Soyaltepec Mazatec
Mazatecan language of Oaxaca, Mexico
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
Native speakers
(28,000 cited 2000)[1]| Soyaltepec Mazatec | |
|---|---|
| (San Miguel Soyaltepec) Temascal Mazatec | |
| Native to | Oaxaca, Mexico |
| Region | San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz |
Native speakers | (28,000 cited 2000)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | vmp |
| Glottolog | soya1237 |
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:
Consonants
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 positions 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]