Oʼodham language

The retroflex consonants are apical postalveolar.

Most vowels distinguish two degrees of length: long and short, and some vowels also show extra-short duration (voicelessness).

• ṣe꞉l /ʂɨːɭ/ "Seri"
• ṣel /ʂɨɭ/ "permission"
• ʼa꞉pi /ʔaːpi/ "you"
• da꞉pĭ /daːpɪ̥/ "I don't know", "who knows?"

Papago /ɨ/ is pronounced [ʌ] in Pima.

Additionally, in common with many northern Uto-Aztecan languages, vowels and nasals at end of words are devoiced. Also, a short schwa sound, either voiced or unvoiced depending on position, is often interpolated between consonants and at the ends of words.

• Extra short ⟨ĭ⟩ is realized as voiceless [i̥] and devoices preceding obstruents: cuwĭ /tʃʊwi̥/ → [tʃʊʍi̥]~[tʃʊʍʲ] "jackrabbit".
• /w/ is a fricative [β] before unrounded vowels: wisilo [βisiɭɔ].
• [ŋ] appears before /k/ and /ɡ/ in Spanish loanwords, but native words do not have nasal assimilation: to꞉nk [toːnk] "hill", namk [namk] "meet", ca꞉ŋgo [tʃaːŋɡo] "monkey". /p/, /ɭ/, and /ɖ/ rarely occur initially in native words, and /ɖ/ does not occur before /i/.
• [ɲ] and [n] are largely in complementary distribution, [ɲ] appearing before high vowels /i/ /ɨ/ /ʊ/, [n] appearing before low vowels /a/ /ɔ/: ñeʼe "sing". They contrast finally (ʼañ (1st imperfective auxiliary) vs. an "next to speaker"), though Saxton analyzes these as /ani/ and /an/, respectively, and final [ɲi] as in ʼa꞉ñi as /niː/. However, there are several Spanish loanwords where [nu] occurs: nu꞉milo "number". Similarly, for the most part [t] and [d] appear before low vowels while [tʃ] and [dʒ] before high vowels, but there are exceptions to both, often in Spanish loanwords: tiki꞉la ("tequila") "wine", TO weco / AO veco ("[de]bajo") "under".

There is some disagreement among speakers as to whether the spelling of words should be only phonetic or whether etymological principles should be considered as well.

For instance, oamajda vs. wuamajda ("frybread"; the spellings oamacda and wuamacda are also seen) derives from oam (a warm color roughly equivalent to yellow or brown). Some believe it should be spelled phonetically as wuamajda, reflecting the fact that it begins with /ʊa/, while others think its spelling should reflect the fact that it is derived from oam (oam is itself a form of s-oam, so while it could be spelled wuam, it is not since it is just a different declension of the same word).

Oʼodham has relatively free word order within clauses; for example, all of the following sentences mean "the boy brands the pig":[7]

• ceoj ʼo g ko꞉jĭ ceposid
• ko꞉jĭ ʼo g ceoj ceposid
• ceoj ʼo ceposid g ko꞉jĭ
• ko꞉jĭ ʼo ceposid g ceoj
• ceposid ʼo g ceoj g ko꞉jĭ
• ceposid ʼo g ko꞉jĭ g ceoj

In principle, these could also mean "the pig brands the boy", but such an interpretation would require an unusual context.

Despite the general freedom of sentence word order, Oʼodham is fairly strictly verb-second in its placement of the auxiliary verb (in the above sentences, it is ʼo):

• cipkan ʼañ "I am working"
• but pi ʼañ cipkan "I am not working", not **pi cipkan ʼañ

Verbs are inflected for aspect (imperfective cipkan, perfective cipk), tense (future imperfective cipkanad), and number (plural cicpkan). Number agreement displays absolutive behavior: verbs agree with the number of the subject in intransitive sentences, but with that of the object in transitive sentences:

• ceoj ʼo cipkan "the boy is working"
• cecoj ʼo cicpkan "the boys are working"
• ceoj ʼo g ko꞉ji ceposid "the boy is branding the pig"
• cecoj ʼo g ko꞉ji ceposid "the boys are branding the pig"
• ceoj ʼo g kokji ha-cecposid "the boy is branding the pigs"

The main verb agrees with the object for person (ha- in the above example), but the auxiliary agrees with the subject: ʼa꞉ñi ʼañ g kokji ha-cecposid "I am branding the pigs".

Three numbers are distinguished in nouns: singular, plural, and distributive, though not all nouns have distinct forms for each. Most distinct plurals are formed by reduplication and often vowel loss plus other occasional morphophonemic changes, and distributives are formed from these by gemination of the reduplicated consonant:

• gogs "dog", gogogs "dogs", goggogs "dogs (all over)"
• ma꞉gina "car", mamgina "cars", mammagina "cars (all over)"
• mi꞉stol "cat", mimstol "cats"

Oʼodham adjectives can act both attributively modifying nouns and predicatively as verbs, with no change in form.

• ʼi꞉da ṣu꞉dagĭ ʼo s-he꞉pid "This water is cold"
• ʼs-he꞉pid ṣu꞉agĭ ʼañ hohoʼid "I like cold water"