Language Information

Papago, pronounced POP-a-go, is spoken by about 8,000 people in southern Arizona and about 1,000 more in the province of Sonora in northern Mexico. It is closely related to Pima, with about 5,000 additional speakers in southern Arizona—in fact the two are really dialects of the same language. They are sometimes referred to collec-tively as O'odham, the Papago and Pima word for "peop1e." Papago belongs to the Uto-Aztecan family of languages.

Family: North American Indian
Subgroup: Uto-Aztecan

Writing Sample

Translation

It is said that somewhere there lived some quail. The time came to go for their food. They all got ready, and went to the place where it was abundant, and arrived there and were taking it. Then the hawk came, striking down those quail. He would swoop down from above and raise himself and strike down a number of them in this manner. But one little quail completely hid himself under the brush. He was the only one that was leff. The hawk destroyed all the rest of the quail. And be [the quail] rushed out and ran back. And he was running to his home saying: "We just went to try to get something to eat. The enemy came. Destroyed us all! Destroyed us all!"