Huichol language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Huichol
Vixaritari Vaniuqui, Vizaritari Vaniuki
Spoken in: Mexico: Nayarit, Zacatecas and Jalisco
Total speakers: 20.000 (1990)
Language family: American
 Uto-aztecan
  Corachol
   Huichol 
Official status
Official language of: none
Regulated by: Secretaría de Educación Pública
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2:
ISO 639-3: hch

The Huichol language is an indigenous language of Mexico, belonging to the Uto-aztecan linguistic family. It is spoken by the ethnic group widely known as the Huichol who refer to themselves as Wixarika" , and who inhabit the northern Sierra of the Mexican states of Nayarit, Zacatecas and Jalisco. Huichol is a mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Under the "Law of Linguistic Rights" it is recognized as a "national language" along with 62 other indigenous languages and Spanish which have the same "validity" in Mexico [1]. Huichol is a tonal language distinguishing high and low tone[1]

Contents

[edit] Geographic Distribution

[edit] Genealogy

The closest relatives of the Huichol language is the Cora language together with which it forms the Coracholan subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan languages, also the Taracahitan group of languages containing among others the languages Tarahumara, Yaqui and Mayo is related to Huichol.

  • General Uto-Aztecan
    • Coracholan branch
      • Huichol language
      • Cora languages

[edit] Phoneme Inventory

[edit] References

  1. ^ Suaréz, Jorge, 1983, The Mesoamerican Indian Languages, Cambridge, CUP, pg 51
  • Joseph E. Grimes, 1959. "Huichol Tone and Intonation", International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 25, No. 4. (Oct., 1959), pp. 221-232.
  • McIntosh, John B. 1945. "Huichol phonemes." International Journal of American Linguistics 11: 31-35
  • José Luis Iturrioz Leza y Julio Ramírez de la Cruz, et. al., 2001, Gramática Didáctica del Huichol: Vol. I. Estructura Fonológica y Sistema de Escritura, Departamento de Estudios en Lenguas Indígenas-Universidad de Guadalajara – Secretaria de Educación Pública, Vol. 1,

[edit] External links