Proto-Uto-Aztecan is thehypothetical common ancestor of theUto-Aztecan languages. Authorities on the history of the language group have usually placed the Proto-Uto-Aztecanhomeland 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 theSonoran Desert and the western part of theChihuahuan Desert. It would have been spoken byMesolithic foragers inAridoamerica, about 5,000 years ago.
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 theMojave desert and southern dialects extending south through the Tepiman corridor into Mexico.[1] The homeland of theNumic languages has been placed in Southern California nearDeath Valley, and the homeland of the proposed Southern Uto-Aztecan group has been placed on the coast ofSonora.[2]
A contrary proposal suggests the homeland of Proto-Uto-Aztecan to have been much farther to the south; it was published in 2001 byJane H. Hill, based on her reconstruction of maize-related vocabulary in Proto-Uto-Aztecan. By her theory, the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan weremaize cultivators inMesoamerica, 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.[3][4] The hypothesis has been criticized on several grounds, and it is not generally accepted by Uto-Aztecanists.[5][6][7][8][9] Usingcomputational phylogenetic methods, Wheeler & Whiteley (2014)[10] 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-Aztecanphylogram. 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.[11]
A more recent proposal from 2014, by David L. Shaul, presents evidence suggesting contact between Proto-Uto-Aztecan and languages of central California, such asEsselen and theYokutsan languages. That leads Shaul to suggest that Proto-Uto-Aztecan was spoken inCalifornia's Central Valley area, and it formed part of an ancient Californianlinguistic area.[12]
Proto-Uto-Aztecan is reconstructed as having an unusual vowel inventory:*i*a*u*o*ɨ. Langacker (1970) demonstrated that the fifth vowel should be reconstructed as*ɨ as opposed to*e, and there has been a long-running dispute over the proper reconstruction.[13][14][15]
Caballero, G. (2011). "Behind the Mexican Mountains: Recent Developments and New Directions in Research on Uto-Aztecan Languages".Language and Linguistics Compass.5 (7):485–504.doi:10.1111/j.1749-818x.2011.00287.x.
Campbell, Lyle (1997).American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford University Press.
Campbell, Lyle (2003). "What drives linguistic diversification and language spread?". In Bellwood, Peter; Renfrew, Colin (eds.).Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis. Cambridge(U.K.): McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. pp. 49–63.
Campbell, Lyle; Poser, William J. (2008).Language classification, history and method. Cambridge University Press.
Cortina-Borja, M; Valiñas-Coalla, L (1989). "Some remarks on Uto-Aztecan Classification".International Journal of American Linguistics.55 (2):214–239.doi:10.1086/466114.S2CID145309871.
Cortina-Borja, M.; Stuart-Smith, J.; Valiñas-Coalla, L. (2002). "Multivariate classification methods for lexical and phonological dissimilarities and their application to the Uto-Aztecan family".Journal of Quantitative Linguistics.9 (2):97–124.doi:10.1076/jqul.9.2.97.8485.S2CID205390627.
Fowler, Catherine S. (1983). "Some lexical clues to Uto-Aztecan prehistory".International Journal of American Linguistics.49 (3):224–257.doi:10.1086/465789.S2CID143511895.
Goddard, Ives (1996). "Introduction". In Goddard, Ives (ed.).Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 17. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 1–16.
Haugen, J. D. (2008).Morphology at the interfaces: reduplication and noun incorporation in Uto-Aztecan. Vol. 117. John Benjamins Publishing.
Heath, J. (1978). "Uto-Aztecan* na-class verbs".International Journal of American Linguistics.44 (3):211–222.doi:10.1086/465546.S2CID16989534.
Hill, J. H. (2011). "Subgrouping in Uto-Aztecan. Language Dynamics and Change".Language Dynamics and Change.1 (2):241–278.doi:10.1163/221058212x643978.
Iannucci, David (1972).Numic historical phonology. Cornell University PhD dissertation.
Kaufman, Terrence (2001).Nawa linguistic prehistory. Mesoamerican Language Documentation Project. Archived fromthe original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved2020-05-05.
Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1934).Uto-Aztecan Languages of Mexico. Vol. 8. University of California Press.
Langacker, Ronald W. (1970). "The Vowels of Proto Uto-Aztecan".International Journal of American Linguistics.36 (3):169–180.doi:10.1086/465108.S2CID144762214.
Langacker, R. W. (1977).An overview of Uto-Aztecan grammar. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Langacker, R. W. (1976).Non-distinct arguments in Uto-Aztecan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Merrill, W (2013). "The genetic unity of southern Uto-Aztecan".Language Dynamics and Change.3:68–104.doi:10.1163/22105832-13030102.
Merrill, William L. (2012). "The Historical Linguistics of Uto-Aztecan Agriculture".Anthropological Linguistics.54 (3):203–260.doi:10.1353/anl.2012.0017.S2CID144089923.
Miller, Wick R. (1986). "Numic Languages". In Warren L. d’Azevedo (ed.).Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11, Great Basin. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 98–106.
Miller, Wick R. (1983). "A note on extinct languages of northwest Mexico of supposed Uto-Aztecan affiliation".International Journal of American Linguistics.49 (3):328–333.doi:10.1086/465793.S2CID144510097.
Miller, Wick R. (1983). "Uto-Aztecan languages". In Ortiz, Alfonso (ed.).Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 10. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 113–124.
Miller, Wick R. (1984). "The classification of the Uto-Aztecan languages based on lexical evidence".International Journal of American Linguistics.50 (1):1–24.doi:10.1086/465813.S2CID144398421.
Mithun, Marianne (1999).The languages of Native America. Cambridge University Press.
Sapir, E. (1913). "Southern Paiute and Nahuatl, a study in Uto-Aztekan".Journal de la Société des Américanistes.10 (2):379–425.doi:10.3406/jsa.1913.2866.
Shaul, David L. (2014).A Prehistory of Western North America: The Impact of Uto-Aztecan Languages. University of New Mexico Press.
Steele, Susan (1979). "Uto-Aztecan: An assessment for historical and comparative linguistics". In Campbell, Lyle; Mithun, Marianne (eds.).The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 444–544.
Voegelin, C. F.; Voegelin, F.; Hale, K. (1962).Typological and Comparative Grammar of Uto-Aztecan: Phonology. Memoirs of the International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol. 17. Waverly Press.
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