Huehuetla Tepehua

Huehuetla Tepehua is a moribund Tepehua language spoken in Huehuetla, northeastern Hidalgo, Mexico. There are fewer than 1,500 speakers left according to Susan Smythe Kung (2007).

Huehuetla Tepehua
Lhiimaqalhqama7
Native to	Mexico
Region	northeastern Hidalgo, Mexico
Native speakers	1,500 (2007)[1]
Language family	Totonacan Tepehua Huehuetla Tepehua
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tee
Glottolog	hueh1236
ELP	Huehuetla Tepehua[2]

Syntax

Word order tends to be VSO, although it can be SVO at times (Kung 2007).

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar		Post-alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
			Plain	Lateral
Nasal		m	n
Stop	Plain	p	t			k	q	ʔ
	Ejective	p'	t'			k'
	Voiced	(b)	(d)			(g)
Affricate	Plain	ts			tʃ
	Ejective	ts'			tʃ'
Fricative			s	ɬ	ʃ			h
Approximant		w		l	j
Trill			r
Flap			ɾ

The voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/, as well as the flap /ɾ/ and the trill /r/, appear only in loanwords and ideophones. In younger speakers, the uvular /q/ has merged with the glottal stop /ʔ/.

Vowels

Vowel Phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Morphology

Huehuetla Tepehua has a large variety of affixes (Kung 2007).

Valency-changing affixes

• Reflexive -kan
• Reciprocal laa-
• Dative -ni
• Causative maa-
• Instrumental puu-
• Comitative t'aa-
• Applicative lhii-

Aspectual derivational affixes

• Inchoative ta-
• Imminent ti-
• Roundtrip kii-
• Ambulative -t'ajun
• Begin -tzuku
• Desiderative -putun
• Repetitive -pala
• Again -choqo
• All -qoju
• Distal -chaa and Proximal -chii

Derivative affixes

• Agent nominalizer –nV7
• Non-agentive nominalizers –ti and -nti
• Deverbalizer -n
• Instrumental prefixes paa- and lhaa-
• Locative prefix puu-
• Applicative prefix lhii-
• Comitative prefix t'aa-

References

1. Huehuetla Tepehua at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Endangered Languages Project data for Huehuetla Tepehua.

• Kung, Susan Smythe. 2007 A Descriptive Grammar of Huehuetla Tepehua. Ph.D. dissertation: The University of Texas at Austin.