Matlatzincan languages
| Matlatzincan | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | State of Mexico, Michoacán |
| Linguistic classification | Oto-Manguean
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | matl1258 |
The Matlatzincan, Atzinca, Matlatzinca-Ocuilteco-Pirinda, Matlatzinca-Tlahuica, or Matlatitzinca-Atzinca-Pirinda languages are a pair of related languages of the Oto-Manguean language family under the Oto-Pamean branch. They are spoken in the Toluca Valley in two municipalities. The first is Tlahuica or Ocuiltec, spoken in several villages in Ocuilan and the second is Matlatzinca spoken in the village San Francisco Oxtotilpan.[1] A third language, Pirinda, was spoken around Charo and may have been a variety of Matlatzinca.[2]
Both languages are moribund, though in 2003 they were recognised as official languages of Mexico, along with the other indigenous languages of Mexico.[3] Matlatzinca has been documented as having either 1,245 or 2,020 speakers in 2020. There is a conflicting number of Ocuiltec speakers documented in 2020, on the high end having 2,238 speakers while the lower end is 159 speakers, with only 50 fluent elderly speakers identified in 2025. Pirinda went extinct in 1936.[4]
Proto-language
Pascacio Montijo (2011) reconstructed the personal independent pronouns of the Matlatzincan languages as the Proto-Atzinca language.[5] The proposed proto-language is reconstructed from data from both Matlatzincan languages and colonial descriptions of the languages of the Matlatzinco region. In the reconstruction, she identifies 6 location based varieties: the Toluca Valley, Undameo (Morelia), Charo, Mexicaltzingo, San Francisco Oxtotilpan, and San Juan Atzingo (Ocuilan). There is also a seventh group labeled as just Matlatzinca which is used in the situation when there is ambiguity between the San Francisco Oxtotilpan or Mexicaltzingo languages, though both are assumed to be very closely related. San Juan Atzingo corresponds to Ocuiltec. Charo and Undameo, are located on the frontiers of the former Purépecha Empire and fit descriptions of the Pirinda who were allied with the Purépecha.[2]
Tone
The Matlatzincan languages are tonal. Matlatzinca has a low and high tone, while Ocuiltec has high, low, ascending, and descending tones. There is insufficient evidence for tone reconstruction in Proto-Atzinca.
Comparisons
The table below shows the comparative elements of the languages (A "?" indicates that there is insufficient data):
| Language – Location | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comparison | Toluca Valley | Undameo | Charo | Mexicaltzingo | Oxtotilpan | Atzingo |
| Third-person marker | t’ǝwi | let’ǝ | ||||
| Nominal prefixes we- and in- | ? | Allowed | Not Allowed | |||
| /wi/ in third person, dual and plural | Yes | No | ||||
| Dual | -wewi | -kwe | ||||
| First and second person plural | -howi | -kho | ||||
| Diffuse, acute, continuant phoneme | /r/ | /l/ | ||||
| Root vowel length in the second person | Short | ? | Long | |||
| /n/ at the morpheme boundary of third person and plural | Yes | No | ||||
| Elision of /i/ from person affixes before number affixes | First and second person | First only | ||||
| Processes for breaking up consonant clusters | the consonant of the number morpheme becomes a feature of the consonant of the person morpheme | identical consonants deleted | ||||
| Aspirated allophones of acute consonants | No | [ly], [t’y], [nhy] | ||||
| Voicing of the initial consonant /k/ | [g] | No[6] | ||||
| Final vowel of the first-person singular pronouns | [i] | [ǝ] | ||||
See also
Notes
- ↑ Catálogo de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales: Variantes Lingüísticas de México con sus autodenominaciones y referencias geoestadísticas (PDF) (in Spanish) (1 ed.). Mexico: INALI. 2009. pp. 142, 162–163. ISBN 978-607-7538-08-0.
- 1 2 Delfín Guillaumin, Martha (April 2011). "Los pirindas de Michoacán: ¿inicio de un proceso de etnogénesis?". Cuicuilco (in Spanish). 18 (50): 145–158. ISSN 0185-1659.
- ↑ Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas Archived 2007-02-08 at the Wayback Machine ("General Law of the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous peoples"), decree published 13 March 2003
- ↑ León, Nicolás (1944). Origen, estado actual y geografía del idioma pirinda o matlatzinca en el estado de Michoacán.
- ↑ Pascacio Montijo, Etna T. (December 2015). "Reconstrucción morfológica y fonológica de los pronombres personales independientes del protoatzinca". Cuadernos de Lingüística de El Colegio de México (in Spanish). 2: 239–285. doi:10.24201/clecm.v2i0.19. ISSN 2007-736X.
- ↑ Muntzel, Martha C.; González Nestor, Natividad (2017). tlahuica de san juan atzingo, ocuilan, estado de méxico (PDF) (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Mexico City: El Colegio de México. p. 33. ISBN 978-607-628-153-6.