Chocho Language
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Chocho (also Chocholtec, Chocholteco Chochotec, Chochon, or Ngigua) is a language of the Popolocan 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 spoken in
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 ...
in the following communities 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 ...
: San Miguel Chicahua (settlement of Llano Seco), Teotongo (settlements of El Progreso, El Tecomate, Guadalupe, and La Luz), San Miguel Huautla (settlement of Ocotlán), Santa Magdalena Jicotlán (settlements of San Mateo Tlapiltepec, and Santiago Tepetlapa), San Pedro Nopala (settlements of San Mateo Tlapiltepec, and Santa María Jicotlán), San Miguel Tequixtepec (settlement of Los Batos), San Francisco Teopan (settlements of Concepción Buenavista, Santiago Ihuitlán Plumas, Tepelmeme Villa de Morelos, and Tlacotepec Plumas), Ocotlán (settlements of Boquerón, San Antonio Nduayaco, Tierra Colorada, and Unión Palo Solo), Santa María Nativitas (settlements of Barrio Nicolás, Barrio Santiago, El Mirador, El Porvenir, Loma del Tepejillo, Pie del Cordoncillo, Primera Sección (Santa Cruz), San José Monte Verde, San Pedro Buenavista, and Santa María Nativitas),
San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca is a small town and municipality located in the Mixteca Region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, and the center of the Coixtlahuaca district. The name, "Coixtlahuaca" means 'plain of snakes' in the Nahuatl language. ...
(settlements of El Capulín (Sección Primera), El Tepozón (Sección Segunda), El Zapotal (Sección Tercera), La Mulata, and Santa Catarina Ocotlán), and
San Miguel Tulancingo San Miguel Tulancingo is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of . It is part of the Coixtlahuaca district Coixtlahuaca District is located in the northeast of the Mixteca Region of the St ...
(settlements of Agua Dulce, Buena Vista, El Coatillo, El Español, Gasucho, Loma Larga, Rancho Marino Sánchez, and San Miguel Tulancingo).https://www.inali.gob.mx/clin-inali/html/v_chocholteco.html Chocho is Spoken by 770 speakers (1998 Ethnologue Survey).


Phonology


Consonants


Vowels

* Vowel sounds / / can have lax allophones of Chocho is a
tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...
distinguishing low, mid and high tones.


Grammar

Carol Mock (1982) argues that Chocho distinguishes morphosyntactically between subjects of willful actions whether they are transitive or intransitive and subjects of unwillful actions. This results in her analysing Chocho as an active–stative language. As an example of how this works here is an example showing that the subject is marked with a different suffix depending on whether the action of the verb is active or inactive In an active/voluntary transitive phrase the agent/subject is marked by the active suffix "-á" and the patient by the inactive clitic "-mī". The patient/subject of an intransitive active/voluntary phrase is marked by the same suffix. However in an involuntary/inactive intransitive phrase the subject/patient is marked with the inactive clitic "má" like an object/patient of a transitive phrase. This
morphosyntactic alignment In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between Argument (linguistics), arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', an ...
would imply Chocho is a Split-S type active language. However, some intransitive verbs can use either the active person suffixes or the inactive enclitic, this suggests that it does in fact belong to the Fluid-S type active language.


References

*Annette Veerman-Leichsenring. 2000. Gramática del Chocho de Santa Catarina Ocotlán, Oaxaca. (CNWS Publications, 86.) Leiden: Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Universiteit Leiden. xiii+140pp. *Mock, Carol C, 1982, ''Los Casos Morfosintacticos del Chocho. Anales de Antropología, (Instituto de investigaciónes Antropologicas, UNAM) 19(2): 345-378. (Cited from Thomas C Smith and Fermin Tapia: "El Amuzgo como lengua activa" In Paulette Levy Ed. "Del Cora al Maya Yucateco" UNAM 2002)'' *Mock, Carol. 1977. Chocho: Santa Catarina Ocotlán, Oaxaca. (Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México, 4.) Mexico: Centro de Investigación para la Integración Social. 175pp.


External links

* ELAR archive o
Preliminary Documentation and Description of Chocholtec
{{Authority control Mesoamerican languages Indigenous languages of Mexico Oto-Manguean languages Popolocan languages Endangered Oto-Manguean languages