Totozoquean is a proposed language family

Language family

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...

 of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

, posited as the ancestor language of two well-established genetic groupings, Totonacan

Totonacan languages

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...

 and Mixe–Zoque.

Correspondences

Comparative proto-Totozoquean reconstructions are proposed in Brown et al. (2011) for simple consonants and vowels. The consonant-inventory for proto-Totozoquean is similar to that reconstructed for proto-Totonacan (Arana Osnaya 1953), and the vowels are not unlike those proposed for proto-Mixe–Zoquean (Wichmann 1995). A parallel set of laryngealized but otherwise identical proto-Totozoquean vowels is reconstructed for proto-Totozoquean to account for the distribution of laryngealized vowels in the Totonac branch of the Totonacan family, though these left no known trace in proto-Mixe–Zoquean (Wichmann 1995) and there may be a more economical explanation. Vowel length is likewise an independent parameter reconstructed for proto-Totozoquean that does not seem to affect the correspondences, but in this case it is a feature inherited by both families.

Vowels
Proto-Totozoquean (pTZ) is reconstructed with seven vowel qualities, all of which occur with long, laryngealized, and long laryngealized homologues. These reduce to a three-vowel system in proto-Totonacan (pT); length and laryngealization is retained. Proto-Mixe–Zoque (pMZ) loses laryngealization and neutralizes **ɨ~ə and **ɔ~o.

pTZ	pT	pMZ
**i	*i	*i
**e		*e
**ɨ		*ə
**ə	*a
**a		*a
**ɔ		*o
**o	*u
**u		*u

Consonants
Of the three consonants which do not appear in either daughter, **ty and **ny are poorly attested, whereas **ky is robust. Proto-Mixe–Zoque loses the laterals and gutturals, and neutralizes the alveolar–palato-alveolar distinction. Proto-Totonocan loses glottal stop and **y.

pTZ  pT  pMZ **n *n *n **ny *l **l *y **ɬ *ɬ **ƛ *ƛ **y *t **t *t **ty *č **č *¢ **¢ *¢ **š *š *s **s *s

pTZ  pT  pMZ **p *p *p **m *m *m **w *w *w **ky *k *k **k *q **q *ʔ **ʔ *∅ **h *h **#h *h **x *x