Cuicatec language
Oto-Manguean language spoken in Mexico
Cuicatec is an Oto-Manguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. It belongs to the Mixtecan branch together with the Mixtec languages and the Trique language. The Ethnologue lists two major dialects of Cuicatec: Tepeuxila Cuicatec and Teutila Cuicatec. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, Cuicatec is tonal.
The Cuicatecs are closely related to the Mixtecs. They inhabit two towns: Teutila and Tepeuxila in western Oaxaca. According to the 2000 census, they number around 23,000, of whom an estimated 65% are speakers of the language. The name Cuicatec is a Nahuatl exonym, from [ˈkʷika] 'song' [ˈteka] 'inhabitant of place of'.
Cuicatec-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XEOJN, based in San Lucas Ojitlán, Oaxaca.
01Phonology
Vowels
The Santa Maria Papalo dialect contains six vowel sounds both oral and nasal:
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | ||||||
| Plosive | p | t | k | kʷ | ʔ | ||
| Affricate | tʃ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | |||||
| voiced | β | ð | ɣ | ɣʷ | |||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Rhotic | ɾ, r | ||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||
Allophones of the following sounds /β ð ɣ n j t tʃ/ include [b d ɡ~x ŋ j̈ θ ʃ], respectively.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Cuicatec language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Cuicatec map.svg by Noahedits, CC BY-SA 4.0
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