The Hopi's Uto-Aztecan Language

The Hopi are a Native American group that speaks an Uto-Aztecan language. For years, this language has sparked several controversies and debates in the world of social scientists because Hopis do not talk about time as other groups of people do—there is no specific word for “time” in their language. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was centered around this topic causing decades of controversy and myth surrounding the Hopi language. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the belief that “the language one speaks determines how one perceives the world, and…that the distinctions encoded in each language are all different from one another” (Salzmann, 2014). Despite this, social scientists have proved that Hopis do refer to time; they just use context to do so.

For example, there are no time-space metaphors such as terms for a long or a short period of time, before or after two days, or any length of time (Gibber). “Hopi employs different words to refer to ‘a duration of time’ (pàasa' ‘for that long’), to a point in time (pàasat ‘at that time’), and time as measured by a clock (pahàntawa), as an occasion to do something (hisat or qeni), a turn or the appropriate time for doing something (qeniptsi (noun)), and to have time for something (aw nánaptsiwta (verb))” (“Hopi Time Controversy”, 2017). Additionally, Hopi verbs have no real tense but are distinguished by aspect, which is the length of time an event lasts; validity, which is whether an action is completed or ongoing, expected, or regular; and clause-linkage, which is the temporal relationship of two or more verbs (The Editors of Encyclopædia

For example, the suffix “–ni” can be placed on the end of verbs to mark time (“Hopi Time Controversy”, 2017). A second way this suffix is used is in the word “naatoniqa”, or “that which will happen yet” which is a reference to the future (“Hopi Time Controversy”, 2017). The “-ni” suffix is also mandatory to have on the main verb in conditional clauses (“Hopi Time Controversy”, 2017). It can also be used to refer to the past as well as describe unachieved intent or counterfactual meaning when combined with a particle (“Hopi Time Controversy”, 2017). Another example would be the suffix “-ngwu”. This suffix describes actions that are habitual (“Hopi Time Controversy”, 2017). This difference in time expression led to a popular debate known as the Hopi time controversy that was made popular by Benjamin Lee