Totonacan languages
Encyclopedia
The Totonacan languages are a family of closely related languages spoken by approximately 200,000 Totonac
and Tepehua
people in the states of Veracruz
, Puebla
, and Hidalgo in Mexico
. The Totonacan languages have only recently been compared to other families on the basis of historical-comparative linguistics, though they share numerous areal features with other languages of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
, such as the Mayan languages
and Nahuatl
. Recent work suggests a possible genetic link to the Mixe–Zoque language family), although this has yet to be firmly established.
is the most distinctive, and the remaining languages form a more closely related group. Divisions amongst the latter group, which might be referred to as Central Totonac, are unclear, though most researchers agree that there is a three-way division between Northern, Southern/Sierra, and Lowland varieties. Recent efforts at reconstruction and evidence from lexical similarity further suggest that Southern/Sierra and Lowland group together against Northern, although this is still uncertain pending more exhaustive investigation.
Glottal stop is not attested directly, but posited for morphological correspondences.
Tepehua has ejective consonants where Totonac has creaky vowels.
, such as a preference for verb-initial order, head-marking, and extensive use of body part roots in metaphorical and locative constructions.
Two features distinctive of Totonacan are worth mentioning in further detail: first, the comitative
construction, and secondly, body-part incorporation. Most of the examples that follow are taken from Misantla Totonac
, but illustrate processes found in all the Totonacan languages.
In other languages, the co-actor can be inflected as a second subject. For example, a verb "run" may be inflected with both 1st person and 2nd person subject affixes simultaneously to give a sentence meaning "You and I run", "You run with me", or "I run with you".
A body-part root acting as a non-agentive subject may also be incorporated.
It is worthwhile to note that Totonacan noun incorporation never decreases the valency of the verb, making Totonacan very typologically unusual. The lack of valency-reducing noun incorporation, which is the cross-linguistically the most common type, may well be due to the very tight semantic restrictions on incorporable nouns. This may in turn be related to the fact that independent bodypart words in many Totonacan languages can be analyzed as consisting of the bodypart prefix attached to a partonymic base, casting some doubt on the idea that this is noun incorporation at all, at least under the usual understanding of the term.
Comparative as well as language-internal evidence suggests that the pattern of consonantal alternations may have their origins in affixes indicating grade—s- ‘diminutive‘, š- ‘medium’, ɬ- ‘augmentative’). In general, the productivity of the sound-symbolic alternations is highly variable within and across languages of the family, and many languages preserve for a given stem only one of a set of two or three alternates that can be reconstructed for proto-Totonacan.
's radio station XECTZ-AM
, broadcasting from Cuetzalan, Puebla.
Notes
References (Facsimile).
Totonac
The Totonac people resided in the eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. Today they reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the Pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained...
and Tepehua
Tepehua
Tepehua may refer to:* Tepehua language belongs to Totonacan languages* Tepehuan language belongs to Uto-Aztecan languages...
people in the states of Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
, Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....
, and Hidalgo in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. The Totonacan languages have only recently been compared to other families on the basis of historical-comparative linguistics, though they share numerous areal features with other languages of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
, such as the Mayan languages
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
and Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
. Recent work suggests a possible genetic link to the Mixe–Zoque language family), although this has yet to be firmly established.
Divisions
Although the family is traditionally divided into two languages, Totonac and Tepehua, the various dialects thereof are not always mutually intelligible and thus Totonac and Tepehua are better characterized as coordinate branches of a language family. Of the two, Tepehua is generally considered to consist of three languages—Pisaflores, Huehuetla, and Tlachichilco—while the Totonac branch is considerably more diverse. Within Totonac, MisantlaMisantla Totonac
Misantla Totonac is an indigenous language of Mexico which is spoken by fewer than 500 indigenous Totonacs in central Veracruz. It belongs to the Totonacan family. Misantla Totonac is highly endangered and most speakers are elderly, and the language is no longer in daily use in the communities...
is the most distinctive, and the remaining languages form a more closely related group. Divisions amongst the latter group, which might be referred to as Central Totonac, are unclear, though most researchers agree that there is a three-way division between Northern, Southern/Sierra, and Lowland varieties. Recent efforts at reconstruction and evidence from lexical similarity further suggest that Southern/Sierra and Lowland group together against Northern, although this is still uncertain pending more exhaustive investigation.
Phonology
There is some variation between the phoneme inventories of the different varieties of Totonac and Tepehua, but the following phoeme inventory, which is reconstructed as proto-Totonacan by Arana (1953), can be considered a typical Totonacan inventory.Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tongue rather than down its center.... |
lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
*m | *n | |||||
| Plosive | *p | *t | *k | *q | (*ʔ) | ||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
*t͡s | *t͡ɬ | *t͡ʃ | ||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
*s | *ɬ | *ʃ | *x | *h | ||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
*l | *j | *w |
Glottal stop is not attested directly, but posited for morphological correspondences.
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| creaky | plain | creaky | plain | creaky | plain | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
*ḭ *ḭː | *i *iː | *ṵ *ṵː | *u *uː | ||
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
*a̰ *a̰ː | *a *aː |
Tepehua has ejective consonants where Totonac has creaky vowels.
Grammatical traits
Like many American-Indian languages, the Totonacan languages are highly agglutinative and polysynthetic. Furthermore, they exhibit many features of the Mesoamerican areal typeMesoamerican Linguistic Area
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
, such as a preference for verb-initial order, head-marking, and extensive use of body part roots in metaphorical and locative constructions.
Two features distinctive of Totonacan are worth mentioning in further detail: first, the comitative
Comitative case
The comitative case , also known as the associative case , is a grammatical case that denotes companionship, and is used where English would use "in company with" or "together with"...
construction, and secondly, body-part incorporation. Most of the examples that follow are taken from Misantla Totonac
Misantla Totonac
Misantla Totonac is an indigenous language of Mexico which is spoken by fewer than 500 indigenous Totonacs in central Veracruz. It belongs to the Totonacan family. Misantla Totonac is highly endangered and most speakers are elderly, and the language is no longer in daily use in the communities...
, but illustrate processes found in all the Totonacan languages.
The comitative construction
Languages of the family have a comitative construction in which both an actor and a co-actor of a verb are specified. For instance, a verb such as 'go' can take a comitative prefix to form a verb meaning 'go with someone', someone being the co-actor. In some of the languages of the family, these constructions specify the co-actor as an object:- Upper Necaxa TotonacUpper Necaxa TotonacUpper Necaxa Totonac is a native American language of central Mexico spoken by 3,400 people in and around four villages—Chicontla, Patla, Cacahuatlán, and San Pedro Tlaloantongo—in the Necaxa River Valley in Northern Puebla State...
- ikta:a'na:n
- ik–ta:–a'n–a:–n
- 1sg.sub–COM–go–IMPF–2obj
- "I go with you"
In other languages, the co-actor can be inflected as a second subject. For example, a verb "run" may be inflected with both 1st person and 2nd person subject affixes simultaneously to give a sentence meaning "You and I run", "You run with me", or "I run with you".
- Iklaatsaa'layaa'n.
- Ik-laa-tsaa'la-yaa-'-na
- 1s-COM-run-imperf-2s-COM
- "You and I run".
Body-part incorporation
The Totonacan languages exhibit noun incorporation, but only special prefixing combining forms of body-part roots may be incorporated. When these roots are incorporated, they serve to delimit the verb's locus of affect; that is, they indicate which part of the subject or object is affected by the action.- Ikintsuu'ksaan.
- Ik-kin-tsuu'ks-yaa-na
- 1s-nose-kiss-imperf-2o
- "I kiss your nose. (Lit: "I nose-kiss you.")
- Tuuxqatka'n.
- tuu-xqat-kan-'
- foot-wash-REFL-2s
- "You wash your foot/feet" (Lit: "You foot-wash yourself".)
A body-part root acting as a non-agentive subject may also be incorporated.
- Ikaa'ka'tsan.
- Ik-kaa'k-ka'tsan
- 1s-head-hurt
- "My head hurts." (Lit: "I head-hurt".)
It is worthwhile to note that Totonacan noun incorporation never decreases the valency of the verb, making Totonacan very typologically unusual. The lack of valency-reducing noun incorporation, which is the cross-linguistically the most common type, may well be due to the very tight semantic restrictions on incorporable nouns. This may in turn be related to the fact that independent bodypart words in many Totonacan languages can be analyzed as consisting of the bodypart prefix attached to a partonymic base, casting some doubt on the idea that this is noun incorporation at all, at least under the usual understanding of the term.
Sound symbolism
A prominent feature of Totonacan languages is the presence of sound symbolism (see Bishop 1984; Levy 1987:115–30; McQuown 1990:66; MacKay 1997:113–14; Smythe Kung 2006; McFarland 2006; Beck 2008). The most common (but by no means only) sound-symbolic pattern in Totonacan involves fricative alterations, typically /s/ ~ /š/ ~ /ɬ/ and occasionally /ts/ ~ /č/ ~ /š/ correlated either with increasingly more energetic or forceful action or with the size of an event participant, as in the following examples from Upper Necaxa Totonac:| laŋs ‘hand striking hard’ laŋš ‘blow striking with force’ laŋɬ ‘blow striking with great force’ |
spipispipi ‘small person or animal trembling’ špipišpipi ‘person or animal shivering or shaking slightly’ ɬpipiɬpipi ‘person or animal shaking or having convulsions’ |
Comparative as well as language-internal evidence suggests that the pattern of consonantal alternations may have their origins in affixes indicating grade—s- ‘diminutive‘, š- ‘medium’, ɬ- ‘augmentative’). In general, the productivity of the sound-symbolic alternations is highly variable within and across languages of the family, and many languages preserve for a given stem only one of a set of two or three alternates that can be reconstructed for proto-Totonacan.
Media
Totonacan-language programming is carried by the CDINational Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was founded in 2003 as a replacement for the National Indigenist Institute . It has its headquarters in Mexico City and, since 15 December 2006, has been...
's radio station XECTZ-AM
XECTZ-AM
XECTZ-AM is an indigenous community radio station that broadcasts in Spanish, Nahuatl and Totonac from Cuetzalan, in the Sierra Norte region of the Mexican state of Puebla....
, broadcasting from Cuetzalan, Puebla.
External links
Notes
References (Facsimile).