Yaqui language in the context of Franconian tone accent

A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (linguistic tone) rather than by volume or length, as in some other languages like English. Pitch-accent languages also contrast with fully tonal languages like Vietnamese, Thai and Standard Chinese, in which practically every syllable can have an independent tone. Some scholars have claimed that the term "pitch accent" is not coherently defined and that pitch-accent languages are a sub-category of tonal languages in general.

Languages that have been described as pitch-accent languages include: most dialects of Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Baltic languages, Ancient Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, Tlingit, Turkish, Japanese, Limburgish, Norwegian, Swedish of Sweden, Western Basque, Yaqui, certain dialects of Korean, Shanghainese, and Livonian.

The Yaqui River (Río Yaqui in Spanish) (Hiak Vatwe in the Yaqui or Yoreme language) is a river in the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico. It was formerly known as the Rio del Norte. Being the largest river system in the state of Sonora, the Yaqui river is used for irrigation, especially in the Valle del Yaqui.

The Rio Yaqui originates in the Sierra Madre Occidental at the junction of the Rio Bavispe and the Rio Aros at Lat. 29.529887 Long. −109.228377. It is approximately 320 km (200 mi) in length, and flows south and southwest into the Gulf of California near the city of Obregon.

The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are an Indigenous people of Mexico and Native American tribe, who speak the Yaqui language, an Uto-Aztecan language.

Their primary homelands are in Río Yaqui valley in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. Today, there are eight Yaqui Pueblos in Sonora.

Mayo or known as Yorem Noki to the Mayo (Yoreme) people, is an Uto-Aztecan language. It is spoken by about 40,000 people, who live in the southern portion of the Mexican state of Sonora and in the north of the neighboring state of Sinaloa. Under the General Law on the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it is recognized as a "national language" along with 63 other indigenous languages and Spanish which all have the same validity in Mexico. The language is considered 'critically endangered' by UNESCO.

The Mayo language is partially intelligible with the Yaqui language, and the division between the two languages is more political, from the historic division between the Yaqui and the Mayo peoples, than linguistic.

The Cahitan languages is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family that comprises the Yaqui and the Mayo languages, both of Northern Mexico. The branch has been considered to be part of the Taracahitic languages, but this is no longer considered a valid genetic unit. The poorly attested language of the Acaxee has also been considered to be Cahitan.