// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Tilquiapan Zapotec say to the hill? You're a steep learner.
| Tilquiapan Zapotec | |
|---|---|
| San Miguel Tilquiápam | |
| Region | Oaxaca in Mexico |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2007)[1] |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | zts |
| Glottolog | tilq1235 |
Tilquiapan Zapotec (Zapoteco de San Miguel Tilquiápam) is an Oto-Manguean language of the Zapotecan branch, spoken in southern Oaxaca, Mexico.
Santa Inés Yatzechi Zapotec is close enough to be considered a dialect, and Ocotlán Zapotec is also close. They were measured at 87% and 59% intelligibility, respectively, in recorded text testing.[2]
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | ɘ | o | |
| Open | a | ||
Each vowel can also be glottalized, a phenomenon manifested as either creaky voice throughout the vowel or, more commonly, as a sequence of a vowel and a glottal stop optionally followed by an echo of the vowel.[4]
Consonants
[edit]| Bilabial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labialized | ||||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n / nː | |||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | tʃ | dʒ | k | ɡ | kʷ | ɡʷ | |||
| Fricative | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | |||||||||
| Tap | ɾ | ||||||||||||
| Approximant | l / l͡d | j | |||||||||||
As with other Zapotec languages, the primary distinction between consonant pairs like /t/ and /d/ is not of voicing but between fortis and lenis (measured in length),[6] respectively, with voicing being a phonetic correlate.[5] There are two exceptions to this in Tilquiapan:
- The contrast between fortis /nː/ and lenis /n/
- The contrast between fortis /ld/ and lenis /l/
Neither is voiceless, but /nː/ is pronounced a little longer and /ld/ replaces /l/ in certain causative verbs in ways similar to other fortis/lenis consonantal changes (e.g. [blaˀa] 'get loose' vs. [bldaˀa] 'let loose').[5]
/nː/ is not differentiated from /n/ in orthography.[5] Word-final lenis /n/ is realized as [ŋ].[3]
/b/ and /d/ have fricative allophones [β] and [ð] intervocalically.[3]
/ɾ/ before a consonant is [ɹ].[3]
/ɡʷ/ varies between [ɡʷ] ~ [ɣʷ] ~ [w], and /ɡ/ between [ɡ] ~ [ɣ].[5]
/ʃ ʒ/ have retroflex allophones [ʂ ʐ] occurring before /a u/, while [ʃ ʒ] are typically occurring before /i/.[3]
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Tilquiapan Zapotec at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ↑ Egland, Cruz Ramos & Bartholomew (1978) [dead link]
- 1 2 3 4 5 Merrill (2008), p. 109.
- ↑ Merrill (2008), p. 110
- 1 2 3 4 5 Merrill (2008), p. 108.
- ↑ See Nellis & Hollenbach (1980)
References
[edit]- Egland, Steven; Cruz Ramos, Saúl; Bartholomew, Doris (1978), La inteligibilidad interdialectal en México: resultados de algunos sondeos [Interdialectal intelligibility in Mexico: study results] (in Spanish), México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, ISBN 9683100031
- Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344, archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-04-12
- Nellis, Donald G.; Hollenbach, Barbara E. (1980), "Fortis versus lenis in Cajonos Zapotec phonology", International Journal of American Linguistics, 46 (2): 92–105, doi:10.1086/465639, S2CID 144452370
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