Mixtec thread

[vlad]

Mixtec is a Mesoamerican language traditionally spoken in southern Mexico, in western Oaxaca, eastern Guerrero and southern Puebla, though a few Mixtec-speaking communities have been established in Mexico outside the traditional area, and a number of Mixtecs have immigrated to the United States, primarily California.

Mixtec is one of the major historical languages of Mesoamerica. There are a number of Mixtec manuscripts in both glyphs and in the Roman alphabet. The first Mixtec grammar and the first Mixtec dictionary were both published in 1593 (38 years after the first Nahuatl dictionary).

↑ An inscription from Cuilapan (Saha Yucu) containing dates in the Mixtec calendar. The Mixtec calendar is basically the same as the Aztec calendar, though there are minor differences, e.g. the "AO" symbol used to indicate years, which is not found in Aztec sources.

The Mixtec region is called la Mixteca in Spanish and Ñudzavui in Mixtec, which literally means "rain land". It is traditionally divided into three subregions, called Mixteca Alta ("high Mixteca"), Mixteca Baja ("low Mixteca"), and Costa ("coast"). In Mixtec, one of the names for the Mixteca Alta was Ñudzavui Ñuhu "Mixteca proper", suggesting that that's where the Mixtecs originated, which is consistent with traditional belief.



The Mixtec language does not use nouns or adjectives to refer to ethnic groups or languages. The Mixtecs are simply called tay Ñudzavui "men of the Mixteca region".

The Mixteca region was called Mixtlan "cloud place" in Nahuatl, and the people who lived there Mixteca. (This is similar to the Zapotec endonym binni za "cloud people".) The use of Mixteca as a name for the region in Spanish is the result of confusion between Mixtlan and Mixteca; compare e.g. Cortés referring to Tlaxcala as "cibdad de Tascalteca".

In Amuzgo, Mixtecs are called catsuee, which appears to mean "thunder animals" (referring to outsiders as animals is something the Mixtecs also do, including to other Mixtecs). In Triqui, the word tu'vii now means "Spanish-speaker" but must have originally meant "Mixtec" -- the Mixtec language is still called xna'anj tu'vii "tu'vii language". Like the Amuzgo, this word also seems to be derived from the word for "thunder". These names might be related to the indigenous rain god, called Dzavui "Rain" in Mixtec, Tatsuee "Sir Thunder" or Tyotsuee "Lord Thunder" in Amuzgo, Ya'anj Tu'vii "Thunder God" in Triqui, Cociyo "Thunder" in Zapotec, and Tlaloc in Nahuatl, and who is now identified with Saint Mark.

Many Mixtecs historically spoke Nahuatl as a second language, as it was the lingua franca. Nahuatl and Mixtec have similar syntax and semantics (idioms, metaphors, etc.), but very different morphology and phonology.

Mixtec is conventionally identified as an Oto-Manguean language, but I am skeptical that that is a valid family. The only languages that I am certain Mixtec is related to are Amuzgo, Cuicatec, and Triqui.

Next: phonology.

[vlad]

Phonology

Note: Mixtec has a large number of non-mutually-intelligible varieties, with different phonologies. The forms cited here are just examples, and may be different in different varieties.

All basic Mixtec words are bisyllabic. Double vowels are pronounced as two syllables. (There are no long vowels.)

tee "man"
ña'a "woman"
ina "dog"
vi'nde "prickly pear cactus"
kaka "quicklime"
Yukun "Pleiades"

Monosyllabic function words exist, which may be shortened from earlier bisyllables.

te "he" ← tee "man"
ña "she" ← ña'a "woman"

Words with more than two syllables exist, as the result of affixation, compounding, or borrowing. But there is a tendency to shorten these to make them fit the bisyllabic pattern.

ye'e "door" ← yu'u ve'e "house mouth"
ñañu "porcupine" ← ñaña iñu "spine cat"
vatu "goat" ← Spanish chivato
loti "vulture" ← Spanish zopilote

The basic Mixtec phonological inventory is:

/t k kʷ ʔ tʃ s n w j/ (/p l/)
/i ɨ e a o u/
/ĩ ɨ̃ ẽ ã õ ũ/

/p/ and /l/ are rare, mostly found in loanwords and onomatopoeia. The only allowed consonant clusters (outside of loanwords) are /ʔn ʔw ʔj ʔl/.

An important phenomenon in Mixtec is nasalization. Phonemic nasal vowels only occur in the second syllable of a root, but phonetic nasalization spreads leftward unless blocked. Generally, /t k k kʷ tʃ s/ block nasalization and /ʔ n w j/ allow nasalization, but there's some variation on that point between varieties.

/jutũ/ [jutũ] yutun "tree" (nasalization blocked by /t/)
/tuʔũ/ [tũʔũ] tu'un "word" (nasalization passes through /ʔ/)

Some consonants have different realizations depending on whether the following vowel is oral or nasal. This also varies between varieties.

/n/ is [nd] before an oral vowel and [n] before a nasal vowel:

/noʔo/ [ndoʔo] ndo'o "adobe brick"
/noʔõ/ [nõʔõ] no'o "tooth"

/w/ is [w] or [β] before an oral vowel and [m] before a nasal vowel:

/waʔa/ [βaʔa] va'a "good"
/waʔã/ [mãʔã] ma'a "raccoon"

/j/ is [j] or [ʒ] before an oral vowel and [j̃] or [ɲ] before a nasal vowel:

/juʔu/ [juʔu] yu'u "mouth"
/juʔũ/ [ɲũʔũ] ñu'u "fire"

In some varieties, /t/ is [t] before an oral vowel and [tn] before a nasal vowel:

/tuʔũ/ [tnũʔũ] tnu'u "word" (vs. tu'un in other varieties)

In the orthography, nasalization is indicated by adding -n after the vowel, but is not indicated if there is a nasal consonant (including allophonic nasal consonants) before the vowel. (Hence tnu'u rather than tnu'un.)

In compounds and prefixed words, nasalization does not spread past the morpheme boundary:

/nu-jawã/ [ndu-ɲãmã] nduñama "become light" (not *[nũɲãmã])

This analysis works for conservative varieties/Proto-Mixtec, but it's possible that in some varieties some of these allophones may have become phonemic. Phonological analysis can be difficult in some cases.

Local changes

Most varieties turn /tʃ/ into something else, such as /ʃ/ or /x/. Some have a chain shift where /s/ becomes /θ/ or /ð/, and /tʃ/ becomes /s/.

Palatalization happens in a lot of Mixtec varieties. /s/ often palatalizes to /ʃ/, and /t/ often palatalizes /tʃ/ (after the original /tʃ/ was lost). Some varieties have palatalized /tʲ/ and /nʲ/ [ndʲ].

Some varieties merge /ɨ/ into /i/. Many varieties merge /e/ into /a/. Sometimes words remain distinct due to palatalization (e.g. *te *ta → /tʃa ta/ or /tʲa ta/), and sometimes they don't (*te *ta → /ta ta/). Almost all varieties merge /õ/ and /ũ/, usually as [ũ] but some varieties have [õ] instead.

Tone

Most varieties have only three level tones: high, mid and low. A few have a fourth tone, between mid and low. Contour tones (rising, falling) are only found in a few varieties, and are rare even the varieties that have them.

Most roots have only mid and/or low tone syllables. High tone is mostly restricted to tone sandhi and certain grammatical contexts: high tone is used to mark the present tense, and to convert nouns into adjectives).

tē'ndè "will be cut"
té'ndè "is being cut"

yūù "stone"
yúú "hard"

[vlad]

The basic word order is VSO:

Katu ña sita.
make her tortilla
"She is making tortillas."

Mixtec is non-pro-drop, so some argument must always be present:

Ni chini ndi te.
PST saw me him
"I saw him."

The exception is impersonal environmental verbs, which have no subject:

Ni taan.
PST quake
"There was an earthquake."

Mixtec has a distinction between first person plural inclusive and exclusive, and also distinguishes between several categories of third person pronouns. The details vary between varieties, but may include:

• man
• woman
• child
• animal
• fruit or round thing
• tree or wooden thing
• liquid
• deity

People graduate from "child" to "man"/"woman" when they get married.

Adjectives follow the noun:

ita kua'a
flower red
"red flower"

Possession is marked simply by putting the possessor after the possessee:

sutu ndi
father me
"my father"

nda'a ña
hand her
"her hand"

yo'o yutun
root tree
"the roots of the tree"

You can also modify nouns with other nouns, which can be hard to distinguish from possession; for that matter, it can be hard to distinguish nouns from adjectives, since they can both modify nouns.

su'ma ndika'a
tail cougar
"cougar tail" / "the cougar's tail"

ve'e yutun
house tree
"wooden house"

ve'e tiño ñuu ndu
house work pueblo us
"our town's government building"

Cardinal numbers and measure words go before the noun:

oni tee
three man
"three men"

kɨvɨ kilo nuni
four kilo maize
"four kilos of maize"

Ordinal numbers aren't morphologically distinct. You indicate that a number is being used as an ordinal by putting it after the noun instead of in front:

tee oni
man three
"the third man"