= Pima, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 898, 1850 (cites three languages from
the Mithridates, viz, Pima proper, Opata, Eudeve). Turner in Pac. R.
R. Rep., III, pt. 3, 55, 1856 (Pima proper). Latham in Trans.
Philolog. Soc. Lond., 92, 1856 (contains Pima proper, Opata, Eudeve,
Papagos). Latham, Opuscula, 356, 1860. Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 427,
1862 (includes Pima proper, Opata, Eudeve, Papago, Ibequi, Hiaqui,
Tubar, Tarahumara, Cora). Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 156, 1877
(includes Pima, Névome, Pápago). Gatschet in Beach, Ind. Misc., 429,
1877 (defines area and gives habitat).
Latham used the term Pima in 1850, citing under it three dialects or
languages. Subsequently, in 1856, he used the same term for one of the
five divisions into which he separates the languages of Sonora and
Sinaloa.
The same year Turner gave a brief account of Pima as a distinct
language, his remarks applying mainly to Pima proper of the Gila River,
Arizona. This tribe had been visited by Emory and Johnston and also
described by Bartlett. Turner refers to a short vocabulary in the
Mithridates, another of Dr. Coulter’s in Royal Geological Society
Journal, vol. XI, 1841, and a third by Parry in Schoolcraft, Indian
Tribes, vol. III, 1853. The short vocabulary he himself published was
collected by Lieut. Whipple.
Only a small portion of the territory occupied by this family is
included within the United States, the greater portion being in Mexico
where it extends to the Gulf of California. The family is represented in
the United States by three tribes, Pima alta, Sobaipuri, and Papago. The
former have lived for at least two centuries with the Maricopa on the
Gila River about 160 miles from the mouth. The Sobaipuri occupied the
Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers, tributaries of the Gila, but are no
longer known. The Papago territory is much more extensive and extends to
the south across the border. In recent times the two tribes have been
separated, but the Pima territory as shown upon the map was formerly
continuous to the Gila River.
According to Buschmann, Gatschet, Brinton, and others the Pima language
is a northern branch of the Nahuatl, but this relationship has yet to be
demonstrated.[75]
[Footnote 75: Buschmann, Die Pima-Sprache und die Sprache der
Koloschen, pp. 321-432.]