Soyaltepec Mazatec

Soyaltepec Mazatec is a Mazatecan language spoken in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, notably in the towns of Santa María Jacatepec and San Miguel Soyaltepec, and on Soyaltepec Island.

Soyaltepec Mazatec
(San Miguel Soyaltepec)
Temascal Mazatec
Native toOaxaca, Mexico
RegionSan Felipe Jalapa de Díaz
Native speakers
28,000 (2000)[1]
Oto-Manguean
Language codes
ISO 639-3vmp
Glottologsoya1237

Due to flooding from the construction of a dam, the Soyaltepec-speaking area has had an influx of speakers of other Mazatecan languages. Perhaps only 900 people, mostly monolingual, still speak the original variety of Soyaltepec.[1]

See Mazatecan languages for a detailed description of these languages.

Phonology

Vowels

The Soyaltepec Mazatec dialect contains five vowel sounds and nasals:

Front Back
Close i, ĩ u, ũ
Mid ɛ, ɛ̃ o, õ
Open a, ã

Consonants
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive (p) t̪ k ʔ
Affricate t͡s t͡ʃ
Fricative f s ʃ h
Nasal m n ɲ
Rhotic ɾ
Approximant w l j

Glottal-sonorant consonants: /hm, hn, hɲ, ʔm, ʔn, ʔɲ, ʔw, ʔj/

Nasal-obstruent consonants: /nt, ŋk, nt͡s, nt͡ʃ/

  • [p] occurs only in borrowed words.
  • /w/ in word-initial postiions may also be heard as a voiced fricative [β].
  • /ʃ, t͡ʃ/ may be optionally heard as retroflex [ʂ, t͡ʂ] before a back vowel.
  • Glottal-sonorant consonants /hm, hn, hɲ/ are articulated as voiceless nasal sounds [m̥, n̥, ɲ̊] when in surface form.
  • Nasal-obstruent articulated consonants may also be heard as voiced [nd, ŋɡ, nd͡z, nd͡ʒ].[2]

References
  1. Soyaltepec Mazatec at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Beal, Heather (2011). The segments and tones of Soyaltepec Mazatec. University of Texas at Arlington.
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