| Mixtecan | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero; California |
| Linguistic classification: | Oto-Manguean
|
| Subdivisions: | |
The Mixtecan languages constitute a branch of the Otomanguean language family of Mexico. They include the Trique (or Triqui) languages, spoken by about 24,500 people; Cuicatec, spoken by about 15,000 people; and the large expanse of Mixtec languages, spoken by about 511,000 people.[1] The relationship between Trique, Cuicatec, and Mixtec, is an open question. Research by Terrence Kaufman in the 1980s supported grouping Cuicatec and Mixtec together, but it apparently remains unpublished.[2]
Longacre (1957) reconstructed the following consonant inventory for proto-Mixtecan:[3]
| Bilabial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | *m | *n | *ñ | |||||||||
| Occlusive | *t | *d | *k | *ɡ | *kʷ | *ɡʷ | *ʔ | |||||
| Fricative | *θ | *x | *xʷ | |||||||||
| Approximant | *l | *j | *w | |||||||||