Highland Chatino

Highland Chatino
Highland Chatino
Sierra Chatino
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Native speakers	17,800 (2000)
Language family	Oto-Manguean Zapotecan Chatino Zacatepec–Highlands Highland Chatino; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously:; ctp – Western Highland; cly – Eastern Highland (Lachao-Yolotepec); cya – Nopala
Glottolog	east2736 = Zacatepec–Highlands
ELP	Western Highland Chatino

Highland Chatino is an indigenous Mesoamerican language, one of the Chatino family of the Oto-Manguean languages. Dialects are rather diverse; Ethnologue 16 counts them as three languages as follows:

Eastern Highland Chatino (Lachao-Yolotepec dialect)
Western Chatino (Yaitepec, Panixtlahuaca, and Quiahije dialects)
Nopala Chatino

Neighboring dialects between the three groups are about 80% mutually intelligible; diversity among the three Western dialects is almost as great.

For phonological and grammatical details, see Chatino languages, which includes examples from Yaitepec dialect.

Phonology[]

Zacatepec Chatino[]

There are nine vowel sounds both oral and nasal:

Vowels
	Front		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
Close	i	ɪ̃	u	ũ
Mid	e	ɛ̃	o
Open	a			ɑ̃

/o/ can be heard as [ɔ] when followed by a glottal /ʔ/.

Consonants
	Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Laminal- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
	Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Laminal- alveolar	Palatal	plain	lab.	Glottal
Plosive	p, (b)	t, (d)	t̻		k	kʷ	ʔ
Affricate		t͡s		t͡ʃ
Fricative		s		ʃ			h
Nasal	m	n	n̻		(ŋ)
Rhotic		(ɾ, r̥)
Approximant		l	l̻	j		w

Consonants in parentheses only exist as a result of Spanish loanwords.
When following a nasal segment, the consonants /p, t, t̻, t͡s, t͡ʃ, k, kʷ/ can be voiced to [b, d, d̻, d͡z, d͡ʒ, ɡ, ɡʷ].
/l, l̻/ have rare voiceless allophones of [l̥, l̻̥], when following a glottal /h/.
/w/ can have allophones of [β, b, ʍ]. [β] before front vowels, [b] before a /j/, and [ʍ] when following a /h/.
/n/ can assimilate to a velar [ŋ], when preceding a velar /k, kʷ/.^[2]

Yaitepec Chatino[]

Yaitepec Chatino has the following phonemic consonants (Rasch 2002):

Consonants
		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Bilabial	plain	pal.	Palatal	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	pal.
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		c	k	kʷ	ʔ
Plosive	voiced		d		ɟ	ɡ	ɡʷ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s		t͡ʃ
Affricate	voiced		d͡z
Fricative	voiceless		s		ʃ			h	hʷ	hʲ
Fricative	voiced		z		ʒ
Nasal	plain	m	n	nʲ
Nasal	preglottal		ʔn	ʔnʲ
Lateral			l	lʲ
Rhotic			ɾ
Approximant	plain				j		w
Approximant	preglottal				ʔj		ʔw

Sounds /d͡z, ʒ/ only rarely occur.
Other fricative sounds /ð, ɣ/ may also appear as a result of Spanish loanwords.
/hʷ/ is heard as a labio-dental [f] when preceding consonants.
Nasals when preceding consonants, are heard as syllabic [n̩, m̩].
A bilabial nasal /m/ can also be written as nw orthographically. When nw is preceding a /k/, it is pronounced as [ŋʷ], elsewhere; it is heard as [m].
/w/ can be heard as a bilabial fricative [β], when preceding sounds /j, i, e/ in word-initial position.
/n/ assimilates as [ŋ] when preceding velar consonants /k, ɡ/.
/k/ is heard as [kʲ] when preceding /e/.
/j/ is heard as voiceless [j̊] when preceding a voiceless consonant.

Vowels
	Front		Central	Back
	oral	nasal	Central	oral	nasal
Close	i	ɪ̃		u	ũ
Mid	e	ɛ̃	(ə)	o	ɔ̃
Open			a

An extra schwa sound [ə] is heard in between consonants.

Rasch (2002) reports ten distinct tones for Yaitepec Chatino. /˥/, mid /˦/, low-mid /˨/, and low /˩/. There are also two rising tones (/˦˥/ and /˨˦/) and three falling tones (/˥˦/, /˦˨/, /˨˩/) as well as a more limited falling tone /˦˩/, found in a few lexical items and in a few Completive forms of verbs.

Orthography[]

There are a variety of practical orthographies for Chatino, most based on Spanish orthography. Typically, ⟨x⟩ = /ʃ/, ⟨ch⟩ = /tʃ/, and /k/ is spelled ⟨c⟩ before back vowels and ⟨qu⟩ before front vowels.

In Quiahije Chatino, and perhaps more broadly across Highland Chatino, superscript capitals A–L are used as tone letters: ᴬ ᴮ ꟲ ᴰ ᴱ ꟳ ᴳ ᴴ ᴵ ᴶ ᴷ ᴸ.^[3]

References[]

^ Western Highland at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Eastern Highland (Lachao-Yolotepec) at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Nopala at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
^ Villard, Stéphanie (2015). The Phonology and Morphology of Zacatepec Eastern Chatino. University of Texas at Austin.
^ Unicode submission L2/20-251

Rasch, Jeffrey Walker. 2002. The basic morpho-syntax of Yaitepec Chatino. Ph.D. thesis. Rice University.

External links[]

[e19-1] Western Highland at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Eastern Highland (Lachao-Yolotepec) at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Nopala at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)

[2] Villard, Stéphanie (2015). The Phonology and Morphology of Zacatepec Eastern Chatino. University of Texas at Austin.

[3] Unicode submission L2/20-251

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