Hopi

Hopi, called Hopílavayi by its speakers, is a Uto-Aztecan language of the Hopi, a Pueblo people of northeastern Arizona. The Hopi descend from the Ancestral Pueblo peoples of the Four Corners region, and villages such as Oraibi, founded before 1100, rank among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America. Hopi is split into four mesa dialects and belongs to the Pueblo linguistic area.

Spaniards first reached the Hopi mesas with the Coronado expedition of the 1540s, and missions were later imposed from New Mexico; the Hopi joined the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, killed their friars and kept their independence thereafter, moving villages to the mesa tops for defence.