Ópata (also
Teguima,
Eudeve,
Heve,
Dohema) is either of two closely related
Uto-Aztecan languages,
Teguima and
Eudeve, spoken by the
Opata people of northern central
Sonora in
Mexico. It was believed to be dead already in 1930, and
Carl Sofus Lumholtz reported the Opata to have become "Mexicanized" and lost their language and customs already when traveling through Sonora in the 1890s. In a 1993 survey by the
Instituto Nacional Indigenista fifteen people in the
Mexican Federal District self identified as speakers of Ópata. This may not mean however that the language was actually living, since linguistic nomenclature in Mexico is notoriously fuzzy. Sometimes Eudeve is called Opata, a term which should be restricted to Teguima. Eudeve (which is split into the
Heve (
Egue) and
Dohema dialects) and
Teguima (Also called
Ópata,
Ore) are distinct languages, but sometimes have been considered merely dialects of one single language. The
INALI (Mexican National Institute for Indigenous Languages) does not count Opata among the currently extant indigenous languages of Mexico.