| Ozumacín Chinantec | |
| States: | Mexico |
| Region: | Oaxaca |
| Ethnicity: | Chinantecs |
| Speakers: | 3,100 |
| Date: | 2000 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Oto-Mangue |
| Fam2: | Western Oto-Mangue |
| Fam3: | Oto-Pame–Chinantecan |
| Fam4: | Chinantec |
| Iso3: | chz |
| Glotto: | ozum1235 |
| Glottorefname: | Ozumacin Chinantec |
| Dia1: | Ayotzintepec |
Ozumacín Chinantec (Chinanteco de San Pedro Ozumacín) is a Chinantecan language of Mexico, spoken in northern Oaxaca in the towns of San Pedro Ozumacín, Ayotzintepec, Santiago Progreso.
There are ten vowels, which may be oral or nasal. A length distinction is made in writing, but is based on comparison with other Chinantec languages; the distinction is apparently being lost from Ozumacín Chinantec.[1]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ (ʉ) | pronounced as /link/ (ɨ) | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Mid | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ (ø) | pronounced as /link/ (ë) | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /link/ (ä) | pronounced as /link/ |
Long vowels are written double.
Nasal vowels are written with an underscore, e.g. ji̱i̱ˊ 'bed'. This is not written after a nasal consonant, where there is no contrast with oral vowels.
The front rounded vowels arose historically from the influence of palatalized consonants on back vowels.
Consonants and their orthography are as follows:[1]
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Laryngeal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||
| Plosive &<br />Affricate | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||
| Liquid | pronounced as /ink/, pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||||
| Semivowel | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||||
/p/ and /b/ are rare in native words. Apart from loans, /d/ occurs only in the enclitic daˊ, which softens an imperative. The letters c and f are used for Spanish borrowings.
/h/ becomes pronounced as /[l̥, m̥, n̥, ɲ̊, ŋ̊]/ before pronounced as //l, m, n, ɲ, ŋ//.
Ozumacín Chinantec has nine tones. They are written as follows:[1]
| Tone | Example | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| high tone | tooˈ | metate | |
| mid tone | tooˊ | mamey seed | |
| low tone | tooˉ | banana | |
| high ballistic tone | kooꜗ | (it) will burn | |
| mid ballistic tone | kooꜘ | next to | |
| low ballistic tone | kooꜙ | (s/he) is playing | |
| high rising tone | juuhꜚ | pine(cone? apple? Sp. piña) | |
| mid rising tone | juuh˜ | (s/he) is coughing | |
| low rising tone | juuhˋ | cough! |
Ballistic syllables are marked by a steep drop in pitch.
The following diacritics are used to mark Ozumacín tones.[2]
A sample with all tone marks:[1]
This orthography is used in the Ozumacín Bible.[3]