The Pueblo linguistic area (or Pueblo Sprachbund, Pueblo convergence area) is a Sprachbund

Sprachbund

A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...

 (group of languages with similarities due to language contact

Language contact

Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...

) consisting of the language spoken in and near North American Pueblo

Pueblo

Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...

 locations.

Language membership

The languages of the linguistic area are the following:

• Hopi language
  Hopi language
  Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, USA, although today some Hopi are monolingual English speakers.The use of the language has gradually declined over the course of the 20th century...
  
  
• Keresan family
  Keresan languages
  Keresan , also Keres , is a group of seven related languages spoken by Keres Pueblo peoples in New Mexico, U.S.A.. Each is mutually intelligible with its closest neighbors...
  
  
• Tanoan family
  Tanoan languages
  Tanoan is a family of languages spoken in New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.Most of the languages – Tiwa , Tewa, and Towa – are spoken in the Pueblos of New Mexico and were the ones first given the collective name Tanoan, while Kiowa is spoken mostly in southwestern...
  
  
• Navajo language
  Navajo language
  Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
  
  
• Zuni language
  Zuni language
  Zuni is a language of the Zuni people, indigenous to western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in the United States. It is spoken by around 9,500 people worldwide, especially in the vicinity of Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, and much smaller numbers in parts of Arizona.Unlike most indigenous languages in...
  
  

The languages belong to five different families: Hopi in Uto-Aztecan

Uto-Aztecan languages

Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family consisting of over 30 languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the Western United States , through western, central and southern Mexico Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family...

, Navajo in Athabaskan

Athabaskan languages

Athabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...

, Tanoan, Keresan, and Zuni, which is a language isolate

Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...

. Navajo is only a marginal member of the Sprachbund and does not share all its linguistic features, as the ancestors of the Navajo originated from Canada and Alaska and were relatively recent newcomers to the Southwest.

Tanoan consists of Taos

Taos language

The Taos dialect of the Northern Tiwa language is spoken in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.Lynn Nichols of University of California, Berkeley is involved in the development of an electronic corpus of Taos texts.-Demographics and ethnography:...

, Picurís

Picuris language

The endangered Picuris dialect of the Northern Tiwa language is spoken in Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico.-Genealogical relations:Picuris mutually intelligible with Taos dialect, spoken at Taos Pueblo...

, Tewa

Tewa language

Tewa is a Kiowa–Tanoan language spoken by Pueblo people, mostly in the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico north of Santa Fe. The 1980 census counted 1,298 speakers, almost all of whom are bilingual in English...

, and Jemez. Keresan consists of Eastern Keres and Western Keres.

Shared linguistic traits

The following are the shared linguistic traits of the Pueblo Sprachbund:

• ejective consonant
  Consonant
  In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
  
  s
• aspirated
  Aspiration (phonetics)
  In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
  
   consonants vowel
  Vowel
  In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
  
   systems
• final devoicing of vowels & sonorant
  Sonorant
  In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
  
  s
• dual number
  Dual (grammatical number)
  Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
  
  
• ceremonial vocabulary
• labialized velar stops
  Stop consonant
  In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
  
   /kʷ, kʷʼ/

Most languages have ejectives. Zuni may have developed ejectives due to contact with Tanoan and Keresan which both have complete series of ejectives: Zuni has /tsʼ, tʃʼ, kʼ, kʷʼ/ but lacks the ejectives /pʼ, tʼ/ found in the other languages. Taos and Picurís (both Tanoan) have /pʼ, tʼ, tʃʼ, kʼ, kʷʼ/; Tewa (Tanoan) has /pʼ, tʼ, tsʼ, kʼ, kʷʼ/; Jemez (Tanoan) has /pʼ, tʼ, kʼ/; Keresan has /pʼ, tʼ, tsʼ, tʂʼ, tʃʼ, kʼ, sʼ, ʂʼ, ʃʼ/ (as well as glottalized

Glottalic consonant

A glottalic consonant is a consonant produced with some important contribution of the glottis ....

 sonorant

Sonorant

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...

s /mʼ, nʼ, rʼ, wʼ, jʼ/). Navajo has /tʼ, tsʼ, tɬʼ, tʃʼ, kʼ, kʷʼ/. Hopi, however, lacks ejectives completely.

All languages have aspirated consonants. Again these may have spread to Zuni via contact with Tanoan and Keresan.

Zuni has a five vowel system consisting of i-e-a-o-u. Some Tanoan languages also have i-e-a-o-u systems probably due to influence from Zuni.