Information from: “Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 18th Edition” . Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig · SIL International
Dormant
0
"No known L1 speakers. Last speakers previously reportedly died about 1930. Considered extinct but 1990 census lists 12 speakers (Adelaar 2007)."
Scripts (Writing system)
none
PLACES
Mexico;
LOCATION DESCRIPTION
"Sonora, Nacori, Bacanora, Suaqui, Sahuaripa, Arivechi, and Onavas. Tecoripa is the traditional area."
Information from: “Opata Language” .
15? or extinct?
Opata was believed to be dead already in 1930, and Carl Sofus Lumholtz reported the Opata to have become "Mexicanized" and lost their language and customs already when traveling through Sonora in the 1890s, but in a recent (1993) survey by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista 15 people in the Mexican Federal District self-identified as speakers of Ópata – this may not mean however that the language is actually living, since linguistic nomenclature in Mexico is notoriously fuzzy. And no studies documenting the language spoken by those 15 persons have been published. If the 15 were in fact speakers of Ópata then the language is severely endangered and if not it is probably already extinct. Sometimes Eudeve and Opata are considered distinct languages and sometimes merely dialects of one single language.
PLACES
Mexico
LOCATION DESCRIPTION
North central Sonora.
Information from: “World Oral Literature Project” .
Severely endangered
20 percent certain, based on the evidence available
15
Information from: “The World Atlas of Language Structures” . Bernard Comrie and David Gil and Martin Haspelmath and Matthew S. Dryer · Oxford University Press