Editing Tewa language (section)

== Dialects and usage ==
The 1980 census counted 1,298 speakers, almost all of whom are bilingual in English. 

Today, the [[Endangered Languages Project]] estimates a total of 1,500 speakers worldwide, with 1,200 of them in the New Mexico pueblos and 300 in the Arizona village of Hano. Of these speakers, few are fluent with the vast majority being semi-speakers, and only in a few places, like Hano, are children acquiring Tewa. The largest New Mexico pueblo, San Juan, there are only 30 fluent speakers left as of 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Endangered languages project|access-date=2022-04-11|url=https://endangeredlanguages.com/lang/5881}}</ref>
* [[Santa Clara Pueblo]]: 207 speakers (1980){{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

As of 2012, Tewa is defined as "severely endangered" in New Mexico by UNESCO.<ref>{{Cite web|title=UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger|access-date=2012-09-29|url=http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/index.php}}</ref>

In the names "Pojoaque" and "Tesuque", the element spelled "que" (pronounced something like {{IPA|[ɡe]}} in Tewa, or {{IPA|/ki/}} in English) is Tewa for "place".

Tewa can be written with the [[Latin script]]; this is occasionally used for such purposes as signs ({{lang|tew|Be-pu-wa-ve}} {{gloss|Welcome}}, or {{lang|tew|sen-ge-de-ho}} {{gloss|Bye}}). Because alphabet systems have been developed in the different pueblos, Tewa has a variety of orthographies rather than a single standardized alphabet.<ref name=ashworth2012>{{Cite journal
| last = Ashworth
| first = Evan
| title = On Nanbé Tewa Language Ideologies
| access-date = 2012-09-27
| url = http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/research/Ashworth_vol18.pdf
| archive-date = 2013-04-12
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130412222008/http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/research/Ashworth_vol18.pdf
| url-status = dead
| journal = Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics
| volume = 18
| year = 2006
}}</ref>

One of the main dialectical delineations of the Santa Clara dialect is the use of /j/ in words where only /y/ is heard in other pueblos, although some Santa Clara speakers use /y/ and /j/ sporadically.<ref name="auto">{{cite thesis |first=Randall Hannaford |last=Speirs |title=Some Aspects of the Structure of Rio Grande Tewa |year=1966 |publisher=State University of New York at Buffalo |type=PhD dissertation}}</ref>

Another important dialectical difference aligns Santa Clara, Tesuque, and San Ildefonso Tewa against San Juan and Nambe Tewa. The former use /d/ in the same environments where the latter use a nasal plus /d/.<ref name="auto"/>

In two-syllable word bases, words that have a short /u/ in the initial syllable have a long /u/ in the Santa Clara dialect. In the Santa Clara dialect, where other pueblos have a high tone on this syllable, there will instead be a glide tone.<ref name="auto"/>