The Zapotec / ˈ z æ p ə t ɛ k / languages are a group of around 50 closely related indigenous Mesoamerican languages that constitute a main branch of the Oto-Manguean language family and are spoken by the Zapotec people from the southwestern-central highlands of Mexico . A 2020 census reports nearly half a million speakers, with the majority inhabiting the state of Oaxaca . Zapotec-speaking communities are also found in the neighboring states of Puebla , Veracruz , and Guerrero . Labor migration has also brought a number of native Zapotec speakers to the United States , particularly in California and New Jersey . Most Zapotec-speaking communities are highly bilingual in Spanish.
24-814: The name of the language in Zapotec itself varies according to the geographical variant. In Juchitán (Isthmus) it is Diidxazá [didʒaˈza] , in Mitla it is Didxsaj [didʒˈsaʰ] , in Zoogocho it is Diža'xon [diʒaʔˈʐon] , in Coatec Zapotec it is Di'zhke' [diʔʒˈkeʔ] , in Miahuatec Zapotec it is Dí'zdéh [diʔzdæ] and in Santa Catarina Quioquitani it is Tiits Së [tiˀts sæ] , for example. The first part of these expressions has
48-624: Is a group of indigenous Mesoamerican languages. These languages are a branch of the Zapotecan family within the Oto-Manguean language family . They are natively spoken by 45,000 Chatino people , whose communities are located in the southern portion of the Mexican state of Oaxaca . The Chatinos have close cultural and linguistic ties with the Zapotec people , whose languages form
72-410: Is no immediate risk of disappearance, then medium risk, high risk, and lastly very high risk of disappearance. Currently, Chatino dialects vary from high risk of disappearance ( chatino de Zacatepec ) to medium risk ( chatino occidental bajo ) to no immediate risk ( chatino oriental alto, chatino oriental bajo, chatino occidental alto , and chatino central ). In an effort to help revitalize
96-512: Is shown by altering the first consonant of the root, as in the following examples from Tataltepec Chatino: There is also a morphological causative in Chatino, expressed by the causative prefix /x-/, /xa-/, /y/, or by the palatalization of the first consonant. The choice of prefix appears to be partially determined by the first consonant of the verb, though there are some irregular cases. The prefix /x/ occurs before some roots that start with one of
120-617: Is shown in more detail below, again following Smith Stark (2007) Teococuilco de Marcos Pérez Zapotec ( Teococuilco de Marcos Pérez ) Aloapan Zapotec Macuiltianguis Zapotec Atepec Zapotec Ixtepeji Zapotec ( Santa Catarina Ixtepeji ) Lachatao Zapotec ( Santa Catarina Lachatao ) Ixtlán de Juárez Zapotec ( Ixtlán de Juárez ) Abejones Zapotec ( Abejones ) Northern Rincon Zapotec Southern Rincon Zapotec Yatee Zapotec Choapan Zapotec Cajonos Zapotec Zoogocho Zapotec Yatzachi Zapotec Yalálag Zapotec Tabaá Zapotec Chatino language Chatino
144-590: Is the loss (or partial loss) of the vowel of the second syllable. The word for 'water' illustrates this fact. In conservative varieties, the vowel of the second syllable is retained: /nisa/ in Isthmus Zapotec and /inda/ in Sierra de Juárez Zapotec, for example. In innovative varieties, the vowel of the second syllable was lost: /nis/ in Amatlán Zapotec and Mitla Zapotec, for example. The loss of
168-705: The Natividad Medical Center of Salinas, California had trained medical interpreters bilingual in Chatino as well as in Spanish; in March 2014, Natividad Medical Foundation launched Indigenous Interpreting+, "a community and medical interpreting business specializing in indigenous languages from Mexico and Central and South America," including Chatino, Mixtec , Trique , and Zapotec . El Alto Zapotec El Alto Zapotec ( Zapoteco de San Pedro el Alto ), also known as South Central Zimatlan Zapotec,
192-683: The Chatino language, a team of linguists and professors came together to make The Chatino Language Documentation Project. The team included Emiliana Cruz , Hilaria Cruz, Eric Campbell, Justin McIntosh, Jeffrey Rasch, Ryan Sullivant, Stéphanie Villard, and Tony Woodbury. They began the Chatino Documentation Project in the summer of 2003 hoping to document and preserve the Chatino Language and its dialects. Using audio and video recordings they have been able to document
216-512: The Chatino people be able to read and write their language. The glottal stop is variously written as a 'q' (as here), a '7', IPA ' ʔ ', or a saltillo 'ꞌ'. The last can be confused with the tone letter ' ' in a non-serif font. Tone letters in many varieties of Western Highlands Chatino are capital letters A through L. These have dedicated Unicode characters ( ᴬ ᴮ ꟲ ᴰ ᴱ ꟳ ᴳ ᴴ ᴵ ᴶ ᴷ ᴸ ). Chatino languages have some regular alternations between transitive and intransitive verbs. In general this change
240-458: The Papabuco and Western Zapotec varieties. Certain characteristics serve to classify Zapotec varieties in ways that cross-cut the geographical divisions. One of these is the distinction between disyllabic roots and monosyllabic roots. Proto-Zapotec had disyllabic roots; the vowel of the second syllable could be any one of the inventory of vowels. One innovation shared by many varieties of Zapotec
264-529: The basis of which they concluded that four varieties of Chatino could be considered separate languages with respect to mutual intelligibility, with 80% intelligibility being needed for varieties to be considered part of the same language. (The same count resulted from a looser 70% criterion.) These were Tataltepec, Zacatepec, Panixtlahuaca, and the Highlands dialects, with Zenzontepec not tested but based on other studies believed to be completely unintelligible with
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#1732775796955288-1315: The family that contains the most languages is Central Zapotec, which includes most of the Zapotec languages of the Valley of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The following figure shows the classification suggested by Smith Stark (2007). Solteco Zapotec Lachixío Zapotec El Alto Zapotec Papabuco ( Elotepec Zapotec , Texmelucan Zapotec , Zaniza Zapotec ) Northern Zapotec → ( see below for details ) Cis-Yautepec Zapotec ( Mixtepec Zapotec , Quiegolani Zapotec , Lapaguía Zapotec , Xanaguía Zapotec , Xanica Zapotec , Tlacolulita Zapotec ) Coatec ( Coatecas Altas Zapotec , Miahuatlán Zapotec , Ozolotepec Zapotec ) Albarradas Zapotec Mitla Zapotec Antequera Zapotec Guevea de Humboldt Zapotec Petapa Zapotec Lachiguiri Zapotec Quiavicuzas Zapotec San Baltasar Chichicapan Zapotec [sic] San Pablo Güilá Zapotec & San Dionisio Ocotepec Zapotec Western Tlacolula Valley ( San Juan Guelavía Zapotec , San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec , Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec , Tlacolula de Matamoros Zapotec ) Zaachila Zapotec Isthmus Zapotec Ocotlán Zapotec Western Ejutla Zapotec Quiatoni Zapotec The Northern branch
312-450: The final vowel: /bekoʔ/ . Another characteristic that classifies Zapotec varieties is the existence or not of a contrast between alveopalatal fricatives and retroflex fricatives. Innovative varieties have introduced the contrast while conservative varieties have not. The most influential classification of Zapotec languages is due to Thomas Smith Stark, who proposed the following overall classification of Zapotec languages. The branch of
336-535: The following consonants: /c, qu, ty/ or with the vowels /u,a/, e.g. The prefix /xa/ is put before certain roots that begin with /t/, e.g. Palatalization occurs in some roots that begin with /t/, e.g. (Pride 1970: 95–96) The alternations seen here are similar to the causative alternation seen in the related Zapotec languages . Pride (1965) reports eight aspects in Yaitepec Chatino. Chatino languages usually have VSO as their predominant order, as in
360-594: The following example: N-da CON -give nu the xniq dog ndaha lazy ska one ha tortilla xtlya Spanish qi to nu the qo. coyote N-da nu xniq ndaha ska ha xtlya qi nu qo. CON -give the dog lazy one tortilla Spanish to the coyote 'The lazy dog gave a sweetbread to the coyote.' Chatino-language programming is carried by the CDI 's radio station XEJAM , based in Santiago Jamiltepec , Oaxaca . In 2012,
384-483: The language during everyday life interactions. Up until 2003, Chatino was an oral language, with no written form. After beginning the Chatino Documentation project, the team began to create a written form of the Chatino Language. This transition has created more resources for revitalization projects. They hope the resources they have made will soon be used to create educational materials like books to help
408-489: The meaning 'word' (perhaps slightly reduced as appropriate for part of a compound). Zapotec and the related Chatino languages together form the Zapotecan subgroup of the Oto-Manguean language family . Zapotec languages (along with all Oto-Manguean languages) form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area , an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between
432-639: The mountainous region of Oaxaca , in the Northern Sierra Madre mountain ranges; Southern Zapotec languages and are spoken in 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 . However, Valley Zapotec and Isthmus Zapotec group together (as Central Zapotec), and this ignores
456-764: The other branch of the Zapotecan language family. Chatinos call their language chaqꟳ tnyaᴶ . Chatino is recognized as a national language in Mexico. The Chatino languages are a group of three languages: Zenzontepec Chatino, spoken in about 10 communities in the district of Sola de Vega; Tataltepec Chatino, spoken in Tataltepec de Valdés; and a group of dialects collectively called the Eastern Chatino language, spoken in about 15–17 communities. Egland & Bartholomew (1983) conducted mutual intelligibility tests on
480-451: The other varieties, and he finds no evidence for subgrouping or further division based on shared innovations. This division mirrors the divisions reported by Boas (1913), based on speaker comments, that Chatino comprised three "dialects" with limited mutual intelligibility. Sullivant (2016) finds that Teojomulco is the most divergent variety. The Mexican Secretariat of Education uses a four risk scale to measure endangered languages. The lowest
504-614: The peoples of Mesoamerica. As a result, languages have acquired characteristics from genetically unrelated languages of the area. Although commonly described as a language, Zapotec is a fairly extensive, if close-knit, language family. The time depth is comparable to that of the Romance languages . Dialectal divergence between Zapotec-speaking communities is extensive and complicated. Many varieties of Zapotec are mutually unintelligible with one another. There are some radical jumps in intelligibility between geographically close communities, so
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#1732775796955528-460: The rest of the Chatino languages. The Highlands dialects fall into three groups, largely foreshadowing the divisions in Ethnologue . Campbell (2013), in a study based on shared innovations rather than mutual intelligibility, first divides Chatino into two groups: Zenzontepec and Coastal Chatino. He then divides Coastal Chatino into Tataltepec and Eastern Chatino. His Eastern Chatino contains all
552-515: The varieties do not form a dialect continuum in a strict sense, though neither are there clear-cut divisions between groups of varieties. As a result, the Mexican government officially recognizes sixty Zapotec languages. Zapotec languages 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
576-421: The vowel /i/ often resulted in palatalized consonants, and the loss of /u/ often resulted in labialized consonants. Compare the words for 'dog' in conservative varieties (Isthmus /beʔkuʔ/ , Sierra de Juárez /bekuʔ/ ) and innovative varieties (Amatlán /mbak/ and Mitla /bæʔkʷ/ ). In this particular word Amatlán does not have a labialized consonant at the end, and the otherwise innovative variety Yatzachi keeps
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