Chatino language
| Chatino | |
|---|---|
| Cha'cña | |
| Ethnicity: | Chatino people |
| Geographic distribution: |
Oaxaca, Mexico |
| Linguistic classification: |
Oto-Manguean
|
| Subdivisions: | |
| Glottolog: | chat1268 |
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Chatino is a group of indigenous Mesoamerican languages. These languages are a branch of the Zapotecan family within the Oto-Manguean language family. They are natively spoken by 45,000 Chatino people, whose communities are located in the southern portion of the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
The Chatinos have close cultural and linguistic ties with the Zapotec people, whose languages form the other branch of the Zapotecan language family. Chatinos call their language ChaqF TnyaJ, which means "difficult word." It is recognized as a national language in Mexico.
The Chatino languages are a group of three languages. Zenzontepec Chatino spoken in about 10 communities in the district of Sola de Vega, Tataltepec Chatino, spoken in Tataltepec the Valdez and a group of language called the Eastern Chatino language spoken in about 15-17 communities. Egland & Bartholomew (1983) conducted mutual intelligibility tests in which they concluded that four varieties of Chatino could be considered separate languages in regards to mutual intelligibility, with 80% intelligibility being needed for varieties to be considered part of the same language. (The same count resulted from a looser 70% criterion.) These were Tataltepec, Zacatepec, Panixtlahuaca, and the Highlands dialects, with Zenzontepec not tested but based on other studies believed to be completely unintelligible with the rest of Chatino. The Highlands dialects fall into three groups, largely foreshadowing the divisions in Ethnologue.
Campbell (2013), in a study based on shared innovations rather than mutual intelligibility, first divides Chatino into two groups—Zenzontepec and Coastal Chatino. He then divides Coastal Chatino into Tataltepec and Eastern Chatino. His Eastern Chatino contains all other varieties and he finds no evidence for subgrouping or further division based on shared innovations. This division mirrors the divisions reported by Boas (1913), based on speaker comments, that Chatino comprised three "dialects" with limited mutual intelligibility. Sullivant (2015) finds that Teojomulco is the most divergent variety.
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