Mixe-Zoque languages

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Mixe-Zoquean Mije-Sokean
Geographic distribution:	Mesoamerica: Mexico Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Vera Cruz
Genetic classification:	language family descended from Proto-Mixe-Zoquean. Although some proposals have linked Mixe-Zoquean with other families, none of these has received mainstream acceptance.
Subdivisions:	Mixean: Oaxacan Mixean: North Highland Mixe, South Highland Mixe, Midland Mixe, Lowland Mixe, Sayula Popoluca (Sayultec), Oluta Popoluca (Olutec), Tapachultec. Zoquean: Sierra Popoluca (also called Soteapan Popoluca, Zoque Popoluca and Soteapanec), Texistepec Popoluca, Ayapa Zoque, Chimalapa Zoque, Chiapas Zoque.
Locations where the Mixe-Zoque languages are spoken. Mixe (red color) and Zoque (green color

The Mixe-Zoque languages constitute a language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The Mexican government recognizes three distinct Mixe-Zoquean languages as official: Mixe or ayook with 188,000 speakers, Zoque or o'de püt with 88,000 speakers, and the Popoluca languages of which some are Mixean and some Zoquean with 69,000 speakers. However the internal diversity in each of these groups is great and the Ethnologue counts 16 different languages, and the current classification of Mixe-Zoquean languages by Wichmann (1995) counts 12 languages and 11 dialects. Extinct languages classified as Mixe-Zoquean include Tapachultec, formerly spoken along the southeast coast of Chiapas.

1 History
2 Genealogy of Mixe-Zoquean
3 Phonology of Mixe-Zoquean languages
- 3.1 Syllables
4 Grammatical features of Mixe-Zoquean languages
5 Ethnologue classification and SIL ISO-codes
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

Historically the Mixe-Zoquean family may have been much more widespread, reaching into the Guatemalan Pacific coast (i.e. the Soconusco region). Terrence Kaufman and Lyle Campbell have argued,^[1] based on a number of widespread loanwords in other Mesoamerican languages, that it is likely that the Olmec people, generally seen as the earliest dominating culture of Mesoamerica, spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language. Kaufman together with John Justeson also published a claim to have deciphered the Isthmian script (called also by them and some others 'epi-Olmec'), based upon their view that it was written in a Mixe-Zoquean language.

Both of these claims have been criticized: Michael D. Coe and David Stuart argue that the surviving corpus of the few known examples of Isthmian inscriptions is insufficient to securely ground any proposed decipherment. Their attempt to apply Kaufman and Justeson's decipherments to other extant Isthmian material failed to produce any meaningful results. Wichmann (1995) criticizes some of the supposed Mixe-Zoquean loans into Mesoamerican languages as being only Zoquean, but not Mixean, which means that it would put the period of borrowing much later than the timeframe in which the Olmec culture was at its height, because during this time Proto Mixe-Zoquean was a single language.

Later in 2001 Kaufman, again on the basis of loans from Mixe-Zoque into other Mesoamerican languages argues a Mixe-Zoquean presence at Teotihuacan, and he ascribes Mixe-Zoquean an important part in spreading the linguistic features that became defining for the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.

Mixe-Zoque is not thought to be related to any other language group, although in the early 20th century Edward Sapir included it as a member of the Penutian languages superfamily.

The branches of the Mixe-Zoque languages are as follows:

[edit] Genealogy of Mixe-Zoquean

The classification of Mixe-Zoquean languages made by Søren Wichmann (1995):

[edit] Phonology of Mixe-Zoquean languages

The phoneme inventory of proto Mixe-Zoquean as reconstructed by Wichmann (1995) can be seen to be relatively simple, but many of the modern languages have been innovative and some have become quite vowel rich and some also have introduced a fortis/lenis contrast in the stops series. The lateral phoneme /l/ is found in very few words in some of the languages but these are probably of onomatopoeic origin.

	Front	Central	Back
Close (high)	i i:	ɨ ɨ:	u u:
Mid	e e:		o o:
Open (low)		a a:

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Alveolo-Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	*p	*t	*ts	*k	*ʔ
Fricatives		*s			*h
Nasals	*m	*n
Approximants	*w		*j

[edit] Syllables

Mixe-Zoquean languages are characterized by complex syllabic nuclei formed by combinations of vowels together with the glottal stop and /h/ in the proto-language.

Proto Mixe-Zoquean syllable nuclei could be either:

V - short vowel

V' - short vowel with glottal stop

VV - long vowel

V'V - long vowel with medial glottal stop

VV' - long vowel with final glottal stop

Vh - short vowel with h

[edit] Grammatical features of Mixe-Zoquean languages

Mixe-zoquean languages are head marking and polysynthetic with morphologically complex verbs and simple nouns. They mark grammatical subjects as well as objects on the verb. They use ergative aligment and have direct/inverse systems triggered by animacy and topicality. The verbs distinguish morphologically between two basic clause types, independent and dependent, the verb takes different aspectual and personal affixes according to in which kind of clause they appear. There are two different sets of aspect markers one used in dependent clauses and another used in independent clauses. Three aspects are distinguished in each clause type: incompletive, completive and irrealis.

[edit] Ethnologue classification and SIL ISO-codes

Ethnologue still uses the earlier pre-Wichmann classification as a basis for their work.

Mixe languages -- an estimated 90,000 native speakers
- Eastern Mixe - An estimated 72,000 native speakers
Dialects:Coatlán (mco), Istmo(mir), Quetzaltepec(mve),Juquila(mxq), and Mazatlán(mzl)
- Veracruz Mixe - An estimated 4,000 native speakers
Dialects: Oluta (plo) nearly extinct - only 100 speakers, Sayula (pos)
- Western Mixe
An estimated 10,000 native speakers

Dialects: Totontepec (mto), Tlahuitoltepec (mxp)
Zoque languages -- an estimated 60,000 native speakers
- Chiapas Zoque - An estimated 22,000 native speakers
Dialects: Copainalá (zoc), Rayón (zor), Francisco León (zos)
- Oaxaca Zoque - An estimated 4,500 native speakers
Dialect: Chimalapa (zoh)
- Veracruz Zoque - An estimated 30,000 native speakers
Dialects: Highland (poi), Texistepec (poq) nearly extinct - only 450 speakers, Tabasco (zoq) nearly extinct - only 40 speakers

[edit] Notes

^ Campbell and Kaufman (1976).

[edit] References

Campbell, L., and T. Kaufman (1976), "A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs", American Antiquity, 41 pp. 80-89.
Justeson, John S., and Kaufman, Terrence, (1997),"A Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on La Mojarra Stela 1: a Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment", Science, 07/11/97, Vol. 277 Issue 5323, p. 207.
Justeson, John S., and Kaufman, Terrence (2001) Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts.
Kaufman, Terrence, (2001) Nawa linguistic prehistory, published at website of the Mesoamerican Language Documentation Project
Wichmann, Søren, 1995, The Relationship Among the Mixe-Zoquean Languages of Mexico. University of Utah Press. Salt Lake City. ISBN 0-87480-487-6
Brigham Young University press release on behalf of Brigham Young University archaeologist Stephen Houston and Yale University professor emeritus Michael Coe disputing Justeson/Kaufman findings.