Zapotec languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Zapotec Diidzaj, Diza, Ditsa, . . . |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Mexico (Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero); USA | |
| Total speakers: | ca 500,000 | |
| Language family: | Oto-Manguean Zapotecan Zapotec |
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| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | none | |
| Regulated by: | Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | — | |
| ISO 639-3: | — | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Zapotec language(s) describes a group of closely-related indigenous Mesoamerican languages spoken by the Zapotec people from Mexico's southwestern-central highlands region. Present-day numbers of native speakers are estimated at over half a million, with the majority inhabiting the state of Oaxaca. Zapotec-speaking communities are also found in the neighbouring states of Puebla, and Guerrero. Emigration has also resulted in a number of native Zapotec-speakers residing in the United States, particularly in the state of California.
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[edit] Classification
Zapotec and the related language Chatino together form the Zapotecan subgroup of the Oto-Manguean language family.
There is no one Zapotec language: in fact there are probably over 60 varieties of Zapotec. Given that the dialectal divergence observed between Zapotec-speaking communities is an extensive one (many variants of Zapotec are mutually unintelligible with one other), it is also recognised as forming a "dialect continuum".
Zapotec languages and dialects fall into four broad divisions: Zapoteco de la Sierra Norte (Northern Zapotec), Valley Zapotec, Zapoteco de la Sierra Sur [Southern Zapotec], and Isthmus Zapotec. Northern Zapotec languages are spoken in the mountainous region of Oaxaca, in the Northern Sierra Madre mountain ranges; Southern Zapotec languages and are spoken in the mountainous region of Oaxaca, in the Southern Sierra Madre mountain ranges; Valley Zapotec languages are spoken in the Valley of Oaxaca, and Isthmus Zapotec languages are spoken in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
[edit] Phonology
Phonologically, characteristics common to many Zapotec languages include: six or seven vowels; a plethora of fricatives; tone systems (present in all Zapotec variants); and a fortis / lenis distinction in consonants. In a number of Zapotec languages there are phonation type differences between modal, breathy, creaky, and checked vowels.
[edit] Grammar
Zapotec languages vary considerably. Some characteristics of Zapotec grammar common to the language family (though not necessarily present in all members) are: an extensive 3rd person pronoun system based on noun classes such as divinity, babies, animals, objects (inanimate), etc; a distinction in the first person plural ("we") as to inclusive (including the hearer(s)) and exclusive (not including the hearer(s)); a frequent underspecificity of singular/plural distinctions.
Verbs in Zapotec languages inflect with prefixes to show grammatical aspect; the examples below show a verb inflected for completive aspect.
Zapotec languages are VSO, as in the following example from San Dionicio Ocotepec Zapotec (Broadwell 2001):
| Ù-dììny | Juáàny | bè'cw. |
| completive-hit | Juan | dog |
'Juan hit the dog.'
Zapotec languages also have wh-movement, as in the following example, also from San Dionicio Ocotepec Zapotec:
| Túú | ù-dììny | bè'cw? |
| who | completive-hit | dog |
'Who hit the dog?'
[edit] Documentation and scholarship
Franciscan and/or Dominican friars published a vocabulary and grammar of Zapotec in the 16th century [Córdova 1578a, 1578b]. In the past century there have been ongoing efforts to produce Zapotec alphabets and to write in Zapotec. The Isthmus Zapotec alphabet in use today was founded in the 1950s, drawing from works going back as far as the 1920s. Untill recently the Zapotec language were only sparsely studied and documented but in recent years Zapotec language has begun to receive serious attention by descriptive linguists (see bibliography).
[edit] Use
The viability of Zapotec languages also varies tremendously. Loxicha Zapotec, for example, has over 70,000 speakers. San Felipe Tejalapan Zapotec might have ten, all elderly. San Agustin Mixtepec Zapotec reportedly has just one remaining speaker. Historically, government teachers discouraged the use of the language, which has contributed to its diminution in many places. Other areas however, such as the Isthmus, proudly maintain their mother tongue.
Zapotec-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio stations XEGLO, based in Guelatao de Juárez, Oaxaca, and XEQIN-AM, based in San Quintín, Baja California.
[edit] Bibliography
- Bickmore, Lee S. and George A. Broadwell. (1998). High tone docking in Sierra Juárez Zapotec. International Journal of American Linguistics, 64:37-67.
- Broadwell, George A. 2005. Zapotecan languages. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Elsevier.
- Broadwell, George A. 2005. The morphology of Zapotec pronominal clitics.in Rosemary Beam de Azcona and Mary Paster, eds. Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, Report 13: Conference on Otomanguean and Oaxacan Languages, pp. 15-35. University of California at Berkeley.
- Broadwell, George A. 2001. Optimal order and pied-piping in San Dionicio Zapotec. in Peter Sells, ed. Formal and Empirical Issues in Optimality Theoretic Syntax, pp. 197-123. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
- Córdova, Fr. Juan de. 1886 [1578a]. Arte del idioma zapoteco. Morelia: Imprenta del Gobierno.
- Córdova, Fr. Juan de. 1987 [1578b]. Vocabulario en lengua çapoteca. México: Ediciones Toledo (INAH).
- de Feria, Fray Pedo. 1567. Doctrina Christiana en lengua castellana y zapoteca.
- Esposito, Christina M. 2002. Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec Phonation. M.A. thesis, UCLA.
- Foreman, John. 2006. The Morphosyntax of Subjects in Macuiltianguis Zapotec. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA.
- Galant, Michael R. 1998. Comparative Constructions in Spanish and San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA.
- Jensen de López, Kristine M. 2002. Baskets and Body-Parts. Ph.D. dissertation, Aarhus University.
- Jones, Ted E., and Ann D. Church. 1985. "Personal pronouns in Guelavía Zapotec". S.I.L.-Mexico Workpapers 7: 1-15.
- Jones, Ted E., and Lyle M. Knudson. 1977. "Guelavía Zapotec Phonemes". Studies in Otomanguean Phonology, ed., William R. Merrifield, pp. 163-80. [Dallas/Arlington]: SIL / University of Texas, Arlington.
- Junta Colombina de México. 1893. Vocabulario castellano - zapotec. Mexico City : Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento.
- Lee, Felicia A. 1999. Antisymmetry and the Syntax of San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA.
- Lee, Felicia A. 2001. "WH and Focus Are Not the Same Projection." Snippets, Issue 3, January 2001.
- Lee, Felicia A. 2001. "WH and Focus Are Not the Same Projection." (expanded version). In K. Megerdoomian and L. Bar-El, (eds.), Proceedings of WCCFL 20. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.
- Lee, Felicia A. 2003. "Anaphoric R-Expressions as Bound Variables." (longer version). Syntax. 6, 1: 84-114. Blackwell Publishing.
- Lee, Felicia A. to appear. "Clause-Fronting and Clause-Typing in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec." To appear in Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, Sheila Dooley Collberg (eds) Verb First, John Benjamins Publishers, Philadelphia/Amsterdam.
- Lee, Felicia A. to appear. Remnant Raising and VSO Clausal Architecture: A Case Study from San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec. To be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Anaphoric R-Expressions as Bound Variables." Proceedings of BLS 28.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Anaphoric R-Expressions: Bound Names as Bound Variables." In M. Hirotani, (ed.), Proceedings of NELS 32. Amherst: GLSA.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Aspect, Negation, and Temporal Polarity in Zapotec." In B. Agbayani and S.-W. Tang, (eds.), Proceedings of WCCFL 15. Stanford: CSLI.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Evidence for Tense in a 'Tenseless' Language." In P. Tamagi, M. Hirotani, and N. Hall, (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 29. Amherst: GLSA.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Focus and Judgment Type in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec." In M. Juge and J. Moxley, (eds.), Proceedings of BLS 23. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistic Society.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Focus in the Future and the Thetic/Categorical Distinction." In V. Samiian, (ed.), Proceedings of WECOL 96. Fresno: California State University, Fresno.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Modality and the Structure of Tense in Zapotec." In B. Bruening, (ed.), Proceedings of SCIL 8. Cambridge: MITWPL.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Pseudo-quantification in Possessives." In C. Pye, (ed.), Proceedings of the Mid-America Linguistics Conference. Lawrence: The University of Kansas.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Relative Clauses Without Wh-Movement." In M. Kim and U. Strauss, (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 31. Amherst: GLSA.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "The Predicational Nature of Clefts: Evidence from Zapotec." In K. Singer, R. Eggert, and G. Anderson, (eds.), Proceedings of CLS 33. Chicago: The Chicago Linguistic Society.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "Three Question Markers in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec." To appear in Anthropological Linguistics.
- Lee, Felicia A. n.d. "VP Remnant Movement and VSO in Quiaviní Zapotec." In A. Carnie and E. Guilfoyle (editors), The Syntax of Verb Initial Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Liga Bíblica, La [Jones, Ted, et al.]. 1995. Xtiidx Dios Cun Ditsa (El Nuevo Testamento en el zapoteco de San Juan Guelavía y en español). n.p.: n.p.
- Lillehaugen, Brook Danielle. 2003. "The Acquisition of Body Part Prepositions in Valley Zapotec Languages." Proceedings from the First Conference on Indigenous Languages of Latin America, (online proceedings http://www.ailla.utexas.org/site/cilla1_toc.html, University of Texas, Austin.
- Lillehaugen, Brook Danielle. 2003. The Categorial Status of Body Part Prepositions in Valley Zapotec. M.A. thesis, UCLA.
- Lillehaugen, Brook Danielle. 2004. "The Syntactic and Semantic Development of Body Part Prepositions in Valley Zapotec Languages," pp. 69 – 92, Proceedings from the sixth Workshop on American Indigenous Languages, Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics, vol. 14, Jeanie Castillo (ed.).
- Lillehaugen, Brook Danielle. 2006. Expressing Location in Tlacolula Valley Zapotec. Ph.d. dissertation, UCLA.
- Lopez, Felipe H., and Pamela Munro. 1998. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights translated into San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec. http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/ztu1.htm
- Lopez, Felipe H., and Pamela Munro. 1999. "Zapotec Immigration: The San Lucas Quiaviní Experience". Aztlan. 24, 1: 129-149.
- Méndez [Martínez], Olivia V. 2000. Code-Switching and the Matrix Language Model in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec. M.A. thesis, UCLA.
- Munro, Pamela. 1996. "Making a Zapotec Dictionary". Dictionaries 17: 131-55.
- Munro, Pamela. 2002. "Hierarchical Pronouns in Discourse: Third Person Pronouns in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Narratives". Southwest Journal of Linguistics 21: 37-66.
- Munro, Pamela. 2003. "Preserving the Language of the Valley Zapotecs: The Orthography Question." Presented at Language and Immigration in France and the United States: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. University of Texas. Available online at http://www.utexas.edu/cola/france-ut/archives2003.html.
- Munro, Pamela, Brook Danielle Lillehaugen and Felipe H. Lopez. In preparation. Cali Chiu? A Course in Valley Zapotec.
- Munro, Pamela, and Felipe H. Lopez, with Olivia V. Méndez [Martínez], Rodrigo Garcia, and Michael R. Galant. 1999. Di'csyonaary X:tèe'n Dìi'zh Sah Sann Lu'uc (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Dictionary / Diccionario Zapoteco de San Lucas Quiaviní). Los Angeles: (UCLA) Chicano Studies Research Center Publications.
- Operstein, Natalie. 2002. "Positional Verbs and Relational Nouns in Zaniza Zapotec," pp. 60 - 70. Proceedings from the fourth Workshop on American Indigenous Languages, Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics, vol 11.
- Rendón, Juan José. 1970. Notas fonológicas del Zapotec de Tlacochahuaya. Anales de Antropología, vol. 7. Mexico City: UNAM.
- Rojas, Rosa Maria. 2001. "La formación de palabras desde el punto de vista del contenido en lenguas zapotecas: la modificación y el desarrollo" en Dimensión Antropológica, vol. 21, 2001.
- Rojas, Rosa Maria. to appear. "La predicación secundaria en el zapoteco de Santa Ana del Valle, Oax." por aparecer en Memorias del Primer Coloquio "Leonardo Manrique", México: INAH.
