Cora (langue)

Cora is an indigenous language of Mexico of the Uto-Aztecan language family, spoken by approximately 30,000 people. It is spoken by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Cora, but who refer to themselves as Naáyarite. The Cora inhabit the northern sierra of the Mexican state Nayarit which is named after its indigenous inhabitants. A significant portion of Cora speakers have formed an expatriate community along the southwestern part of Colorado in the United States. Cora is a Mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Under the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, it is recognized as a "national language", along with 62 other indigenous languages and Spanish which have the same "validity" in Mexico. Ethnologue distinguishes two main variants of Cora. One is called Cora del Nayar or Cora Meseño and is spoken mainly in and around the medium-altitude settlements of Mesa de Nayar and Conel Gonzales in the south of the el Nayar municipality of Nayarit, and has approximately 9,000 speakers (1993 census). There are significant differences between some of these varieties and some sources distinguish between Cora Mariteco (of Jesus Maria), Cora Presideño (of Presidio de los Reyes), Cora Corapeño (of San Juan Corapan) and Cora Franciscqueño (of San Francisco). But Ethnologue considers the mutual intelligibility between these and Meseño to be high enough to classify them as a single language. The other variant recognized by the Ethnologue is called Cora de Santa Teresa or Cora Tereseño and is spoken by approximately 7,000 people (1993 census), for the most part in the high sierra in the north of el Nayar. Cora de Santa Teresa has such a low degree of mutual intelligibility with other Cora speech communities that Ethnologue considers it a separate variety. Due to recent migrations a small community of Coras exists in the United States in western Colorado. Cora speakers themselves recognize only five dialects: Cora de Jesús María, Cora de Mesa de Nayar, Cora de Sta.