The United States is a highly multilingual nation. As one of the top destinations for immigrants from around the world, the country boasts a large number of immigrant communities that use their native languages, and in parts of the southwestern US, huge chunks of the population speak Spanish. But in fact, the US, or at least the land that comprises it, has always been highly multilingual, with hundreds of the territory’s original indigenous still spoken to this day. One of them is Tiwa.
Tiwa is a small group of closely related languages rather than a single language, primarily divided into Northern Tiwa and Southern Tiwa. Northern Tiwa is further split into the Taos variety and the Picuris variety. Roughly 1,600 people speak Southern Tiwa as their first language, and another 1,025 speak Northern Tiwa, with 800 of them speaking Taos and the remaining 225 speaking Picuris. Though the Tiwa people have maintained a strong grip on their language over the centuries, the pressures of Spanish and English continue to pose a threat. At TranslationServices.com, we want to help support Tiwa in our own way: by providing Tiwa translation services.
If you’re interested in a free quote for our Tiwa translation services, why not request one today?
Learning what the Tiwa language is like
Tiwa, which is also known by its Spanish name, Tigua, as well as E-nagh-magh, is spoken by some of the Pueblo peoples of the southwest United States, specifically New Mexico and Texas. Southern Tiwa is native to Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and Ysleta del Sur in Texas, while Taos is spoken in Taos Pueblo and Picuris in Picuris Pueblo, both found northern New Mexico. Together, they form the Tiwa languages on the Tanoan branch of the Kiowa–Tanoan language family.
The indigenous languages of the US tend to be grammatically complex, and Tiwa is no exception. Additionally, the Northern and Southern variants of the language group sometimes exhibit significant differences. For example, Northern Tiwa includes evidentiality, which means it has a grammatical marker that indicates that the speaker does not know the information they are conveying firsthand, instead inferring it or reporting it from hearsay, whereas Southern Tiwa has no evidentials. This means it’s key to work with a native-speaking translator of the Tiwa variant you’re interested in—and we can help you with that.
Covering all domains of Tiwa translation services
We aim to be the most flexible Tiwa translation team you’ll find. Most translation agencies don’t translate Tiwa at all, but we do our best to offer reliable translation services for both Northern and Southern Tiwa. Of course, we’re limited by the small number of speakers, but we work within our limitations to provide the best translation services we can. Our translators are passionate about their language and are capable of translating both to and from Tiwa, so whichever direction you’re interested in, we can help.
Our team is here to provide translation services to and from Tiwa for a wide variety of project types, so no matter what you need, feel free to reach out to us. For example, we can translate educational materials into Tiwa to help native-speaking children pick up the language, since many ethnically Tiwa children don’t actually speak Tiwa. We can also help organizations that want to cater to the Tiwa people translate their documents into Tiwa. When it comes to creative works, such as stories, poems, or books, or digital content, such as websites, apps, or games, we’d be happy to help with your literary translation or localization efforts as well, whether it encompasses translating into Tiwa or from it.
We’re eager to help you with your Tiwa translation project—so why not reach out and place an order today?