Highland Oaxaca Chontal

Highland Oaxaca Chontal
Slijuala xanuk
Region	Oaxaca
Ethnicity	Oaxaca Chontal
Native speakers	4,394 (2010 census)
Language family	Hokan ? Tequistlatecan Highland Oaxaca Chontal
Language codes
ISO 639-3	chd
Glottolog	high1242
ELP	Highland Chontal

Highland Oaxaca Chontal, or Chontal de la Sierra de Oaxaca, is one of the Chontal languages of Oaxaca. It is sometimes called Tequistlatec, but is not the same as Tequistlatec proper, which is extinct.

Phonology

Consonants

Highland Chontal has a medium-sized inventory of 23 native consonants, along with four borrowed consonants from Spanish /β ð ɾ r/. It distinguishes ejective consonants, including the cross-linguistically unusual ejective labiodental fricative /f'/.

		Labial	Alveolar		Palato(-alveolar)	Velar	Glottal or placeless
			Central	Lateral
Stop	Plain	p	t			k	ʔ
	Voiced	b	d			g
	Ejective					kʼ
Affricate	Plain		ts		tʃ
	Ejective		tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ
Fricative	Plain	f		ɬ	ʃ	x~h
	Ejective	f'
	Voiced	(β)	(ð)
Nasal		m	n				ɴ̥
Glide					j	w
Tap			(ɾ)
Trill			(r)

Turner (1966) transcribes the ejective lateral affricate [tɬʼ] as an ejective fricative /ɬʼ/. It is not clear whether the ejective labiodental fricative /fʼ/ might likewise be a phonetic affricate [p̪fʼ] or similar.

The placeless voiceless nasal /ɴ̥/ assimilates to the place of articulation of the consonant following it, e.g. /ɴ̥t/ > [n̥t]. Thus it has four allophones [m̥ n̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊]. Its place of articulation before glottal consonants, vowels or pause is unclear, if it occurs in these environments at all.

Vowels

Highland Chontal has an inventory of five vowels, an arrangement similar to Spanish and many other world languages:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

The distinction between /e/ and /a/ is neutralized before /j/.

There is no vowel hiatus (since all syllables begin with a consonant), nor any phonemic diphthongs.

External links

• Highland Oaxaca Chontal basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database