Eastern Chatino

Highland Chatino
Highland Chatino
Sierra Chatino
Native to	Oto-Manguean 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

Highland Chatino is an

mutually intelligible

.

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
		Bilabial	plain	pal.	Palatal	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	pal.
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		c	k	kʷ	ʔ
Plosive	voiced		d		ɟ	ɡ	ɡʷ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s		t͡ʃ
Affricate	voiced		d͡z
Fricative	voiceless		s		ʃ			h	hʷ	hʲ
Fricative	voiced		z		ʒ
Nasal	plain	m	n	nʲ
Nasal	preglottal		ʔn	ʔnʲ
Lateral			l	lʲ
Rhotic			ɾ
Approximant	plain				j		w
Approximant	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	Central	oral	nasal
Close	i	ɪ̃		u	ũ
Mid	e	ɛ̃		o	ũ
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,^[2] with additional letters (superscript M and S) for tone sandhi.^{[citation needed]} Not all of these are distinct in all dialects; rather, they mark pan-dialect tone-cognate sets.

In Yaitepec dialect, the pronunciations are:^[3]

ᴬ [˧] (3)

ᴮ [˦˨] (24)

ꟲ = ᴷ [˦˧] (23)

ᴰ [˥˨] (14)

ᴱ [˥] (1)

ꟳ = ᴸ [˧˦] (32)

ᴳ [˥˦] (12)

ᴴ [˨˧] (43)

ᴵ [˦] (2)

ᴶ [˧˥] (31)

References

^ Western Highland at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Eastern Highland (Lachao-Yolotepec) at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Nopala at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Zacatepec at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
^ Unicode submission L2/20-251
^ "Chatino language, alphabet and pronunciation".

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

External links

[e19-1] Western Highland at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Eastern Highland (Lachao-Yolotepec) at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Nopala at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
Zacatepec at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)

[2] Unicode submission L2/20-251

[3] "Chatino language, alphabet and pronunciation".

[2]

[3]