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Otomi (; Spanish: ''Otomí'' ) is a group of closely related indigenous languages of Mexico, spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central ''altiplano'' region of Mexico. It belongs to the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean language family. It is a dialect continuum of closely related languages, because many of the varieties are not mutually intelligible. The word ''Hñähñu'' has been proposed as an endonym, but since it represents the usage of a single dialect it has not gained wide currency. Linguists have classified the modern dialects into three dialect areas: the Northwestern dialects spoken in Querétaro, Hidalgo and Guanajuato; the Southwestern dialects spoken in the State of Mexico; and the Eastern dialects spoken in the highlands of Veracruz, Puebla, and eastern Hidalgo and in villages in Tlaxcala and Mexico states. Like all other Oto-Manguean languages, Otomi is a tonal language and most varieties distinguish three tones. Nouns are marked only for possessor; plural number is marked with a definite article and by a verbal suffix, and some dialects maintain dual number marking. There is no case marking. Verb morphology can be described as either fusional or agglutinating depending on the analysis.〔: "Desde un punto de vista de la tipología morfológica clásica greenbergiana el otomí es una lengua fusional que se convertiría, por otro lado en aglutinante si todos los clíticos se reanalizaran como afijos (From the point of view of the classic Greenbergian morphological typologogy, Otomí is a fusional language which would however turn into an agglutinating one if all the clitics were reanalyzed as affixes)"〕 In verb inflection, infixation, consonant mutation, and apocope are prominent processes, and the number of irregular verbs is large. The grammatical subject in a sentence is cross-referenced by a class of morphemes that can be analysed as either proclitics or prefixes and which also mark for tense, aspect and mood. Verbs are inflected for either direct object or dative object (but not for both simultaneously) by suffixes. Grammar also distinguishes between inclusive 'we' and exclusive 'we'. After the Spanish conquest Otomi became a written language when friars taught the Otomi to write the language using the Latin script; the written language of the colonial period is often called Classical Otomi. Several codices and grammars were composed in Classical Otomi. A negative stereotype of the Otomi promoted by the Nahuas and perpetuated by the Spanish resulted in a loss of status for the Otomi, who began to abandon their language in favor of Spanish. The attitude of the larger world toward the Otomi language began to change in 2003 when Otomi was granted recognition as a national language under Mexican law together with 61 other indigenous languages. ==Language name== The name Otomi comes from the Nahuatl ''otomitl'', which is possibly derived from an older word ''totomitl'' "shooter of birds". It is not an Otomi endonym; the Otomi refer to their language as ''Hñähñú, Hñähño, Hñotho, Hñähü, Hñätho, Hyųhų, Yųhmų, Ñųhų, (unicode:Ñǫthǫ)'' or ''Ñañhų'' depending on which dialect of Otomi they speak.〔〔See the individual articles for which dialect uses which terms.〕 Most of the variant forms are composed of two morphemes meaning "speak" and "well", respectively. The word ''Otomi'' entered the Spanish language through Nahuatl and is used to describe the larger Otomi macroethnic group and the dialect continuum. From Spanish the word ''Otomi'' has become entrenched in the linguistic and anthropological literature. Among linguists, the suggestion has been made to change the academic designation from ''Otomi'' to ''Hñähñú'', the endonym used by the Otomi of the Mezquital Valley; however, no common endonym exists for all dialects of the language.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Otomi language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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