Tiwa is a group of two, possibly three, related Tanoan languages

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...

 spoken by the Tiwa

Tiwa people

The Tiwa are group of related Tanoan pueblo peoples in New Mexico and Texas. They traditionally spoke a Tiwa language , and are divided into the two Northern Tiwa groups, in Taos and Picuris, and the Southern Tiwa in Isleta and Sandia, around what is now Albuquerque, and near El Paso.-Name:Tiwa is...

 Pueblo, and possibly Piro Pueblo

Piro Pueblo

Piro Pueblo : The Piros were a Native American Pueblo people that lived in a number of pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley around modern Socorro, New Mexico, USA. The now extinct Piro language was in the family of Tiwa languages...

, groups in the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 state of New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

.

Subfamily members and relations

Southern Tiwa is spoken in Isleta Pueblo

Isleta Pueblo

Isleta Pueblo is an unincorporated Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established around the 14th century.-Overview:...

, Sandia Pueblo

Sandia Pueblo

Sandia Pueblo is a tribe of Native American Pueblo people inhabiting a 101.114 km² reservation of the same name in the eastern Rio Grande Valley of central New Mexico, located three miles south of Bernalillo off Highway 85 in southern Sandoval County and northern Bernalillo County, at...

, and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.

The remaining two languages form a subgrouping known as Northern Tiwa. Northern Tiwa 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:...

 spoken in Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos speaking Native American tribe of Pueblo people. It is approximately 1000 years old and lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico, USA...

 and Picuris

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...

 spoken in Picuris Pueblo

Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico

Picuris Pueblo is a census-designated place in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 86 at the 2000 census. The Pueblo people are from the Tiwa ethnic group of Native Americans. Picurís Pueblo is a member of the Eight Northern Pueblos.Picuris village has occupied its present...

.

Piro

An extinct language

Extinct language

An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...

, Piro (Piro Pueblo

Piro Pueblo

Piro Pueblo : The Piros were a Native American Pueblo people that lived in a number of pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley around modern Socorro, New Mexico, USA. The now extinct Piro language was in the family of Tiwa languages...

), was formerly spoken in the more than twenty pueblos near Socorro, New Mexico

Socorro, New Mexico

Socorro is a city in Socorro County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It stands in the Rio Grande Valley at an elevation of . The population was 9,051 at the 2010 census...

. It is poorly attested. This language has sometimes been connected to the Tiwa branch. However, most others have placed it on a separate branch within Tanoan. William Leap has even contested that Piro is related to the other Tanoan languages.

History

After the Pueblo Revolt

Pueblo Revolt

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, or Popé's Rebellion, was an uprising of several pueblos of the Pueblo people against Spanish colonization of the Americas in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.-Background:...

 against the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 Conquistador

Conquistador

Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

s in 1680, some of the Tigua and Piro fled south with the Spanish to El Paso del Norte (present-day Ciudad Juárez

Ciudad Juárez

Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

). There they founded Ysleta, Texas

Ysleta, Texas

Ysleta is a community in El Paso, Texas. Ysleta was settled between October 9 and October 12, 1680, when Spanish conquistadors, Franciscan clerics and Tigua Indians took refuge along the southern bank of the Rio Grande. This is the oldest European settlement in the area that is the present-day U.S....

, Socorro, Texas

Socorro, Texas

Socorro is a city in El Paso County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 27,152. By the 2010 census, the number had grown to 32,013. It is part of the El Paso Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city was reactivated in 1986 and has been a working city since then...

 and Senecú del Sur

Senecu, Mexico

Senecu is a small Mexican village, now on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. It is at an altitude of 1123 m. and lies within the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem....

where their descendants live to this day.