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Popoluca is a Nahuatl term for various indigenous peoples of southeastern Veracruz and Oaxaca . Many of them (about 30,000) speak languages of the Mixe–Zoque family . Others speak the unrelated Mazatecan languages , in which case the name in English and Spanish is generally spelled Popoloca .

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64-604: The Mixe–Zoque languages called Popoluca are, Among the Oto-Manguean languages , there are, The Xincan languages have also historically been referred to as Popoluca. The reason for the terms' widespread usage for naming indigenous languages is that they are derogatory words from the Nahuatl language, meaning "to speak unintelligibly" or "babble". When the Spanish invaders asked their Nahuatl-speaking allies what language

128-448: A stop consonant ), which was followed by a tone split where the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants disappeared but in compensation the number of tones doubled. These parallels led to confusion over the classification of these languages, until André-Georges Haudricourt showed in 1954 that tone was not an invariant feature, by demonstrating that Vietnamese tones corresponded to certain final consonants in other languages of

192-579: A branch of Otomanguean ..."" Nonetheless, a few studies have retained the inclusion in Hokan, particularly Joseph Greenberg 's widely rejected 1987 classification, as well as its derivative works by Merritt Ruhlen . Writing in 1988, Leonardo Manrique still listed Tlapanec-Mangue as an isolated family. The status of the Amuzgo language as either a part of the Mixtecan group or as forming its own branch from

256-509: A classic 1956 paper titled "India as a Linguistic Area", Murray Emeneau laid the groundwork for the general acceptance of the concept of a sprachbund. In the paper, Emeneau observed that the subcontinent's Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages shared a number of features that were not inherited from a common source, but were areal features , the result of diffusion during sustained contact. These include retroflex consonants , echo words , subject–object–verb word order, discourse markers , and

320-490: A distinguishing feature is entrenched in the structure of the Oto-Manguean languages and in no way a peripheral phenomenon as it is in some languages that are known to have acquired tone recently or which are in a process of losing it. In most Oto-Manguean languages tone serves to distinguish both between the meanings of roots and to indicate different grammatical categories. In Chiquihuitlan Mazatec , which has four tones,

384-630: A major field of research in language contact and convergence. Some linguists, such as Matthias Castrén , G. J. Ramstedt , Nicholas Poppe and Pentti Aalto , supported the idea that the Mongolic , Turkic , and Tungusic families of Asia (and some small parts of Europe) have a common ancestry, in a controversial group they call Altaic . Koreanic and Japonic languages, which are also hypothetically related according to some scholars like William George Aston , Shōsaburō Kanazawa, Samuel Martin and Sergei Starostin , are sometimes included as part of

448-565: A number of similarities including syntax and grammar , vocabulary and its use as well as the relationship between contrasting words and their origins, idioms and word order which all made them stand out from many other language groups around the world which do not share these similarities; in essence creating a continental sprachbund. His point was to argue that the disproportionate degree of knowledge of SAE languages biased linguists towards considering grammatical forms to be highly natural or even universal, when in fact they were only peculiar to

512-571: A reconstruction of the kinship terminologies of each of the Oto-Manguean branches and of Proto-Oto-Manguean. Unpublished reconstructions of Proto-Oto-Manguean grammar have also been made by Terrence Kaufman . In spite of the lack of a full published reconstruction of proto-Oto-Manguean, the language family has now been widely accepted by specialists, including Lyle Campbell , Terrence Kaufman , and William Poser . Campbell and Poser writing in 2008 concluded that ""Tlapanec-Subtiaba proved not to belong to 'Hokan' as postulated by Sapir (1925a), but to be

576-469: A redoubling of the effort to document and reconstruct several important branches that have received little attention: principally Mixtecan, Popolocan and Oto-Pamean. Brown (2015) evaluates evidence assembled in support of Oto-Manguean. He points out that vocabulary reconstructed for Proto-Oto-Manguean is not supported by regular sound correspondences. While scholars, including Swadesh, Rensch, and Kaufman, have all reconstructed POM words, none have done so with

640-413: A reflex of Proto-Oto-Manguean */kʷ/ . The Oto-Manguean languages have a wide range of tonal systems, some with as many as 10 tone contrasts and others with only two. Some languages have a register system only distinguishing tones by the relative pitch. Others have a contour system that also distinguishes tones with gliding pitch. Most, however, are combinations of the register and contour systems. Tone as

704-458: A sprachbund. In a 1904 paper, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay emphasised the need to distinguish between language similarities arising from a genetic relationship ( rodstvo ) and those arising from convergence due to language contact ( srodstvo ). Nikolai Trubetzkoy introduced the Russian term языковой союз ( yazykovoy soyuz 'language union') in a 1923 article. In a paper presented to

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768-563: Is a significant difference between western varieties (Northern and Southern) and eastern varieties (Upper Eastern and Lower Eastern), as revealed by recorded text testing done in the 1970s. All Oto-Manguean languages have tone : some have only two level tones while others have up to five level tones. Many languages in addition have a number of contour tones . Many Oto-Manguean languages have phonemic vowel nasalization. Many Oto-Manguean languages lack labial consonants , particularly stops and those that do have labial stops normally have these as

832-624: Is comparable with that of Indo-European , and the Proto-Oto-Manguean language is estimated to have been spoken some time before 2000 BCE. This means that at least for the past 4000 years Oto-Manguean languages have coexisted with the other languages of Mesoamerica and have developed many traits in common with these, to such an extent that they are seen as part of a sprachbund called the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area . However Oto-Manguean also stands out from

896-742: Is home to speakers of languages of the Sino-Tibetan , Hmong–Mien (or Miao–Yao), Tai–Kadai , Austronesian (represented by Chamic ) and Mon–Khmer families. Neighbouring languages across these families, though presumed unrelated, often have similar features, which are believed to have spread by diffusion. A well-known example is the similar tone systems in Sinitic languages (Sino-Tibetan), Hmong–Mien, Tai languages (Kadai) and Vietnamese (Austroasiatic). Most of these languages passed through an earlier stage with three tones on most syllables (but no tonal distinctions on checked syllables ending in

960-480: Is now considered an isolate . Longacre (1968) considered Oto-Manguean to be among the most extensively studied language families of the world, with a level of reconstruction rivaling the Indo-European family in completeness, but Kaufman and Justeson (2009) reject this, lamenting the rudimentary reconstruction of Proto-Oto-Manguean lexicon (only c. 350 items have been reconstructed) and grammar. They call for

1024-602: Is spoken by c. 75,000 people in Guerrero . There are four principal varieties named after the communities where they are spoken: Acatepec, Azoyú, Malinaltepec and Tlacoapa. Recent labor migrations have introduced Tlapanec speaking communities to the state of Morelos . It was closely related to the Subtiaba language which was spoken in Nicaragua but which is now extinct. The Manguean languages are all extinct. They included

1088-701: The Costa Chica region of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca by about 44,000 speakers. The four varieties recognized by the Mexican government are: Northern Amuzgo (amuzgo del norte, commonly known as Guerrero or (from its major town) Xochistlahuaca Amuzgo), Southern Amuzgo (amuzgo del sur, heretofore classified as a subdialect of Northern Amuzgo); Upper Eastern Amuzgo (amuzgo alto del este, commonly known as Oaxaca Amuzgo or San Pedro Amuzgos Amuzgo); Lower Eastern Amuzgo (amuzgo bajo del este, commonly known as Ipalapa Amuzgo). These varieties are very similar, but there

1152-717: The Federal District , to certain agricultural areas such as the San Quintín valley in Baja California and parts of Morelos and Sonora , and even into the United States . The Mixtec language is a complex set of regional varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The varieties of Mixtec are sometimes grouped by geographic area, using designations such as those of the Mixteca Alta ,

1216-665: The Mangue and Chorotega languages that were spoken in Nicaragua and Costa Rica at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Chiapanec language which was spoken in Chiapas , Mexico by a handful of speakers in the 1990s, but is now extinct. The Popolocan language group includes the seven different varieties of Popoloca which are spoken in southern Puebla state near Tehuacán and Tepexi de Rodríguez (c. 30,000 speakers), and

1280-723: The Mixteca Baja , and the Mixteca de la Costa . However, the dialects do not actually follow the geographic areas, and the precise historical relationships between the different varieties have not been worked out. The number of varieties of Mixtec depends in part on what the criteria are for grouping them, of course; at one extreme, government agencies once recognized no dialectal diversity. Mutual intelligibility surveys and local literacy programs have led SIL International to identify more than 50 varieties which have been assigned distinct ISO codes. Four Amuzgo varieties are spoken in

1344-585: The South Slavic languages of the southern Balkans (Bulgarian, Macedonian and to a lesser degree Serbo-Croatian ), Greek , Balkan Turkish , and Romani . All but one of these are Indo-European languages but from very divergent branches, and Turkish is a Turkic language . Yet they have exhibited several signs of grammatical convergence, such as avoidance of the infinitive , future tense formation, and others. The same features are not found in other languages that are otherwise closely related, such as

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1408-515: The Trique (or Triqui) languages, spoken by about 24,500 people and Cuicatec , spoken by about 15,000 people. The Mixtecan languages are traditionally spoken in the region known as La Mixteca , which is shared by the states of Oaxaca , Puebla and Guerrero . Because of migration from this region the Mixtecan languages have expanded to Mexico's main urban areas, particularly the State of México and

1472-860: The Zapotecan and Mixtecan languages, are spoken by almost 1.5 million people combined. In central Mexico, particularly in the states of Mexico , Hidalgo and Querétaro , the languages of the Oto-Pamean branch are spoken: the Otomi and the closely related Mazahua have over 500,000 speakers combined. In the linguistic world of Mesoamerica, the Otomanguean family stands out as the most diverse and extensively distributed. Some Oto-Manguean languages are moribund or highly endangered; for example, Ixcatec and Matlatzinca each have fewer than 250 speakers, most of whom are elderly. Other languages particularly of

1536-531: The quotative . Emeneau specified the tools to establish that language and culture had fused for centuries on the Indian soil to produce an integrated mosaic of structural convergence of four distinct language families: Indo-Aryan , Dravidian , Munda and Tibeto-Burman . This concept provided scholarly substance for explaining the underlying Indian-ness of apparently divergent cultural and linguistic patterns. With his further contributions, this area has now become

1600-520: The Americas . All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico , but the Manguean branch of the family, which is now extinct , was spoken as far south as Nicaragua and Costa Rica . Oto-Manguean is widely viewed as a proven language family. The highest number of speakers of Oto-Manguean languages today are found in the state of Oaxaca where the two largest branches,

1664-594: The Manguean branch which was spoken outside of Mexico have become extinct ; these include the Chiapanec language , which was declared extinct after 1990. Others such as Subtiaba , which was most closely related to Me'phaa (Tlapanec), have been extinct longer and are only known from early 20th century descriptions. The Oto-Manguean language family is the most diverse and most geographically widespread language family represented in Mesoamerica. The internal diversity

1728-684: The Mon–Khmer family, and proposed that tone in the other languages had a similar origin. Similarly, the unrelated Khmer (Mon–Khmer), Cham (Austronesian) and Lao (Kadai) languages have almost identical vowel systems. Many languages in the region are of the isolating (or analytic) type, with mostly monosyllabic morphemes and little use of inflection or affixes , though a number of Mon–Khmer languages have derivational morphology . Shared syntactic features include classifiers , object–verb order and topic–comment structure, though in each case there are exceptions in branches of one or more families. In

1792-594: The SAE language group . Whorf likely considered Romance and West Germanic to form the core of the SAE, i.e. the literary languages of Europe which have seen substantial cultural influence from Latin during the medieval period . The North Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages tend to be more peripheral members. Alexander Gode , who was instrumental in the development of Interlingua , characterized it as "Standard Average European". The Romance, Germanic , and Slavic control languages of Interlingua are reflective of

1856-551: The SAE features. Language families that have been proposed to actually be sprachbunds The work began to assume the character of a comparison between Hopi and western European languages. It also became evident that even the grammar of Hopi bore a relation to Hopi culture, and the grammar of European tongues to our own "Western" or "European" culture. And it appeared that the interrelation brought in those large subsummations of experience by language, such as our own terms "time," "space," "substance," and "matter." Since, with respect to

1920-493: The SIL International's Ethnologue considers Otomi to be a cover term for nine separate Otomi languages and assigns a different ISO code to each of these nine varieties. Currently, Otomi varieties are spoken collectively by c. 239,000 speakers – some 5 to 6 percent of whom are monolingual . Because of recent migratory patterns, small populations of Otomi speakers can be found in new locations throughout Mexico and in

1984-572: The United States through recent labor related migrations. Zapotec languages and dialects fall into four broad geographic divisions: Zapoteco de la Sierra Norte (Northern Zapotec), Valley Zapotec, Zapoteco de la Sierra Sur (Southern Zapotec), and Isthmus Zapotec . Northern Zapotec languages are spoken in the mountainous region of Oaxaca , in the Northern Sierra Madre mountain ranges; Southern Zapotec languages and are spoken in

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2048-527: The United States. The Otomi languages are vigorous in some areas, with children acquiring the language through natural transmission (e.g. in the Mezquital Valley of Hidalgo and in the Highlands). However, three varieties are now considered moribund : those of Ixtenco ( Tlaxcala state), Santiago Tilapa and Acazulco ( Mexico state ), and Cruz del Palmar ( Guanajuato state). In some municipalities

2112-622: The Valley of Mexico to the less fertile highlands on the rim of the valleys. The languages of the Oto-Pamean branch are spoken in central and western Mexico. The group includes the Otomian languages: Otomi spoken primarily in the states of Mexico , Hidalgo , Puebla and Veracruz (c. 293,000 speakers) and Mazahua spoken in the western part of the State of Mexico (c. 350,000 speakers), and

2176-614: The archeological site of Monte Albán with remains dated as early as 1000 BCE is believed to have been in continuous use by Zapotecs . The undeciphered Zapotec script is one of the earliest forms of Mesoamerican writing. Other Mesoamerican cultural centers which may have been wholly or partly Oto-Manguean include the late classical sites of Xochicalco , which may have been built by Matlatzincas , and Cholula , which may have been inhabited by Manguean peoples. And some propose an Oto-Pamean presence in Teotihuacán . The Zapotecs are among

2240-728: The benefit of detailed sound correspondences and, consequently Brown argues that their reconstructions as well as Oto-Manguean itself are called into question. Nevertheless, Brown (2015) suggests that Oto-Manguean as Sprachbund (language diffusion area) is a reasonable alternative hypothesis to the proposal of Oto-Manguean as a language family. Otomi Mazahua Matlatzinca Chichimeca (Jonaz) Pamean Chinantec Tlapanec Subtiaba Manguean Chocho Popoloca Ixcatec Mazatecan Zapotecan Amuzgo Mixtec Trique Cuicatec Some early classifications such as that by Brinton, considered that Oto-Manguean languages might be related to Chinese , because like Chinese

2304-581: The border with Tamaulipas (c. 5500 speakers), and Central Pame [2] spoken in the town of Santa María Acapulco (c. 4000 speakers), the extinct Southern Pame language, and the Chichimeca Jonaz language spoken in Misión de Chichimecas near San Luis de la Paz in the state of Guanajuato (c. 200 speakers). Otomi is traditionally described as a single language, although its many dialects are not all mutually intelligible. The language classification of

2368-635: The candidates to have invented the first writing system of Mesoamerica – and in the Post-Classic period the Mixtecs were prolific artesans and codex painters. During the postclassic the Oto-Manguean cultures of Central Mexico became marginalized by the intruding Nahuas and some, like the Chiapanec–Mangue speakers went south into Guerrero, Chiapas and Central America, while others such as the Otomi saw themselves relocated from their ancient homes in

2432-544: The closely related Chocho language (c. 700 speakers) spoken in Northern Oaxaca state, and the 8 different Mazatecan languages spoken in northern Oaxaca (c. 120,000 speakers), and the nearly extinct Ixcatec language spoken in Santa María Ixcatlán (< 8 speakers). The Popolocan languages should not be confused with the languages called Popoluca spoken in the state of Veracruz , which belong to

2496-479: The contour tones. Sprachbund A sprachbund ( / ˈ s p r ɑː k b ʊ n d / , from German : Sprachbund [ˈʃpʁaːxbʊnt] , lit. 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area , area of linguistic convergence , or diffusion area , is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact . The languages may be genetically unrelated , or only distantly related, but

2560-477: The controversial method of glottochronology suggest an approximate splitting date of Proto-Otomanguean at c. 4400 BCE. This makes the Oto-Manguean family the language family of the Americas with the deepest time depth, as well as the oldest language family with evidence of tonal contrast in the proto-language. The Oto-Manguean urheimat has been thought to be in the Tehuacán valley in connection with one of

2624-478: The diversity between the main branches of Oto-Manguean with that between the main branches of Indo-European . Kaufman also proposes that Oto-Manguean languages are an important candidate for being the source of many of the traits that have diffused into the other languages in the Mesoamerican linguistic area . Oto-Mangue speakers have been among the earliest to form highly complex cultures of Mesoamerica :

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2688-530: The earliest neolithic cultures of Mesoamerica , and although it is now in doubt whether Tehuacán was the original home of the Proto-Otomanguean people, it is agreed that the Tehuacán culture (5000 BCE–2300 BCE) were likely Oto-Mangue speakers. The long history of the Oto-Manguean family has resulted in considerable linguistic diversity between the branches of the family. Terrence Kaufman compares

2752-465: The endangered Matlatzincan languages including Matlatzinca (c. 1000 speakers in the town of San Francisco Oxtotilpa) and Tlahuica (also called Ocuilteco) (c. 400 speakers in the municipio of Ocuilan ) both spoken in the State of Mexico; And the Pamean group composed of the two living Pame languages of San Luís Potosí , Northern Pame [1] being spoken in communities from the north of Río Verde on

2816-428: The first International Congress of Linguists in 1928, he used a German calque of this term, Sprachbund , defining it as a group of languages with similarities in syntax , morphological structure, cultural vocabulary and sound systems, but without systematic sound correspondences, shared basic morphology or shared basic vocabulary. Later workers, starting with Trubetzkoy's colleague Roman Jakobson , have relaxed

2880-423: The following minimal pairs occur: cha /tʃa˥/ "I talk", cha /tʃa˦/ "difficult", cha /tʃa˧/ "his hand" cha /tʃa˩/ "he talks". The language with the most level tones is Usila Chinantec , which has five level tones and no contour tones; Chicahuaxtla Trique has a similar system. In Copala Triqui , which has a mixed system, only three level tones but five tonal registers are distinguished within

2944-671: The language groups most often included in the SAE Sprachbund . The Standard Average European Sprachbund is most likely the result of ongoing language contact in the time of the Migration Period and later, continuing during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance . Inheritance of the SAE features from Proto-Indo-European can be ruled out because Proto-Indo-European, as currently reconstructed, lacked most of

3008-533: The languages were tonal and mostly monosyllabic. This idea was quickly abandoned as it was discovered that tonal languages are common, and advances in the historical study of Chinese were made (including the discovery that Old Chinese was non-tonal). Edward Sapir included Subtiaba–Tlapanec in his Hokan phylum, but didn't classify the other Oto-Manguean languages in his famous 1929 classification. In his 1960 classification, Joseph Greenberg considered Oto-Manguean so aberrant from other Native American languages that it

3072-518: The level of monolingualism in Otomi is as high as 22.3% ( Huehuetla , Hidalgo) or 13.1% ( Texcatepec , Veracruz). Monolingualism is normally significantly higher among women than among men. The Chinantecan languages are spoken by c. 93,000 people in Northern Oaxaca and Southern Veracruz in the districts of Cuicatlán, Ixtlán de Juárez , Tuxtepec and Choapan. The Ethnologue recognizes 14 separate varieties with separate ISO codes. The Tlapanec language

3136-582: The mountainous region of Oaxaca , in the Southern Sierra Madre mountain ranges; Valley Zapotec languages are spoken in the Valley of Oaxaca, and Isthmus Zapotec languages are spoken in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec . The Ethnologue recognizes 57 varieties of Zapotec and 6 varieties of Chatino by distinct ISO codes. The Mixtecan branch includes the many different, mutually unintelligible varieties of Mixtec spoken by about 511,000 people as well as

3200-633: The northeastern part of the Tibetan plateau spanning the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Gansu , is an area of interaction between varieties of northwest Mandarin Chinese , Amdo Tibetan and Mongolic and Turkic languages . Standard Average European ( SAE ) is a concept introduced in 1939 by Benjamin Whorf to group the modern Indo-European languages of Europe which shared common features. Whorf argued that these languages were characterized by

3264-497: The other Romance languages in relation to Romanian, and the other Slavic languages such as Polish in relation to Bulgaro-Macedonian. Languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area have such great surface similarity that early linguists tended to group them all into a single family, although the modern consensus places them into numerous unrelated families. The area stretches from Thailand to China and

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3328-548: The other language families of Mesoamerica in several features. It is the only language family in North America , Mesoamerica and Central America whose members are all tonal languages . It also stands out by having a much more analytic structure than other Mesoamerican languages. Another typical trait of Oto-Manguean is that its members almost all show VSO ( verb–subject–object ) in basic order of clausal constituents. A genetic relationship between Zapotecan and Mixtecan

3392-560: The previously included languages of the Oaxacan group. In 1920, Walther Lehmann included the Chiapanec–Mangue languages and correctly established the major subgroupings of the Oaxacan group. And in 1926, Schmidt coined the name Otomi–Mangue for a group consisting of the Oto-Pamean languages and Chiapanec–Mangue. The Oto-Pamean group and the Main Oaxacan group were not joined into one family until Sapir's classification in 1929, where it

3456-481: The proto-Oto-Manguean node has been discussed by Longacre, who argued for the latter, but the currently most accepted classification by Campbell (1997) follows Terrence Kaufman in considering Amuzgo to be a branch of Mixtecan. Swadesh (1960) and Rensch included the Huave language as a separate branch within Oto-Manguean, but this inclusion has proved untenable as most of the cognates were loan-words from Zapotec. Huave

3520-458: The purported Altaic family. This latter hypothesis was supported by people including Roy Andrew Miller , John C. Street and Karl Heinrich Menges . Gerard Clauson , Gerhard Doerfer , Juha Janhunen , Stefan Georg and others dispute or reject this. A common alternative explanation for similarities among the "Altaic" languages, such as vowel harmony and agglutination , is that they are due to areal diffusion. The Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund , in

3584-629: The requirement of similarities in all four of the areas stipulated by Trubetzkoy. A rigorous set of principles for what evidence is valid for establishing a linguistic area has been presented by Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark. The idea of areal convergence is commonly attributed to Jernej Kopitar 's description in 1830 of Albanian , Bulgarian and Romanian as giving the impression of " nur eine Sprachform ... mit dreierlei Sprachmaterie ", which has been rendered by Victor Friedman as "one grammar with the [ sic ] three lexicons". The Balkan Sprachbund comprises Albanian, Romanian,

3648-488: The speakers of the Matagalpa language . Although "Popoluca" and "Popoloca" are derogatory and confusing terms, they are still being used, even in academic literature and official publications of the Mexican government. Oto-Manguean languages The Oto-Manguean or Otomanguean / ˌ oʊ t oʊ ˈ m æ ŋ ɡ iː ə n / languages are a large family comprising several subfamilies of indigenous languages of

3712-594: The spelling "Popoluca" with an "u" became used for certain Mixe–Zoque languages , while the spelling "Popoloca" with an "o" became used for certain languages of the Popolocan family of Oto-Manguean languages . Note that the name "Popolocan" is also used by linguists to refer to these languages, which include varieties of Mazatec . In Nicaragua , the Nahua-speaking Nicarao used the term "Popoluca" for

3776-406: The sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness. A grouping of languages that share features can only be defined as a sprachbund if the features are shared for some reason other than the genetic history of the languages. Without knowledge of the history of a regional group of similar languages, it may be difficult to determine whether sharing indicates a language family or

3840-458: The unrelated Mixe–Zoquean language family. The Mazatecan languages are known for their prolific use of whistled speech . The Zapotecan subgroup is formed by the Zapotec languages (c. 785,000 speakers of all varieties) and the related Chatino languages (c. 23,000 speakers). They are all traditionally spoken in central and southern Oaxaca, but have been spread throughout Mexico and even into

3904-475: Was first proposed by Manuel Orozco y Berra in 1864; he also included Cuicatec, Chocho and Amuzgo in his grouping. In 1865, Pimentel added Mazatec, Popoloca, Chatino and Chinantec – he also posed a separate group of Pame, Otomi and Mazahua, the beginning of the Oto-Pamean subbranch. Daniel Brinton 's classification of 1891 added Matlatzinca and Chichimeca Jonaz to Pimentel's Oto-Pamean group (which wasn't known by that name then), and he reclassified some languages of

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3968-492: Was included in the Hokan family . From the 1950s on reconstructive work began to be done on individual Oto-Manguean language groups. Proto-Oto-Pamean was reconstructed by Doris Bartholomew , Proto-Zapotecan by Morris Swadesh , Proto-Chiapanec–Mangue by Fernández de Miranda and Weitlaner . The classification by Campbell 1997 was the first to present a unified view of the Oto-Manguean languages. In 1981, William Merrifield published

4032-586: Was spoken in a particular locality, the Nahuas would reply "popoloca" meaning in essence "not Nahuatl". The Nahuas used the term "popolōca" much in the same way the Greek used the term " barbaros ", also meaning "gibberish", to refer to non-Greek speaking strangers. The name however stuck to many languages and has caused some confusion even among linguists working with Native American languages. This confusion prompted some kind of distinction between Popoluca languages and

4096-648: Was the only accepted family (aside from the Purépecha isolate) which he made a primary branch of his Amerind family. However, in his 1987 revision he linked it with Aztec-Tanoan in a "Central Amerind" branch, apart from Tlapanec which, although it had by then been unequivocally linked to Oto-Manguean, he continued to classify as Hokan. No hypotheses including Oto-Manguean in any higher-level unit have been able to withstand scrutiny. The Oto-Manguean family has existed in southern Mexico at least since 2000 BCE and probably several thousand years before, some estimates using

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