Huautla Mazatec
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The Mazatecan languages are a group of closely related
indigenous languages An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...
spoken by some 200,000 people in the area known as the
Sierra Mazateca The Sierra Mazateca is a mountainous area, part of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountain range, located in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. It is named after the Mazatec people, who are indigenous to the area. Geography ...
, which is in the northern part of the state of
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 ...
in southern
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, as well as in adjacent areas of the states of
Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...
and
Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
. The group is often described as a single language called Mazatec, but because several varieties are not mutually intelligible, they are better described as a group of languages.Gudschinsky 1958 The languages belong to the Popolocan subgroup of the Oto-Manguean language family. Under the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, they are recognized as "national languages" in Mexico, along with Spanish and other indigenous languages. The Mazatec language is vigorous in many of the smaller communities of the Mazatec area, and in many towns, it is spoken by almost everyone. But in some of the larger communities, such as
Huautla de Jiménez Huautla de Jimenez is a town and municipality in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the Teotitlán District in the north of the Cañada Region. The name Huautla comes from the Náhuatl. The town is called "Tejao" (also Eagle's Nest) in ...
and
Jalapa de Díaz Xalapa or Jalapa (, ), officially Xalapa-Enríquez (), is the capital city of the Mexico, Mexican States of Mexico, state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In the 2005 census the city reported a population of 387,879 and t ...
, more people are beginning to use Spanish more frequently. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, the Mazatecan languages are tonal; tone plays an integral part in distinguishing both lexical items and grammatical categories. The centrality of tone to the Mazatec language is exploited by the system of whistle speech, used in most Mazatec communities, which allows speakers of the language to have entire conversations only by whistling.


Classification

The Mazatecan languages are part of the Oto-Manguean language family and belong to the family's Eastern branch. In that branch, they belong to the Popolocan subgroup, together with the
Popoloca Popoluca is a Nahuatl term for various indigenous peoples of southeastern Veracruz and Oaxaca. Many of them (about 30,000
, Ixcatec and
Chocho language Chocho (also Chocholtec, Chocholteco Chochotec, Chochon, or Ngigua) is a language of the Popolocan branch of the Oto-Manguean language family spoken in Mexico in the following communities of Oaxaca: San Miguel Chicahua (settlement of Llano Sec ...
s.
Daniel Garrison Brinton Daniel Garrison Brinton (May 13, 1837July 31, 1899) was an American surgeon, historian, archaeologist and ethnologist. Biography Brinton was born in Thornbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Yale University in 1858, ...
was the first to propose a classification of the Mazatec languages, which he correctly grouped with the Zapotec and
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; t ...
. In 1892 he second-guessed his own previous classification and suggested that Mazatec was related to
Chiapanec Chiapanec is a presumably extinct indigenous Mexican language of the Oto-Manguean language family. The 1990 census reported 17 speakers of the language in southern Chiapas out of an ethnic population of 32, but later investigations failed to find ...
- Mangue and
Chibcha The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...
. Early comparative work by
Morris Swadesh Morris Swadesh (; January 22, 1909 – July 20, 1967) was an American linguist who specialized in comparative and historical linguistics. Swadesh was born in Massachusetts to Bessarabian Jewish immigrant parents. He completed bachelor's and mas ...
,
Roberto Weitlaner The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
and Stanley Newman laid the foundations for comparative Oto-Manguean studies. Weitlaner's student, María Teresa Fernandez de Miranda, was the first to propose reconstruction of the
Popolocan languages The Popolocan languages are a subfamily of the Oto-Manguean language family of Mexico, spoken mainly in the state of Puebla. The Popolocan languages should not be confused with the languages called Popoluca spoken in the state of Veracruz, whi ...
. While the work cited Mazatec data, she left Mazatecan out of the reconstruction. Subsequent work by Summer Institute linguist Sarah Gudschinsky gave a full reconstruction first of Proto-Mazatec (Gudschinsky 1956). She next reconstructed what she called Proto-Popolocan-Mazatecan (Gudschinsky 1959) (it was referred to as Popotecan, but this term was not widely adopted.)


Languages

Th
ISO 639-3
standard enumerates nine Mazatecan languages. They are named after the villages where they are commonly spoken (with the exception of Puebla Mazatec): *
Chiquihuitlán Mazatec Chiquihuitlán is the most divergent variety of Mazatec, less than 50% intelligible with Huautla, the prestige variety In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech communi ...
(2500 speakers in San Juan Chiquihuitlán. Quite divergent from other varieties.) *Central **
Huautla Mazatec The Mazatecan languages are a group of closely related Mesoamerican languages, indigenous languages spoken by some 200,000 people in the area known as the Sierra Mazateca, which is in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, ...
(50,000 speakers. The
prestige variety In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige Variety (linguistics), varieties are language or dialect families wh ...
of Mazatec, spoken in Huautla de Jiménez). **
Ayautla Mazatec Ayautla Mazatec is a Mazatecan language spoken in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, in the town of San Bartolomé Ayautla. Egland (1978) found 80% intelligibility with Huautla, the prestige variety of Mazatec. See Mazatecan languages The Mazat ...
(3500 speakers in San Bartolome Ayautla. Quite similar to Huautla.) **
Mazatlán Mazatec Mazatlán Mazatec is a Mazatecan languages, Mazatecan language spoken in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, in the town of Mazatlán Villa de Flores.See Egland (1978). ''Ethnologue'' 17 lists the towns of Tecóatl Mazatec. Egland (1978) found 80% intel ...
(13,000 speakers in Mazatlán and surrounding villages. Somewhat similar to Huautla.) * Eloxochitlán Mazatec ( or Jerónimo Mazatec (34,000 speakers in San Jerónimo Tecóatl, San Lucas Zoquiapan, Santa Cruz Acatepec, San Antonio Eloxochitlán, and many other villages. Somewhat similar to Huautla.) *
Ixcatlán Mazatec Ixcatlán Mazatec is a Mazatecan language spoken in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, notably in the towns of Chichicazapa, Nuevo Ixcatlán, and San Pedro Ixcatlán. Egland (1978) found 76% intelligibility with Huautla, the prestige variety of Mazate ...
(11,000 speakers in San Pedro Ixcatlán, Chichicazapa, and Nuevo Ixcatlán. Somewhat similar to Huautla.) *
Jalapa Mazatec Jalapa Mazatec is a Mazatecan language. An estimate from 1990 suggested it was spoken by 15,000 people, one-third of whom are monolingual, in 13 villages in the vicinity of the town of San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz in the Tuxtepec District of the M ...
(16,000 speakers in San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz. Somewhat similar to Huautla.) *
Soyaltepec Mazatec Soyaltepec Mazatec is a Mazatecan language spoken in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, notably in the towns of Santa María Jacatepec and San Miguel Soyaltepec, and on Soyaltepec Island. Due to flooding from the construction of a dam, the Soyaltepec ...
(23,000 speakers in San Maria Jacaltepec and San Miguel Soyaltepec. Somewhat similar to Huautla.) * Puebla and Northeastern Mazatec (33,800 speakers in both Oaxaca and Puebla states.) Studies of mutual intelligibility between Mazatec-speaking communities revealed that most are relatively close but distinct enough that literacy programs must recognize local standards. The Huautla, Ayautla, and Mazatlán varieties are about 80% mutually intelligible; Tecóatl (Eloxochitlán), Jalapa, Ixcatlán, and Soyaltepec are more distant, at 70%+ intelligibility with Hautla or with each other. Chiquihuitlán is divergent. In 2020, there were 237,000 speakers of Mazatecan languages according t
INEGI
Approximately 80% of the speakers know and use Spanish for some purposes. Many Mazatec children know little or no Spanish when they enter school.


Dialect history

The language is divided into many dialects, or varieties, some of which are not mutually intelligible. The western dialects spoken in Huautla de Jiménez, and San Mateo Huautla, Santa María Jiotes, Eloxochitlán, Tecóatl, Ayautla, and Coatzospan are often referred to as Highland Mazatec. The North Eastern dialects spoken in San Miguel Huautla, Jalapa de Díaz, Mazatlán de Flores, San Pedro Ixcatlán, and San Miguel Soyaltepec are referred to as Lowland Mazatec. The Highland and Lowland dialects differ by a number of sound changes shared by each of the groups, particularly sound changes affecting the proto-Mazatecan phoneme . Also, the high dialects of Huautla and Jiotes used "sh", along with the low dialects of San Miguel, Jalapa, and Ixatlán. The use of "sh" in both dialects corresponded with "ch," which was used in the high dialects of Tecoatl, Eloxochitlan, San Mateo, and the low dialects of Mazatlan and Soyaltepec. Linguists believe that "Sh" and "ch" were reflexes of Proto-Poplocan. The San Miguel Huautla dialect occupies an intermediary position, sharing traits with both groups. The division between highland and lowland dialects corresponds to the political division between highland and lowland territories that existed from 1300 to 1519. During the period of
Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
dominance from 1456 to 1519, the Highland territory was ruled from
Teotitlán del Camino Teotitlán may refer to: * Teotitlán de Flores Magón, town and municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico *Teotitlán del Valle, town and municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico *Teotitlán District Teotitlán District is located in the north of the Cañada Region ...
and the lowland territory from
Tuxtepec San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec ( nah, Tōchtepēc, "on the hill of rabbits"), or simply referred to as Tuxtepec, is the head of the municipality by the same name and is the second most populous city of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the Tux ...
. The political division remains today. The distinction between highland and lowland dialects is supported by shared sound changes: in Lowland Mazatec dialects, Proto-Mazatecan merged with /*t/ before front vowels /*i/ and /*e/, and in the Highland dialects, merged with in position before /*k/.


Lowland dialects

Lowland dialects then split into Valley dialects and the dialect of San Miguel Huautla. The dialect of San Miguel Huautla underwent the same sound change of to before /*k/, which had already happened in the highland dialects, but in San Miguel Huautla, the shift happened after the merger of with /*t/ before /*i/ and /*e/. The Valley dialects underwent a change of /*n/ to in sequences with a /vowel-hn-a/ or /vowel-hn-u/. The Valley dialects then separated into Southern (Mazatlán and Jalapa) and Northern (Soyaltepec and Ixcatlán) valley dialects. The Southern dialects changed to /t/ before /*k/ (later changing *tk to /hk/ in Mazatlán and simplifying to /k/ in Jalapa), and the Northern dialects changed to before /*/a. The dialect of Ixcatlán then separated from the one of Soyaltepec by changing sequences of and to /tik/ and /tuk/, respectively.


Highland dialects

The Highland dialects split into Western and Eastern (Huautla de Jiménez and Jiotes) groups; in the Western dialects the sequence changed to /sk/, but the Eastern ones changed it to /hk/. The dialect of Huautla de Jiménez then changed sequences of to before short vowels, and the dialect of Santa Maria Jiotes merged the labialized velar stop to .


Phonology

Like many other
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 ...
languages, Mazatecan languages have complex phonologies characterized by complex tone systems and several uncommon
phonation The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defini ...
phenomena such as
creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...
,
breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
and
ballistic syllable Ballistic syllables are a phonemic distinction in Otomanguean languages: Chinantec and Amuzgo. They have been described as characterized with increased sub- glottal pressure (Mugele 1982) or laryngeal abduction (Silverman 1994). The acoustic effec ...
s. The following review of a Mazatecan
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
inventory will be based on the description of the Jalapa de Díaz variety published by Silverman, Blankenship et al. (1995).


Comparative Mazatec phonology

The Mazatecan variety with the most thoroughly described phonology is that of Jalapa de Díaz, which has been described in two publications by Silverman, Blankenship, Kirk and Ladefoged (1994 and 1995). The description is based on acoustic analysis and contemporary forms of phonological analysis. To give an overview of the phonological variety among Mazatecan languages, it is presented here and compared to the earlier description of Chiquihuitlán Mazatec published by the
SIL SIL, Sil and sil may refer to: Organizations * Servis Industries Limited, Pakistan * Smithsonian Institution Libraries * SIL International, formerly Summer Institute of Linguistics * Apex Silver Mines (former American Stock Exchange ticker symb ...
linguist A. R. Jamieson, in 1977, which is not based on modern acoustic analysis and relies on a much more dated phonological theory and so it should be regarded as a tentative account. One fundamental distinction between the analyses is that Silverman et al. analyze distinctions between aspirated and nasalized consonants, but Jamieson analyzes them as sequences of two or more phonemes, arriving therefore at a much smaller number of consonants.


Vowels

There is considerable differences in the number of vowels in different Mazatec varieties. Huautla de Jíménez Mazatec has only four contrasting vowel qualities /i e a o/, and Chiquihuitlán has six. Jalapa Mazatec has a basic five vowel system contrasting back and front vowels and closed and open vowel height, with an additional mid high back vowel . Additional vowels distinguish oral, nasal, breathy and creaky phonation types. There is some evidence that there are also
ballistic syllable Ballistic syllables are a phonemic distinction in Otomanguean languages: Chinantec and Amuzgo. They have been described as characterized with increased sub- glottal pressure (Mugele 1982) or laryngeal abduction (Silverman 1994). The acoustic effec ...
s contrasting with non-ballistic ones. Chiquihuitlán Mazatec on the other hand is described as having 6 vowels and a nasal distinction. Jamieson does not describe a creaky/breathy phonation distinction but instead describes vowels interrupted by glottal stop or aspiration corresponding to creakiness and breathiness respectively.Jamieson 1977


Tone

Tone systems differ markedly between varieties. Jalapa Mazatec has three level tones (high, mid, low) and at least 6 contour tones (high-mid, low-mid, mid-low, mid-high, low-high, high-low-high). Chiquihuitlán Mazatec has a more complex tone system with four level tones (high, midhigh, midlow, low) and 13 different contour tones (high-low, midhigh-low, midlow-low, high-high (longer than a single high), midhigh-high, midlow-high, low-high, high-high-low, midhigh-high-low, midlow-high-low, low-high-low, low-midhigh-low, low-midhigh). Mazatec of Huautla de Jiménez´ has distinctive tones on every syllable, and the same seems to be the case in Chiquihuitlán. Mazatec distinguishes tone only for certain syllables. Huautla Mazatec has no system of tonal
sandhi Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
, but the Chiquihuitlán variety has complex sandhi rules.


Consonants

Jalapa Mazatec has a three-way contrast between aspirated/voiceless, voiced, and nasalized articulation for all plosives, nasals and approximants. The lateral occurs only in loanwords, and the tap occurs in only one morpheme, the clitic ''a'' "probably". The bilabial aspirated and plain stops are also marginal phonemes.


Huautla Mazatec


Vowels


Consonants

// may also be heard as a fricative []. Sounds [, ] are from Spanish loanwords.


Grammar


Verb morphology

In Chiquihutlán Mazatec, verb stems are of the shape CV (consonant+vowel) and are always inflected with a stem-forming prefix marking person and number of the
subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...
and aspect. In addition, verbs always carry a suffix that marks the person and number of the subject. The vowel of the suffix fuses with the vowel of the verb stem.Léonard & Kihm 2010 There are 18 verb classes distinguished by the shape of their stem-forming prefixes. Classes 1, 2, 7, 10 and 15 cover intransitive verbs, and the rest of the classes involve transitive verbs. Transitive verbs have two prefix forms, one used for third person and first person singular and another used for the other persons (2nd person plural and singular and first person plural inclusive and exclusive). Clusivity distinctions as well as the distinction between second and first person is marked by the tonal pattern across the word (morphemes and stem do not have inherent lexical tone).


Person

Chiquihuitlán Mazatec distinguishes between three person categories (first, second, and third) and two numbers (singular, plural), and for the first person plural, it distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive categories. In the third person, number is not specified but only definiteness (definite or indefinite). Number is not expressed by free pronouns or noun phrases if it is directly retrievable from context.


Tense and aspect

Chiquihuitlán Mazatec inflects for four aspects: completive, continuative, incompletive, as well as a neutral or unmarked aspect. Completive aspect is formed by prefixing /ka-/ to the neutral verb form, continuative is formed by prefixing /ti-/. The incompletive aspect has a distinct set of stem forming prefixes as well as distinct tone patterns. In incompletive transitive verbs, only the first-person singular and the third-person prefixes vary from the corresponding neutral forms; the first-person plural and the second-person forms are identical to the corresponding neutral forms.


Whistle speech

Most Mazatec communities employ forms of whistle speech in which linguistic utterances are produced by whistling the tonal contours of words and phrases. Mazatec languages lend themselves very well to becoming whistling languages because of the high functional load of tone in Mazatec grammar and semantics. Whistling is extremely common for young men, who often have complex conversations entirely through whistling. Women, on the other hand, do not generally use whistle speech, just as older males use it more rarely than younger ones. Small boys learn to whistle while they learn to talk. Whistling is used generally to communicate over a distance, attract the attention of passersby, or avoid interfering with ongoing spoken conversations, but even economic transactions can be conducted entirely through whistling. Since whistle speech does not encode precise information about vowel or consonants, it is often ambiguous with several possible meanings. However, since most whistling treats a limited number of topics, it is normally unproblematic to disambiguate meaning through context.


Media

Mazatecan-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 th ...
, 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 ...
,
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 ...
. The entire New Testament is available in several varieties of Mazatec. A wide variety of Bible-based literature and video content is published in Mazatec by
Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
.


Notes


References

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External links


Lengua mazateca
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