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

Highland Chatino
Sierra Chatino
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Native speakers	17,800 (2000)[1]
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

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

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

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

External links