Ojitlán Chinantec (Chinanteco de San Lucas Ojitlán) is a major Chinantecan language of Mexico, spoken in four towns in San Lucas Ojitlán of northern Oaxaca, and in the Veracruz municipos of Minatitlán and Hidalgotitlán.
Phonology Vowels There are only a few monomorphemic words that display contrastive vowel length, so this Chinantecan feature may be being lost from Ojitlán.
+ Front Central Back Close () Mid () Open
are freely realized as . is occasionally .
and are difficult to distinguish, but there are a few minimal pairs.
Each vowel can be nasalized. and are rare.
Consonants +LabialAlveolarRetroflexPostalv./ PalatalVelarGlottalPlosivevoicelessvoiced ~ FricativeAffricateTrillNasalvoicedvoicelessLateralvoicedvoicelessGlidevoicedvoiceless
is uncommon.
Some consonants are nearly in complementary distribution: only occurs before , whereas rarely occurs before . Post-pausa may be realized as or , whereas intervocalic is nearly always . occurs before front vowels and , whereas occurs before back vowels and .
is occasionally a single-contract trill, and post-pausa may be .
is apical alveolar.
and are before .
The voiceless sonorants are analyzed as sequences in other Chinantecan languages, and in addition there is a series of sequences in Ojitlán. The Ojitlán retroflex lateral corresponds to in other Chinantec, and that is perhaps how it should be analyzed in Ojitlán as well.
Tones Syllables may be unstressed or have normal stress. Normal stress involves increased length and amplitude of the vowel. What was historically ballistic stress is realized in Ojitlán as extra-high and extra-low tones (from ballistic high and ballistic falling, respectively), and tend to involve aspiration of the consonant, breathiness of the vowel and a sharp falling pitch but not the other correlates of Chinantecan ballistic syllables. There are also a number of phonemic (as opposed to just phonetic) contour tones, though the number had not been established as of Macaulay (1999).
+Ojitlán tonesTone Example Translation Phonetic realizationExtra higha̋ʔcricketsharp falling contourHighóʔbrokenslight rising-falling contourMidɤ̄ʔmeaslesslight falling contourLowàmanyslight rising-falling contourExtra lowɯ̏ʔwhensharp falling contourLow risingkĩ́ʔo᷅ʔdoorMid risinghe᷄ːŋã̄forestHigh fallingʔnã᷇openMid fallingtʃi᷆ːgood
Writing system Several spellings of Chinantec of Ojitlán have been developed. The Institute National for Adult Education (INEA) and SIL International use different spellings.
In the spelling of INEA, the high tone is indicated using the acute accent of the letter of the vowel, the medium tone by the absence of a diacritic above or below it, the low tone using the underlined line, and the very low tone using the double underlined line. This spelling uses seven letters for the vowels: . +abcheɇijklmnnngñoprsttsuwy
References