Uto-Aztecan

[ yoo-toh-az-tek-uhn ]

noun

1. an American Indian language family, widespread from Idaho to Central America and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean: this family includes Hopi, Ute, Shoshone, Comanche, Nahuatl, Tohono O'odham, Pima, and other languages.

adjective

1. of or relating to Uto-Aztecan.

Uto-Aztecan

/ ˈjuːtəʊˈæztɛkən /

noun

1. a family of North and Central American Indian languages including Nahuatl, Shoshone, Pima, and Ute

adjective

1. of or relating to this family of languages or the peoples speaking them

Word History and Origins

Origin of Uto-Aztecan¹

First recorded in 1890–95; Ut(e) + -o- + Aztecan ( def )

Example Sentences

Today, Mexico’s most commonly spoken languages are Spanish and Nahuatl, an Uto-Aztecan language.

From Los Angeles Times

Today, Mexico’s official languages are Spanish and Nahuatl — an Uto-Aztecan language.

From Los Angeles Times

Funding will support the creation of a digital, open-access database of the endangered Uto-Aztecan language Wixárika, from west-central Mexico, at the New York Botanical Garden; the expansion of the Freedom of Information Archive, a digital resource of 4.6 million declassified documents, at Columbia University; and the production of a 15-episode “Radio Diaries” documentary podcast series, which uses archival audio recordings to tell forgotten stories of 20th century America, like that of the last surviving Watergate burglar.

From New York Times

Distressed trans-desert pedestrians are invited—in English, Spanish and O’odham, a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico—to press a red button on the 30-foot-tall communication towers to initiate rescue.

From Time

These legacies may include the Uto-Aztecan languages of Mesoamerica and the western United States, the Oto-Manguean languages of Mesoamerica, the Natchez-Muskogean languages of the U.S.

From Literature