Eastern Chatino Explained

Highland Chatino
Nativename:Sierra Chatino
States:Mexico
Region:Oaxaca
Speakers:17,800
Date:2000
Ref:e19
Familycolor:American
Fam1:Oto-Manguean
Fam2:Zapotecan
Fam3:Chatino
Fam4:Zacatepec–Highlands
Lc1:ctp
Ld1:Western Highland
Lc2:cly
Ld2:Eastern Highland (Lachao-Yolotepec)
Lc3:cya
Ld3:Nopala
Lc4:ctz
Ld4:Zacatepec
Glotto:east2736
Glottorefname:Eastern Chatino

Highland Chatino is an indigenous Mesoamerican language, one of the Chatino family of the Oto-Manguean languages. Dialects are rather diverse; neighboring dialects are about 80% mutually intelligible.

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

Dialects

Eastern Chatino is spoken in 14 dialects in 17 communities that centered on the economic and cultural centers of Santa Catarina Juquila and Santiago Yaitepec. ISO assigns these dialects to four groups with different language codes, but there is no objective evidence that the dialects grouped together are closest to each other. Dialects include:

Lachao-Yolotepec

Yaitepec

Panixtlahuaca

Quiahije

Nopala

Zacatepec

Phonology

Yaitepec Chatino

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

! rowspan="2"
BilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
plainpal.plainlab.plainlab.pal.
Plosivevoicelessptckʔ
voiceddɟɡɡʷ
Affricatevoicelesst͡st͡ʃ
voicedd͡z
Fricativevoicelesssʃh
voicedzʒ
Nasalplainmn
preglottalʔnʔnʲ
Laterall
Rhoticɾ
Approximantplainjw
preglottalʔjʔw
Vowels
FrontCentralBack
oralnasaloralnasal
Closeiɪ̃uũ
Mideɛ̃o
Opena

An epenthetic schwa sound pronounced as /[ə]/ is heard in between consonants.

Rasch (2002) reports ten distinct tones for Yaitepec Chatino: the four level tones of high pronounced as //˥//, mid pronounced as //˦//, low-mid pronounced as //˨//, and low pronounced as //˩//; the two rising tones /˦˥/ and /˨˦/; and the three falling tones pronounced as //˥˦//, pronounced as //˦˨//, pronounced as //˨˩//, as well as a more limited falling tone pronounced as //˦˩//, 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) = pronounced as //ʃ//, (ch) = pronounced as //tʃ//, and pronounced as //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 lexical tone letters:,[1] with additional letters (superscript M and S) for tone sandhi. Not all of these are distinct in all dialects; rather, they mark pan-dialect tone-cognate sets.

In Yaitepec dialect, the pronunciations are:[2]

ᴬ pronounced as /[˧]/ (3)

ᴮ pronounced as /[˦˨]/ (24)

ꟲ = ᴷ pronounced as /[˦˧]/ (23)

ᴰ pronounced as /[˥˨]/ (14)

ᴱ pronounced as /[˥]/ (1)

ꟳ = ᴸ pronounced as /[˧˦]/ (32)

ᴳ pronounced as /[˥˦]/ (12)

ᴴ pronounced as /[˨˧]/ (43)

ᴵ pronounced as /[˦]/ (2)

ᴶ pronounced as /[˧˥]/ (31)

References

Notes and References

  1. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20251-mod-latin.pdf Unicode submission L2/20-251
  2. Web site: Chatino language, alphabet and pronunciation .