The Hopi people speak the Hopi language. It is called Hopílavayi
by them. About 75% of the population speak it, about. Only a few
older people (about 40) only speak Hopi and no English. There are
four dialects. They traditionally spoke with the Zuni in Hopi not
Zuni. There have been Tewa speakers living on Hopi lands since the
1680s but few Hopis speak Tewa. The Tewa often acted as translators
with the Navajo, Tewa Pueblo people, Spanish and English.
Hopi is in the Northern Uto-Aztecan. This is a group of about 16
languages including Paiute, Ute, Shoshone and Comanche but Hopi is
considered distant form these languages almost isolated on it's
own. It has 6 vowels and 20-32 consonants depending on the dialect.
One dialect has tones. It is a subject-object-verb language but
subject and predicate sentences are common. It uses a lot of
suffixes. It has cases. There are singular, dual and plural as inn
ancient Greek.
Here is a Hopi sentence: Tömö' taawa tatkyaqw yámangwu
Which means: "In the winter the sun rises in the southeast"
"Nu' kwaahut tuwa" means: "I saw an eagle"
"Pam 'as kiihut peenani" means: "He was going to paint the house
(but didn't)"
