Tequistlatec, also called Chontal, are three close but distinct languages spoken or once spoken by the
Chontal people 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 ...
State, Mexico.
Chontal was spoken by 6,000 or so people in 2020.
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Languages
* Huamelultec (Lowland Oaxaca Chontal),
*Tequistlatec
Tequistlatec was the Chontal language of Tequisistlán town, Oaxaca. Highland Oaxaca Chontal
Highland Oaxaca Chontal, or Chontal de la Sierra de Oaxaca, is one of the Chontal languages of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is sometimes called ''Tequistlate ...
(extinct),
*Highland Oaxaca Chontal
Highland Oaxaca Chontal, or Chontal de la Sierra de Oaxaca, is one of the Chontal languages of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is sometimes called ''Tequistlatec'', but is not the same as Tequistlatec proper, which is extinct.
Background
Highland Oaxaca ...
.
Name
Although most authors use the form ''tequistlatec(an)'' today, this is based on an improper derivation in Nahuatl (the correct derivation from '' Tequisistlán'' would be ''Tequisistec(an)'', and both terms were used by Sapir interchangeably).
Classification
The Tequistlatecan languages are part of the proposed Hokan
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California.
Etymology
The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...
family, but are often considered to be a distinct family. Campbell and Oltrogge (1980) proposed that the Tequistlatecan languages may be related to Jicaquean (see Tolatecan), but this hypothesis has not been generally accepted.
See also
* Huamelultec vocabulary list on the Spanish Wikipedia
The Spanish Wikipedia ( es, Wikipedia en español) is a Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on March 8, 2006 and 1,000,000 articles on May 16, 2013 ...
Notes
References
*Campbell, Lyle and Oltrogge, David. 1980. Proto-Tol (Jicaque). International Journal of American Linguistics, 46:205-223
* Campbell, Lyle. 1979. "Middle American languages." In L. Campbell & M. Mithun (Eds.), ''The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment'', (pp. 902–1000). Austin: University of Texas Press.
*Campbell, Lyle. 1997. "American Indian Languages, The Historical Linguistics of Native America." In ''Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics''. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Language families
Hokan languages
Indigenous languages of Mexico
Indigenous languages of Central America
Mesoamerican languages
Oaxaca
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