Eastern Chatino

Highland Chatino is an indigenous Mesoamerican language, one of the Chatino family of the Oto-Manguean languages. Dialects are rather diverse; neighboring dialects are about 80% mutually intelligible.

Highland Chatino
Sierra Chatino
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Native speakers	17,800 (2000)
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 ctz – Zacatepec
Glottolog	east2736
ELP	Western Highland Chatino

For grammatical details, see Chatino languages, which includes examples from Yaitepec dialect.

Dialects

Eastern Chatino is spoken in 14 dialects in 17 communities that centered on the economic and cultural centers of Santa Catarina Juquila and Santiago Yaitepec. ISO assigns these dialects to four groups with different language codes, but there is no objective evidence that the dialects grouped together are closest to each other. Dialects include:

Lachao-Yolotepec

Yaitepec

Panixtlahuaca

Quiahije

Nopala

Zacatepec

Phonology

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		o
Open			a

An epenthetic schwa sound [ə] is heard in between consonants.

Rasch (2002) reports ten distinct tones for Yaitepec Chatino: the four level tones of high /˥/, mid /˦/, low-mid /˨/, and low /˩/; the two rising tones /˦˥/ and /˨˦/; and the 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 lexical tone letters: ⟨ᴬ ᴮ ꟲ ᴰ ᴱ ꟳ ᴳ ᴴ ᴵ ᴶ ᴷ ᴸ⟩, with additional letters (superscript M and S) for tone sandhi. Not all of these are distinct in all dialects; rather, they mark pan-dialect tone-cognate sets.

In Yaitepec dialect, the pronunciations are:

ᴬ [˧] (3)

ᴮ [˦˨] (24)

ꟲ = ᴷ [˦˧] (23)

ᴰ [˥˨] (14)

ᴱ [˥] (1)

ꟳ = ᴸ [˧˦] (32)

ᴳ [˥˦] (12)

ᴴ [˨˧] (43)

ᴵ [˦] (2)

ᴶ [˧˥] (31)

References

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