Pochutec language

Pochutec
Pochutla
Region Pochutla, Oaxaca, Mexico
Extinct 20th century
Uto-Aztecan
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 xpo
xpo
Glottolog poch1244[1]

Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan (or Aztecan) branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1917 it was documented in a monograph by Franz Boas, who considered the language nearly extinct.[2] In the 1970s another investigator found two speakers around Pochutla who still remembered a few of the words recorded by Boas.[3]

In the early 20th century, scholars disagreed as to the origin of the language within the Nahuan family. Most thought Pochutec was distinct from Nahuatl, and this was proven in 1978, when Campbell and Langacker gave new arguments[4] from Boas' data. Their conclusion was quickly accepted.[5][6][7][8][9] Nahuan thus consists of Pochutec and General Aztec, which consists of Nahuatl and Pipil.

Bartholomew (1980) suggests that some of the divergent traits, for example last syllable stress, are due to influence from Chatino, an Oto-Manguean language. She argues that at the time of the 16th century Spanish conquest of Mexico the settlement of Pochutla did not fall under the Aztec Empire's domain, but instead was part of the Mixtec state centered at Tututepec. Thus, the Chatino linguistic influences stemmed from the trade and communication routes between Pochutla and Tututepec passing through Chatino territory.

Dakin ([10]) argues that the key correspondence sets used by Campbell and Langacker as evidence for the existence of a separate fifth vowel *ï evolving from pUA *u, their main basis for separating Pochutec from their "General Aztec", were actually later developments within Pochutec by which proto-Aztec *i and *e > o in closed syllables, and that the supposed contrast in final position in imperatives originally had had a following clitic.[11] In a later article, Canger and Dakin ([12]) identify a different, very systematic isogloss for the development of pUA *u that shows a basic split between Eastern Nahuatl dialects and the Central and Western periphery, including Pochutec, as exemplified in at least eight different cognate sets. This proposal is incompatible with Campbell and Langacker's proposal for the development of pUA *u.[13][1]

Morphology

Pochutec is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.

References

  1. 1 2 Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Pochutec". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ Boas 1917
  3. ↑ Knab 1980
  4. ↑ Campbell and Langacker 1978
  5. ↑ Canger 2000:385
  6. ↑ Canger 1988:42-44
  7. ↑ Lastra 1992:37
  8. ↑ Peralta Ramírez 2005:4
  9. ↑ INALI (National Institute of Indigenous Languages, Mexico), 2008:63
  10. ↑ 1983
  11. ↑ Canger 1980: 117.
  12. ↑ 1985
  13. ↑ 1985

Bibliography

IJAL = International Journal of American Linguistics

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