The United States is famous for being a multiethnic society with people from all over the world, speaking all sorts of languages. That isn’t necessarily something new—even before the arrival of Europeans, the land that would become the US was remarkably linguistically diverse, with a plethora of ethnolinguistic groups calling it home. One such group was the Hopi people, a Puebloan group of people, who spoke their native Hopi language.
Hopi isn’t just a historical language—many Hopi people still speak the language, with the 2010 U.S. census suggesting as many as 6,700 speakers. With around 7,350 people registered as ethnically Hopi, this means a large portion of the Hopi population still speaks Hopi. However, many of the speakers are elderly, with the number dwindling in younger generations. Only 5% of Hopi children speak the language, which has given rise to revitalization efforts and immersion schools to breathe new life into this important language. Here at TranslationServices.com, we’re passionate about endangered languages like Hopi, which has prompted us to create our own professional Hopi translation team.
If you’re looking for Hopi translation services, why not request a free quote from us today?
Want to know more about Hopi?
Hopi speakers are concentrated in northeastern Arizona, in roughly the same area as speakers of Navajo, the biggest indigenous language in the US. Despite this, the two come from entirely different language families, with Navajo’s Na–Dené heritage a far cry from Hopi’s Uto–Aztecan roots. This makes Hopi related to many indigenous languages of Mexico, such as Nahuatl, whereas most of Navajo’s cousins are in northwestern Canada and Alaska. Hopi is written in the Latin alphabet, but in the past, it was briefly written in a dedicated alphabet called the Deseret alphabet.
Hopi is a subject-object-verb language (the most common word order of the world’s languages). Nouns can take the nominative (subject) and oblique (object) cases, with different oblique markers for singular and non-singular nouns. Hopi verbs do not make person but do mark number—singular, dual, and plural—but since the language lacks dual pronouns, a Hopi speaker can use a plural pronoun with a singular verb to indicate duality. Some words in Hopi come in multiple, seemingly unrelated forms, with men using one and women the other—an example is “good,” which is lolma for men and nukwangw for women.
We can translate to and from Hopi for any content you like.
The complicated nature of Hopi grammar and structure may seem intimidating, but don’t worry—our Hopi translators are experts of their craft, using their skills as native Hopi speakers to translate seamlessly to and from the language. Our Hopi translators are eager to help you with whatever Hopi translation needs you might have, such as translating traditional Hopi folk tales into English to induce broader cultural appreciation. We can even translate historical Hopi documents written in the Deseret alphabet! If you want to translate into Hopi, we’d love to help you translate surveys to disseminate to the community, educational materials to aid Hopi children’s immersion in their native language, or interesting books, poems, apps, websites, games, and more to give Hopi speakers more ways to enjoy their language—and learners more avenues to study it!
We’re eager to help with your Hopi translation project. All you have to do is reach out to get started!