Pima Bajo language


Pima Bajo is a Mexican indigenous language of the Piman branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, spoken by around 1,000 speakers in northern Mexico. The language is called Oʼob Noʼok by its speakers. The closest related languages are Oʼodham and the O'othams.
There are three major communities in the Oʼob Noʼok region, but many of the people live in small outlying hamlets and on isolated family ranches rather than the larger towns.

Phonology

Vowels

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Consonants

  • Sounds /t, s, n, l/ when preceding /i/ are heard as .
  • /d/ can be heard as either sounds or when in between two /i/ vowels.

Morphology

Zarina Estrada-Fernández studied the language, publishing an overview of its grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. She identified consistent dialectal differences between communities in the region, especially between villages in Sonora and those in Chihuahua. Pima Bajo is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix-complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.

Dialects