Zapotec languages

The Zapotec is a macrolanguage made up of different Zapotec languages (62 linguistic variants) spoken in the year 2000 by some 777,253 people in Oaxaca and other places. Along with the Chatino language, it forms part of a linguistic group that belongs to the Otomanguean trunk of Mesoamerican languages, along with the Mixtec, Mazatec, and Popolocan languages, among others. The Zapotec languages are spoken mainly in the states of Oaxaca and in the southeastern region of Veracruz, in southern Mexico.

It is a tonal language. The most frequent sentence order is Verb Subject Object (VSO).

Variants

Under the term "Zapotec" are included a large number of linguistic variants not always mutually intelligible, which means that these variants began to diverge from Proto-Zapotec many years ago. centuries.

Morris Swadesh estimated through statistical analysis of the lexicon and glottochronology that the time of diversification of Zapotec, properly speaking, was 14 centuries (comparable, for example, to the time of diversification of Latin to give the current Romance languages).

According to the intelligibility surveys published by the SIL, Zapotec would be made up of 38 variants or languages that are mutually unintelligible. However, most classifications leave intelligibility criteria aside and consider the characteristics shared by the languages. various variants, the inventory is reduced to seven or eight languages. Belmar was the first to propose grouping the variants into three large groups: Northern Zapotec, Central Zapotec, and Southern Zapotec under partly linguistic and partly geographical and historical criteria. The northern group would include the varieties spoken in the mountainous area north of the city of Oaxaca de Juárez, the central group would include the varieties of the central valleys and the southern region of the Tehuantepec isthmus, and the southern group the varieties spoken in the mountainous area. south of the state of Oaxaca. The National Institute of Indigenous Languages of Mexico, for its part, mentions that Zapotec is made up of 62 linguistic variants.

The first internal classifications based on the comparative method began in the 1920s with the works of Jaime Angulo (1925), Paul Radin (1925), Angulo and Freeland (1933) and Swadesh (1949). These groupings subdivide the Belmar groups, assigning some local variety to the adjacent group. The last attempt at internal classification and the most widely accepted is due to the Mexican linguist Jorge Suárez (1977) and published by the INAH in 1990. This study on the strict basis of shared phonological and lexical features rejects the tripartite grouping and proposes six closely related groupings. The following table shows the evolution of the different variants of Zapotec:

Swadesh and Suárez reject the northern, central and southern groups as valid phylogenetic units, therefore they do not indicate a closer relationship but are purely geographical and not supported from the linguistic point of view. A standard classification of Zapotec languages or variants, combining geographic groupings along with demonstrated linguistic divisions, is as follows:

• Northern Variants (North Land)
  • Variant Ixtlán o Zapoteco serrano
  • Variant of the Corner or Nexitzo
  • Choapan Variant
  • Variant of the Cajonos (Zapoteco de Villalta, Villalteco or Yalag)
• Variants of the central and Istmo valleys
  • Central valleys, with variants in Mitla, Quiatoni, Zaachila, etc.
  • Occidentales, Zapoteco del Istmo or Zapoteco tehuano.
• Southern variants
  • Zapoteco del Sur con variants en: Amatlán [zpo], Coatecas Altas [zca], Coatlán [zps], Lapaguía-Guivini [ztl], Loxicha [ztp], Miahuatlán [zam], Mixtepec [zpm], Quioquitani-Quierí [ztq], Cozolotepec [zao], S. Francisco Ozolotepec [ztg].

Valley language variants of Oaxaca show a higher degree of intelligibility than those of the foothills to the north and south. However, there is a sharp difference between the Zapotec of Tlacolula and that of Mitla, separated by a few kilometers and both in the valley of Oaxaca. Intelligibility is 40% and even lower, except for Teotitlán del Valle. This low intelligibility may be due to the fact that Mitla was also an urban center and later a city-state.

The northern region is divided into two large groups that are separated by a north-south geographic barrier. In the eastern zone, the linguistic variants of Zapotec have little intelligibility with those of the north of the isthmus and those of the Pacific coast along the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The southern region has a large north-south cluster in the center flanked by a dialect cluster on either side, perhaps the result of successive migrations.

Linguistic description

Zapotec Dictionary of Francisco Pimentel Unknown Date

Kinship with other languages

The Zapotec languages are part of the Zapotec family that would also include the languages spoken in the west of the Zapotec region Papabuco and Solteco (sometimes considered divergent Zapotec languages, other times Zapotec but not Zapotec languages) as well as Chatino. Glottochronological estimates for the time of diversification from Proto-Zapotec is 24 centuries, that is, around a millennium longer than the time of diversification of Zapotec proper. Outside of this grouping, since the 19th century, relations between the Zapotec group and the Mixtec group were recognized, which would form the eastern branch of the Otomanguean languages. As well as the Zapotecs j.

Phonology

All the variants of Zapotec are tonal languages, typically the number of tones is three (high, low, ascending) but there are great differences between the different variants, reaching five in Serrano Zapotec (the former, plus medium). and descending). The stress in the varieties that have been described always falls on the penultimate syllable of the root and its position is not affected by the affixation processes. Some Zapotec languages have lost the last unstressed syllable, so it could be said that the stress falls on the last syllable in these languages.

Most variants have at least six simple vowels (closed: /i, i, u/, open: /e, a, o/) and frequently the laryngization feature produces new segments in contrast to the previous six. The consonant inventory varies slightly from one variant to another, but we will always find the fortis-lenis opposition characteristic of all Zapotec languages. The following table summarizes these inventories:

	the	Alveolar	palatal	ensure that	lab-vel	uvular	glotal
oclusive	p	d		k g	(kw gw)		.
African		())))	) ())
cold		s (z)	(urge) ⋅	x		())w)
Nose	(m) m)	(n)) n
vibrant				(r)
approximate		(l)) l		(j)	(w)

The lower diacritic of the voiced /m̥, n̥, l ̥/ indicates that they are voiceless. The phonemes in parentheses are only present in some varieties of Zapotec:

The syllabic structure differs from one Zapotec language to another. Thus, Isthmus Zapotec does not admit consonants at the end of the word, so the final syllable is always open. On the other hand, Rincón Zapotec admits several consonants in that position (/n, β, ʣ, tβ, d_, s, z, l, t/).

The Proto-Zapotec phonological system was preliminarily reconstructed by Morris Swadesh and subsequently improved by other authors. The minimal consonant inventory could be made up of the following elements:

	the	Alveolar	palatal	ensure that	lab-vel	uvular	glotal
obstructive	*p, *b	*t, d		♪k, ♪	*kw		*
African		♪	*č
cold			*š, *ž			*
Nose	♪	♪ N, ♪
approximate		♪ L, ♪		♪	♪

Where the contrast between the seals in the same box is not of a deaf/sound type but very probably of type fortis/lenis (singing) *L, *N/ the counterparts forts of *l, *n/ Lens. Fonemas ♪ ♪, proposed by Southarez, could be african although its exact phonetic nature cannot be rebuilt, as they could also correspond to fricatives (Suarez uses the sign /*θ θ ^ ^ {displaystyle scriptstyle {hat {theta}}}/ for /* suggesting that it could be interpreted as /*t^θ/ or /*t^s/).

Regarding the vowel inventory, although originally a maximal system with five short vowels was reconstructed /*i, *e, *a, *o, *u/ and five long /*iˑ, *eˑ, *aˑ, * oˑ, *uˑ/, later Suárez proposed that the previous system of three closed vowels could be reduced /*i, *ɨ, *u/, three open /*e, *a, *o/ and two vowels /*A, *O/ whose phonetic articulation is uncertain, although due to their phonetic correspondences with the Chatino could possibly be *[ã], *[õ].

Morphology

The following table shows the subject pronouns in different variants. It can be seen that in the case of pronouns the variations are purely phonological, but all the variants present the same categories in the pronoun:

GLOSA	Choapa	Teotitlán	Texmelucan	Atepec	Istmo	Yate.	Yagallo	proto- zapoteco
1.a person singular	-(g/w)a	Naa, aa	inte	Nothing.	- a.	- a.	- a.	*na
2nd person singular	-I'm sorry.	Lui,	-lu	league -(l)o				*lu coin(i) *nu
3.a singular person (person)	-bi(air)	the acronym,	labi, bi	Levy, -(n)e army	Be	-be	-	♪
3.a singular person (animate)	-	Lam,	Wash, -ba	Leb -(ambi)b	me.	-	-	*ma(ni)
3.a singular person (inanimated)	-na, -n	lai covenant,	the...	Len,	and	-		♪
1.a plural person inclusive	- red.	tonou pace, -u rate	intu hung	net,	nu	- ##	-ru	♪
1.a plural person exclusive	-		ricketu	Boy,	du	-to.	-	*tyi coinu ♪
2nd person plural	-Here.	lui-tu,	lebi.	levy,	You	- him	-lu	♪wa
3.a person plural	-yaka+3	laada pace, -da	laka+3	3+ga	ka+3	-gak+3	(la)-gaka+3

Syntax

Regarding the syntax, the most divergent variant is once again the Rincón Zapotec, the other variants studied have a basic VSO order and do not agree between person and verb. However, Rincón Zapotec has the order VOS, and also subject and object agreement in the verb:

M. Piper points out that there could be a structural reason that relates the existence of concordance in this variant with the basic VOS order.

Comparative Lexicon

The closeness between the Zapotec and Chatino languages can be examined by comparing the shape of the numerals:

Variant	One	Two.	Three.	Four	Five	Six	Seven	eight	Nine	Ten
North Shoe (Xhon)[requires documentation]	to	chope	shone	tape	gay'	xope	gaze	xono'	ga	♪
Zapoteco del Istmo (Juchitán)	tobi	upa	on devoteda	lid	ga.Jun	gilo.pa	gad	gilono	ga	i.
Mitla Shoe	teh, teh.b	tjo	on	tahp	gai.	Đ	gahdz	・uhn	ga.	u.
Zapoteco de San Pedro Quiatoni[requires documentation]	tohb	op	ohn	tap	gæ.j	gilo'p	gahdz	・uhn	ga.	i.
Zapoteco de Sierra de Juárez	you, tubi	upá	un webá	lid	gàju	upá	gatsì	unúd	gà	.
Zoogocho Shoe	to	op	・on dedicatede, jon	tap, dap	gajo	op	ga	ono coin	ga	・i
Zapoteco de Miahuatlán	Tiba	chopa	Sonna	lid	gaiya	sropa	Ga	srona	yiiy	ciiy
Chatino del zona alta	ska23	tukwa32	snã32	hakwa23	ki'yu32	skwa32	kati21	snppy23	kaa2	♪2
Proto-zapoteco	*tŭbí	♪(y)Ow!	*čónná	♪	♪.Yu	*.P	*gačé	♪.	*gă.	*či.(i)
Proto-zapotecano		♪	♪	*tapa	♪.yu	♪	*kati	♪	♪.	♪

In the list above, accents and numbers as superscripts indicate pitch.