Cuicatec is an

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 spoken in

Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...

, Mexico. It belongs to the Mixtecan branch together with the

Mixtec languages The Mixtec () languages belong to the Mixtecan group of the Oto-Manguean language family. Mixtec is spoken in Mexico and is closely related to Trique and Cuicatec. The varieties of Mixtec are spoken by over half a million people.2000 census; ...

and the

Trique language The Triqui (), or Trique, languages are a family of Oto-Manguean spoken by 30,000 Trique people of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and the state of Baja California in 2007 (due to recent population movements). They are also spoken by 5,000 immigrants ...

. The

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

lists two major dialects of Cuicatec: Tepeuxila Cuicatec and Teutila Cuicatec. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, Cuicatec is tonal. The

Cuicatecs The Cuicatecs are an indigenous people of Mexico. The Cuicatecs traditionally speak the Cuicatec language and are closely related to the Mixtecs. Alongside the Trique and Mixtecan, the Cuicatecs form one branch of the Otomanguean language family. ...

are closely related to the

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Culture wa ...

s. They inhabit two towns: Teutila and

Tepeuxila San Juan Tepeuxila is a town and Municipalities of Oaxaca, municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 366.16 km². It is part of Cuicatlán District in the north of the Cañada, Oaxaca, Cañada Region. As o ...

in western Oaxaca. According to the 2000 census, they number around 23,000, of whom an estimated 65% are speakers of the language. The name ''Cuicatec'' is a

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

, from 'song' 'inhabitant of place of'.Campbell 1997:402) Cuicatec-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station

XEOJN XEOJN-AM (''La Voz de la Chinantla'' – "The Voice of la Chinantla") is an indigenous community radio station that broadcasts in Spanish, Mazatec, Cuicatec and Chinantec from San Lucas Ojitlán, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is run by ...

, based in

San Lucas Ojitlán San Lucas Ojitlán is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 595.81 km². It is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region The Cuenca del Papaloapan Region is in the north o ...

Phonology

Vowels

The Santa Maria Papalo dialect contains six vowel sounds both oral and nasal:

Consonants

Allophones of the following sounds /β ð ɣ n j t tʃ/ include d ɡ~x ŋ j̈ θ ʃ respectively.

Notes

Bibliography

*Anderson, E. Richard & Hilario Concepción R. 1983. Diccionario cuicateco: español-cuicateco, cuicateco-español. Mexico City: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. *Bradley, David P. 1991. A preliminary syntactic sketch of Concepción Pápalo Cuicatec. In C. Henry Bradley and Barbara E. Hollenbach (eds.), Studies in the syntax of Mixtecan languages 3, pp. 409–506. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. *Campbell, Lyle. 1997. ''American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Needham, Doris & Marjorie Davis. 1946. Cuicateco phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 12: 139-46. *Prewett, Joanne and Omer E. 1974. The Segmental Phonology of Cuicateco of Santa María Pápalo Oaxaca, Mexico, pp. 53-92 {{Languages of Mexico Indigenous languages of Mexico Mixtecan languages