Two Examples of Linguistic Acculturation: The Yaqui of Sonora and Arizona and the Tewa of New Mexico

Abstract

This paper' deals with an aspect of acculturation which has only recently received some attention in the literature.2 For the most part linguists have been concerned with historical and descriptive studies, and have generally ignored studies of languages in contact. Cultural anthropologists, on the other hand, have been content to investigate acculturation in its purely nonlinguistic manifestations. Studies of linguistic acculturation, however, can furnish valuable data and may shed considerable light on the general problem of acculturation. Whether language and nonlinguistic aspects of culture change differentially, or whether in every instance language complements and reflects nonlinguistic acculturation, is a crucial problem. In the present illustrations, linguistic acculturation seems to substantiate what has taken place in other aspects of the cultures of the groups under consideration, but this may not be the case everywhere. In line with a broader study of Spanish-Indian acculturation in the Southwest, this study attempts to elucidate the hypothesis that the contact situation, whether forced or permissive, tends to produce a situation which is correspondingly resistive or accepting of introduced cultural elements.' Two groups are examined to support the contention of this hypothesis: the Yaqui Indians of Sonora and Arizona, and the Tewa Indians of New Mexico. Historical materials and the research of anthropologists indicate that early Spaniards among the Yaqui used little coercion in the introduction of European and Catholic cultural patterns.4 According to ethnological accounts of the Yaqui, these Indians represent a group where Spanish and Indian cultural