| Ojitlán Chinantec | |
| States: | Mexico |
| Region: | Oaxaca, Veracruz |
| Ethnicity: | Chinantecs |
| Speakers: | 38,000 |
| Date: | 2000 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Oto-Mangue |
| Fam2: | Western Oto-Mangue |
| Fam3: | Oto-Pame–Chinantecan |
| Fam4: | Chinantec |
| Iso3: | chj |
| Glotto: | ojit1237 |
| Glottorefname: | Ojitlan Chinantec |
Ojitlán Chinantec (Chinanteco de San Lucas Ojitlán) is a major Chinantecan language of Mexico, spoken in four towns in San Lucas Ojitlán of northern Oaxaca, and in the Veracruz municipos of Minatitlán and Hidalgotitlán.
Several spellings of Chinantec of Ojitlán have been developed. The Institute National for Adult Education (INEA) and SIL International use different spellings.
In the spelling of INEA, the high tone is indicated using the acute accent of the letter of the vowel, the medium tone by the absence of a diacritic above or below it, the low tone using the underlined line, and the very low tone using the double underlined line. This spelling uses seven letters for the vowels: ‹ a, e, ɇ, i, ɨ, o, u ›.
There are only a few monomorphemic words that display contrastive vowel length, so this Chinantecan feature may be being lost from Ojitlán.
| [1] | Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | |||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||||
pronounced as //i e o// are freely realized as pronounced as /[ɪ ɛ ɔ]/. pronounced as //a// is occasionally pronounced as /[æ]/.
pronounced as //ɯ// and pronounced as //ɤ// are difficult to distinguish, but there are a few minimal pairs.
Each vowel can be nasalized. pronounced as //ẽ// and pronounced as //ũ// are rare.
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Postalv. / Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Trill | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Nasal | voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Lateral | voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Glide | voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
pronounced as //p// is uncommon.
Some consonants are nearly in complementary distribution:
pronounced as //r// is occasionally a single-contract trill, and post-pausa may be pronounced as /[nr]/.
pronounced as //l// is apical alveolar.
pronounced as //ŋ// and pronounced as //ŋ̊// are pronounced as /[ɲ, ɲ̊]/ before pronounced as //i//.
The voiceless sonorants are analyzed as pronounced as //hC// sequences in other Chinantecan languages, and in addition there is a series of pronounced as //ʔC// sequences pronounced as //ʔm, ʔŋ, ʔw, ʔj// in Ojitlán. The Ojitlán retroflex lateral corresponds to pronounced as //ʔl// in other Chinantec, and that is perhaps how it should be analized in Ojitlán as well.
Syllables may be unstressed or have normal stress. Normal stress involves increased length and amplitude of the vowel. What was historically ballistic stress is realized in Ojitlán as extra-high and extra-low tones (from ballistic high and ballistic falling, respectively), and tend to involve aspiration of the consonant, breathiness of the vowel and a sharp falling pitch but not the other correlates of Chinantecan ballistic syllables. There are also a number of phonemic (as opposed to just phonetic) contour tones, though the number had not been established as of Macaulay (1999).
| Extra high | a̋ʔ | cricket | sharp falling contour |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | óʔ | broken | slight rising-falling contour |
| Mid | ɤ̄ʔ | measles | slight falling contour |
| Low | à | many | slight rising-falling contour |
| Extra low | ɯ̏ʔ | when | sharp falling contour |
| Low rising | kĩ́ʔo᷅ʔ | door | |
| Mid rising | he᷄ːŋã̄ | forest | |
| High falling | ʔnã᷇ | open | |
| Mid falling | tʃi᷆ː | good |