Cuitlatec language

Cuitlatec
Cuitlatec
Cuitlateco
Native to	Mexico
Region	Guerrero
Ethnicity	Cuitlatec people
Extinct	1960s, with the death of Juana Can
Language family	Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cuy
Glottolog	cuit1236
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Cuitlatec, or Cuitlateco, is an extinct language of Mexico, formerly spoken by an indigenous people known as Cuitlatec.

Classification

Cuitlatec has not been convincingly classified as belonging to any language family. It is believed to be a language isolate. In their controversial classification of the indigenous languages of the Americas, Greenberg and Ruhlen include Cuitlatec in an expanded Chibchan language family (Macro-Chibchan), along with a variety of other Mesoamerican and South American languages.^[1] Escalante Hernández suggests a possible relation to the Uto-Aztecan languages.^[2]

Geographic distribution

Cuitlatec was spoken in the state of Guerrero. By the 1930s, Cuitlatec was spoken only in San Miguel Totolapan. The last speaker of the language, Juana Can, is believed to have died in the 1960s.^[2] In 1979, only two elderly women, Florentina Celso and Apolonia Robles, were able to remember about fifty words of the language.^[3]

Phonology

Consonants

**Cuitlatec consonant phonemes**
	Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d	tʃ	k ɡ	kʷ	ʔ
Fricative		ɬ	ʃ			h
Approximant		l	j		w
Nasal	m	n

The sounds /f/, /s/, /r/, and /ɾ/ are found in loan words from Spanish.

Vowels

**Cuitlatec vowel phonemes**
	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Low	e	a	o

Grammar

Sentences generally follow SVO word order. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify.

References

^ Greenberg, Joseph; Ruhlen, Merritt (2007-09-04). "An Amerind Etymological Dictionary" (PDF) (12 ed.). Stanford: Dept. of Anthropological Sciences Stanford University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-12-25. Retrieved 2008-06-27. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ ^a ^b Escalante Hernández, Robert (1962). El Cuitlateco. México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
^ Valiñas Coalla, Leopoldo; Cortina Borja, Mario; Mireles Padilla, Miguel (2010-03-11). "Notas sobre el cuitlateco". Anales de Antropología (in Spanish). 21 (1). doi:10.22201/iia.24486221e.1984.1.15915 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISSN 2448-6221.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)

Bibliography

Susana Drucker, Roberto Escalante, & Roberto J. Weitlaner. 1969. The Cuitlatec. In Evon Z. Vogt, ed., Handbook of Middle American Indians, Ethnology: Vol 7, Chapter 30. University of Texas Press, Austin: 565–575
McQuown, Norman A. 1945. Fonémica del Cuitlateco. El México Antiguo 5: 239–254.
Weitlaner, Roberto J. 1939. Notes on the Cuitlatec language. El México Antiguo 4: 363–373.

External links

Cuitlatec word list on Wiktionary

[1] Greenberg, Joseph; Ruhlen, Merritt (2007-09-04). "An Amerind Etymological Dictionary" (PDF) (12 ed.). Stanford: Dept. of Anthropological Sciences Stanford University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-12-25. Retrieved 2008-06-27. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[Hern-2] Escalante Hernández, Robert (1962). El Cuitlateco. México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

[3] Valiñas Coalla, Leopoldo; Cortina Borja, Mario; Mireles Padilla, Miguel (2010-03-11). "Notas sobre el cuitlateco". Anales de Antropología (in Spanish). 21 (1). doi:10.22201/iia.24486221e.1984.1.15915 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISSN 2448-6221.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)

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