The Chatinos are an
indigenous people of Mexico
Indigenous peoples of Mexico ( es, gente indígena de México, pueblos indígenas de México), Native Mexicans ( es, nativos mexicanos) or Mexican Native Americans ( es, pueblos originarios de México, lit=Original peoples of Mexico), are those ...
. Chatino communities are located in the southeastern region of the state of
Oaxaca in southern central Mexico. Their native
Chatino language
Chatino 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 sou ...
are spoken by about 23,000 people (Ethnologue surveys), but ethnic Chatinos may number many more. The Chatinos of San Juan Quiahije call themselves ''neq-a tnya-j'' and their language ''Chaq-f tnya-b''.
Chatino populations are found in the following
Oaxacan municipalities, mostly in the area around Juquila:
Santos Reyes Nopala,
San Juan Quiahije or KichinA kiqyaC,
San Miguel Panixtlahuaca or KchinA SkwiE,
Santiago Yaitepec or KeG XinE,
Santa Cruz Zenzontepec or QyaC ytiB,
San Juan Lachao or TsoH,
Santa María Temaxcaltepec or XyanA,
Santa Catarina Juquila
Santa Catarina Juquila is a town in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, and is the seat of the municipality also called Santa Catarina Juquila.
It is part of the Juquila District in the center of the Costa Region.
The name "Juquila" comes from "Xuhquili ...
or SqweF and
Tataltepec de Valdés or LoA qoJ.
The region that the Chatinos inhabit is rich in natural resources. Traditionally many Chatino people have been involved in
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
, which depends very much on the climate, so some Chatinos have had to emigrate to the corners of the district of Juquila to work on coffee plantations. Most Chatino communities have public services, and there are
runway
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete, ...
s for airports in many
municipalities
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
. Federal bilingual schools, high schools, and ''
telesecundarias'' (distance education programs for secondary and high school students) have been established.
The traditional authorities of this people are organized in a system based on civil and religious roles, in which advice from elders is treated as the greatest authority. They believe in the Holy Grandmother, the Holy Father Sun, the Holy Mother Earth, and the Holy Mother Moon. In addition, they worship the deities of water, wind, rain, the mountain, and fire.
Chatino languages
Chatino is a family of
indigenous Mesoamerican languages, which is classified under the
Zapotecan branch of the
Oto-Manguean
The Oto-Manguean or Otomanguean languages are a large family comprising several subfamilies of indigenous languages of the Americas. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but the Manguean branch of the ...
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
. The Chatino people have close cultural and linguistic ties with the
Zapotec people
The Zapotecs ( Valley Zapotec: ''Bën za'') are an indigenous people of Mexico. The population is concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, but Zapotec communities also exist in neighboring states. The present-day population is estimated at app ...
s, whose
Zapotec language
The Zapotec languages are a group of around 50 closely related indigenous Mesoamerican languages that constitute a main branch of the Oto-Manguean language family and which is spoken by the Zapotec people from the southwestern-central highland ...
form the rest of the Zapotecan branch of the Otomanguean language family.
According to Campbell, there are three main Chatino languages, which exhibit varying degrees of
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
: Zenzontepec Chatino, Tataltepec Chatino, and Eastern or Highland Chatino.
Varieties of Eastern or Highland Chatino are the most widely spoken. The Zenzontepec language is also spoken in Tlapanalquiahuitl and Tlacotepec; the Tataltepec language is used only in that ''municipio''.
[Greenberg, James B. "Chatino." In Davíd Carrasco (ed). ]
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
'. : Oxford University Press, 2001.
External links
– Ethnographic description of the Chatino people
*
References
Ethnic groups in Mexico
Indigenous peoples in Mexico
Oaxaca
{{Mexico-stub