–206. Serie Lingüística. Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Historia. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mayo Language Agglutinative languages Mayo people Southern Uto-Aztecan languages Indigenous languages of Mexico Indigenous languages of the North American Southwest Subject–object–verb languages