Nuuchi-Nuwuwi

Nuuchi-Nuwuwi is the Southern Numic group of the Uto-Aztecan family, carrying the related speech of the Ute, Southern Paiute, Chemehuevi and Kawaiisu across the Great Basin and the Colorado River country.

Its main body is the Colorado River Numic dialect chain: Ute, whose speakers call their tongue núuchi, meaning 'of the people'; Southern Paiute; and Chemehuevi, who call themselves Nüwüvi, 'the people'. Kawaiisu is a separate close relative.

Like the other Numic languages it descends from Proto-Numic, whose homeland linguists place in the southern Sierra Nevada about two thousand years ago; a slow Numic expansion then carried these dialects eastward through the deserts, giving them their historic range by around 1000. Its speakers lived by hunting and gathering in small mobile bands, moving between mountains, river valleys and arid basins.