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35-464: Zacoalco de Torres , formerly Zacoalco ( Nahuatl languages : Tzacoalco ; "place of closed water"), is a town and municipality in Jalisco , Mexico . The municipality covers an area of 479.1 km. It is the primary production region of the equipal -style wood and pigskin furniture. As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 30,528. The municipality covers an area of 479.1 km. To

70-582: A basic split between western and eastern dialects. Nahuan languages include not just varieties known as Nahuatl, but also Pipil and the extinct Pochutec language . The differences among the varieties of Nahuatl are not trivial, and in many cases result in low or no mutual intelligibility: people who speak one variety cannot understand or be understood by those from another. Thus, by that criterion, they could be considered different languages. The ISO divisions referenced below respond to intelligibility more than to historical or reconstructional considerations. Like

105-517: A geographical note: the northern part of the State of Puebla is universally recognized as having two subgroupings. The northern part of the State of Puebla is a long north to south lobe. In the middle of it from east-northeast to west-southwest runs the Sierra de Puebla (as Nahuanist linguists call it) or Sierra Norte de Puebla (as geographers call it). The "Sierra de Puebla" dialects are quite distinct from

140-540: A lowercase saltillo, with the first vowel capitalized when a word begins with a glottal stop. Unicode support of the cased forms began with Unicode 5.1, with U+A78B Ꞌ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SALTILLO and U+A78C ꞌ LATIN SMALL LETTER SALTILLO . Both are typically rendered with a straight apostrophe-like shape sometimes described as a dotless exclamation point . Typesetters who are unfamiliar with Unicode frequently use an apostrophe instead, but that can cause problems in electronic files because

175-571: A single suffix of the shape -liwa . In 1984 Canger and Dakin published an article in which they showed that Proto-Nahuan *ɨ had become /e/ in some Nahuan dialects and /i/ in others, and they proposed that this split was among the oldest splits of the Nahuan group. Dakin has proposed a historical internal classification of Nahuan, e.g., Dakin (2000). She asserts two groups of migrations in central Mexico and eventually southwards to Central America. The first produced Eastern dialects. Centuries later,

210-406: A variety of Nahuatl. Most specialists in Nahuan do not consider Pochutec to have ever been a variety of Nahuatl. Canger (1978; 1980) and Lastra de Suarez (1986) have made classification schemes based on data and methodology which each investigator has well documented. Canger proposed a single Central grouping and several Peripheral groupings. The Center grouping is hypothesized to have arisen during

245-644: Is a book-length study (in Spanish) of the phonological evolution of Proto-Nahuatl. Dakin (1991) suggested that irregularities in the modern Nahuatl system of possessive prefixes might be due to the presence in Proto-Nahuan of distinct grammatical marking for two types of possession. In the 1990s, two papers appeared addressing the old research problem of the " saltillo " in Nahuatl: a lost paper by Whorf (1993), and Manaster Ramer (1995). A Center-Periphery scheme

280-536: Is no glottal stop in Standard Spanish, so the sound is often imperceptible to Spanish speakers, and Spanish writers usually did not write it when transcribing Mexican languages: Nahuatl [ˈtɬeko] "in a fire" and [ˈtɬeʔko] "he ascends" were both typically written tleco , for example. Where glottal stop is distinguished, the latter may be written tlehko or tleꞌko . Although in Spanish

315-412: Is not [entirely] satisfactory" (1986:190). Both researchers emphasized the need for more data in order for there to be advances in the field of Nahuatl dialectology. Since the 1970s, there has been an increase in research whose immediate aim is the production of grammars and dictionaries of individual dialects. But there is also a detailed study of dialect variation in the dialect subgroup sometimes known as

350-423: Is spoken. (name [ISO subgroup code] – location(s) ~approx. number of speakers) Geographical distributions of Nahuan languages by ISO code: Saltillo (linguistics) In Mexican linguistics , saltillo ( Spanish , meaning "little skip") is the word for a glottal stop consonant ( IPA : [ʔ] ). The name was given by the early grammarians of Classical Nahuatl . In a number of other Nahuan languages ,

385-494: The "northern Puebla" dialects, which are spoken in northernmost Puebla State and very small parts of neighboring states. Dakin (2003:261) gives the following classification of Nahuatl dialects (in which the word "north" has been replaced by "northern"), based on her earlier publications, e.g., Dakin (2000). Most specialists in Pipil (El Salvador) consider it to have diverged from Nahuatl to the point it should no longer be considered

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420-520: The 20th century up to 1988 has been reviewed by Canger (1988). Before 1978, classification proposals had relied to a greater or lesser degree on the three way interdialectal sound correspondence /t͡ɬ ~ t ~ l/ (the lateral affricate /t͡ɬ/ of Classical Nahuatl and many other dialects corresponds to /t/ in some eastern and southern dialects and to /l/ in yet other dialects). Benjamin Lee Whorf (1937) had performed an analysis and concluded that /t͡ɬ/

455-499: The 20th century, and General Aztec, which includes the Pipil language and all dialects spoken in Mexico which are clearly closely related to the extinct literary language, Classical Nahuatl. This binary division of Aztecan (Nahuan) was already the majority opinion among specialists, but Campbell and Langacker's new arguments were received as being compelling. Furthermore, in "adopt[ing] the term 'General Aztec' ", they may in fact have been

490-462: The Aztec Empire by diffusion of the defining feature (an innovative verb form) and other features from the prestigious dialect of the capital. The dialects which adopted it could be from multiple genetic divisions of General Aztec. As for the various Peripheral groupings, their identity as Peripheral is defined negatively, i.e., by their lack the grammatical feature which, it is proposed, defines

525-537: The Central grouping. Canger recognized the possibility that centuries of population migrations and other grammatical feature diffusions may have combined to obscure the genetic relationships (the branching evolution) among the dialects of Nahuatl. Some of the isoglosses used by Canger to establish the Peripheral vs. Central dialectal dichotomy are these: Lastra de Suárez in her Nahuatl dialect atlas (1986) affirmed

560-614: The Eastern Periphery grouping. Lastra's classification of dialects of modern Nahuatl is as follows (many of the labels refer to Mexican states): This list is taken from the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI)'s Catálogo de Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales . The full document has variations on the names especially "autodenominaciones" ("self designations", the names these dialect communities use for their language), along with lists of towns where each variant

595-481: The Mexican government recognizes thirty varieties that are spoken in Mexico as languages (see the list below). Researchers distinguish between several dialect areas that each have a number of shared features: One classification scheme distinguishes innovative central dialects, spoken around Mexico City, from conservative peripheral ones spoken north, south and east of the central area, while another scheme distinguishes

630-527: The Zongolica (Andrés Hasler 1996). A. Hasler sums up the difficulty of classifying Zongolica thus (1996:164): "Juan Hasler (1958:338) interprets the presence in the region of [a mix of] eastern dialect features and central dialect features as an indication of a substratum of eastern Nahuatl and a superstratum of central Nahuatl. Una Canger (1980:15–20) classifies the region as part of the eastern area, while Yolanda Lastra (1986:189–190) classifies it as part of

665-527: The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, not a word-building character, and the ambiguous use of apostrophe for two different functions can make automated processing of the text difficult. The lowercase saltillo letter is used in Miꞌkmaq of Canada, Izere of Nigeria, Rapa Nui of Chile and in at least one Southeast Asian language, Central Sinama of the Philippines and Malaysia. In the latter it represents both

700-515: The basic meaning of the word 'saltillo' refers to the sound made by the glottal stop, it is often applied to the letter used to write that sound, especially the straight apostrophe, and this is the usual meaning of 'saltillo' in English. The alphabet of the Tlapanec language (Me̱ꞌpha̱a̱) uses both uppercase and lowercase saltillos, ⟨Ꞌ ꞌ⟩ . Other languages, such as Rapa Nui , use only

735-581: The central area." As already alluded to, the nucleus of the Central dialect territory is the Valley of Mexico . The extinct Classical Nahuatl , the enormously influential language spoken by the people of Tenochtitlan , the Aztec capital, is one of the Central dialects. Lastra in her dialect atlas proposed three Peripheral groupings: eastern, western, and Huasteca . She included Pipil in Nahuatl, assigning it to

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770-560: The claim, which would quickly be received as proven beyond virtually any doubt, that the well known change of Proto-Uto-Aztecan */ta-/ to */t͡ɬa-/ was a development in Proto-Aztecan (Proto-Nahuan), not a later development in some dialects descended from Proto-Aztecan. Second, they adduced new arguments for dividing the branch in two subdivisions: Pochutec, whose sole member is the Pochutec language , which became extinct sometime in

805-576: The concept of the Center/Periphery geographic dichotomy, but amended Canger's assignment of some subgroupings to the Center or the Periphery. The three most important divergences are probably those involving Huastec dialects, Sierra de Zongolica dialects, and northwestern Guerrero dialects. Lastra classifies these as Peripheral, Central, and Central, respectively, while in each case Canger does

840-491: The east lies the largest lake in Mexico, Lake Chapala . President of the Municipal Council Nahuatl languages Some authorities, such as the Mexican government, Ethnologue , and Glottolog , consider the varieties of modern Nahuatl to be distinct languages, because they are often mutually unintelligible, their grammars differ and their speakers have distinct ethnic identities. As of 2008,

875-514: The glottal stop with an apostrophe-like character most likely originates from transliterations of the Arabic hamza . It has also been written with a grave accent over the preceding vowel in some Nahuatl works, following Horacio Carochi (1645). A glottal stop exists as a phoneme in many other indigenous languages of the Americas and its presence or absence can distinguish words. However, there

910-428: The higher-level groupings, they also are not self-evident and are subject to considerable controversy. Nevertheless, the variants all are clearly related and more closely related to each other than to Pochutec , and they and Pochutec are more closely related to each other than to any other Uto-Aztecan languages (such as Cora or Huichol , Tepehuán and Tarahumara , Yaqui / Mayo , etc.) Little work has been done in

945-432: The historical basis for the five verb classes, based on how they form the perfect tense-aspect, and she shows that all of the different forms of the perfect tense-aspect derives from a single -ki morpheme that has developed differently depending on the phonological shape of the verb to which it was suffixed. She also explains the historical development of the applicative suffix with the shape -lia and -lwia as coming from

980-581: The ones to introduce this designation. Part of their reconstruction of the Proto-Aztecan vowels was disputed by Dakin (1983). The most comprehensive study of the history of Nahuan languages is Una Canger 's "Five Studies inspired by Nahuatl verbs in -oa" (Canger 1980), in which she explores the historical development of grammar of the verbs ending in -oa and -ia . Canger shows that verbs in -oa and -ia are historically and grammatically distinct from verbs in -iya and -owa , although they are not distinguished in pronunciation in any modern dialects. She shows

1015-417: The opposite. The dialectal situation is very complex and most categorizations, including the one presented above, are, in the nature of things, controversial. Lastra wrote, "The isoglosses rarely coincide. As a result, one can give greater or lesser importance to a feature and make the [dialectal] division that one judges appropriate/convenient" (1986:189). And she warned: "We insist that this classification

1050-458: The second group of migrations produced Western dialects. But many modern dialects are the result of blending between particular Eastern dialects and particular Western dialects. Campbell in his grammar of Pipil (1985) discussed the problem of classifying Pipil. Pipil is either a descendant of Nahuatl (in his estimation) or still to this day a variety of Nahuatl (in the estimation of for example Lastra de Suárez (1986) and Dakin (2001)). Dakin (1982)

1085-552: The sound cognate to the glottal stop of Classical Nahuatl is [ h ] , and the term saltillo is applied to it for historical reasons. The saltillo, in both capital and small letter versions, appears in Unicode (in the Latin Extended-D block ), but is often written with an apostrophe; it is sometimes written ⟨h⟩ (for either pronunciation), or ⟨j⟩ when pronounced [h] . The spelling of

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1120-455: The way of the historical linguistics of Nahuatl proper or the Aztecan (nowadays often renamed Nahuan) branch of Uto-Aztecan. Lyle Campbell and Ronald W. Langacker (1978), in a paper whose focus was the internal reconstruction of the vowels of Proto-Aztecan (or Proto-Nahuan ), made two proposals of lasting impact regarding the internal classification of the Aztecan branch. They introduced

1155-404: Was introduced by Canger in 1978, and supported by comparative historical data in 1980. Lastra de Suarez's (1986) dialect atlas that divided dialects into center and peripheral areas based on strictly synchronic evidence. The subsequent 1988 article by Canger adduced further historical evidence for this division.(Dakin 2003:261). Until the middle of the 20th century, scholarship on Nahuan languages

1190-436: Was limited almost entirely to the literary language that existed approximately 1540–1770 (which is now known as Classical Nahuatl , although the descriptor "classical" was never used until the 20th century ). Since the 1930s, there have appeared several grammars of individual modern dialects (in either article or book form), in addition to articles of narrower scope. The history of research into Nahuan dialect classification in

1225-409: Was the reflex of Proto-Uto-Aztecan */t/ before /a/ (a conclusion which has been borne out). But in 1978 Campbell and Langacker made the novel proposal—which met with immediate universal acceptance—that this sound change had occurred back in Proto-Aztecan (the ancestor dialect of Pochutec and General Aztec) and that therefore the corresponding /t/ or /l/ in Nahuatl dialects were innovations. As

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