Linguistic Discovery
Dartmouth College

Volume 17 Issue 1 (2021)        DOI:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.511

Note: Linguistic Discovery uses Unicode characters to represent phonetic symbols. Please see Optimizing Display for requirements to accurately reproduce this page.

The Peñafiel Vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec

 

Natalie Operstein

University of California

 

This paper analyzes and makes available the contents of an unpublished nineteenth-century lexical questionnaire in Elotepec Zapotec, an endangered and under-documented indigenous language of Mexico. This unique document forms part of the survey of Mexican indigenous languages conducted in the 1880s and 1890s by the Dirección General de Estadística de la República Mexicana. The paper provides a transcription of the Elotepec Zapotec forms, a study of the document’s orthography, and a linguistic analysis of the data.

 

1. Introduction

 

In the 1880s, Antonio Peñafiel Barranco, head of the newly founded Dirección General de Estadística de la República Mexicana, launched a far-flung, multiyear survey of the indigenous languages of Mexico.[1] The goal of the survey was to assemble basic, practical information about the languages in order to catalog them, determine their geographical distribution, assess their vitality and, in some cases, “consignar idiomas que no eran conocidos, como el cahuilla de la Baja California” [to record languages that were not known, like Cahuilla from Baja California] (Peñafiel 1897: 93). The practical orientation of the survey was emphasized in Peñafiel’s report to the Eleventh Congress of Americanists, held in Mexico City in 1895:

 

No se quería la clasificación de las lenguas, ni concienzudos estudios de Filología, sino simplemente una recopilación, un catálogo general comparativo para aplicaciones útiles y prácticas . . . . (Peñafiel 1897: 92)[2]

 

The survey instrument consisted of a numbered list of 250 lexical items in Spanish which were to be translated into the various indigenous languages by local residents (Peñafiel 1897: 93). The thematic breakdown of the word list is as shown in (1).

 

(1)

Item

Category

 

1-3

religion

 

4-24, 53-55

humans, kinship terms

 

25-51

body parts

 

52, 56-68

tools, dwellings, related vocabulary

 

69-101

natural environment, times of day, seasons, metals

 

102-151

plants, animals, related vocabulary

 

152-169

word for “name”; adjectives

 

170-180

pronouns and quantifiers

 

181-189

adverbs

 

190-211

numerals

 

212-240

verbs

 

241-250

abstract nouns

 

Since the Peñafiel questionnaires were filled out by individuals who “had no previous experience in work of this kind”, they necessarily vary in quality and accuracy (Mechling 1912: 643). Though some have previously been used for linguistic research (Mechling 1912; Smith Stark 1999), only a fraction have been published, and the observations below appear to be as accurate today as at the time of their publication more than a century ago:

 

In the year 1886 Dr Antonio Peñafiel collected vocabularies of native languages from all parts of Mexico . . . . The volume of these vocabularies that has been printed deals entirely with the well-known Mexican of the Central Plateau region . . . . With the other four volumes into which Peñafiel divides his manuscripts nothing has been done, although it is hoped that they will soon be published by the Mexican Government. (Mechling 1912: 643)

 

Among the Peñafiel vocabularies that have not yet been published or analyzed is the one from the town of San Juan Elotepec. The language it records, Elotepec Zapotec (ISO code zte), is only scantily documented, the only publications on this variety being an eighteen-page long Breve noticia del idioma papabuco del pueblo de Elotepec by Francisco Belmar (Belmar 1901) and an about twenty-page long article by Juan José Rendón (Rendón 1971). The latter researcher was unable to reach the town of San Juan Elotepec due to heavy rains and had to settle for conducting his fieldwork in the vicinity.

 

Elotepec Zapotec is one of the three languages that form the Papabuco branch of Zapotec, the other two being Zaniza Zapotec (ISO code zpw; see Operstein 2015a, 2015b, 2016, 2017b) and Texmelucan Zapotec (ISO code zpz; see Speck 1978, 2005a, 2005b).[3] The Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2019) reports Elotepec Zapotec’s intelligibility with Zaniza Zapotec as 68% and with Texmelucan Zapotec as 10%; its most recently reported vitality level is 8a (“moribund”). In light of its critical endangerment and a severe dearth of both primary data and published research, it is hoped that the present paper will provide a stimulus for undertaking systematic documentation of Elotepec Zapotec, as well as a basis for its inclusion in historical and comparative research on Zapotec and Zapotecan languages. Since the Peñafiel vocabulary reflects the state of Elotepec Zapotec in the late 1880s, it also provides a unique dataset with which to observe linguistic change in a Zapotec language over the period of more than a century.  

 

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a general description of the Peñafiel vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec. Sections 3 and 4 focus on the consonant and vowel inventories of Elotepec Zapotec, respectively, paying particular attention to the orthographic representation of the phonological contrasts. Section 5 looks at the morphological and syntactic features of Elotepec Zapotec reflected in the responses, and section 6 examines the Spanish loanwords in the data. Section 7 discusses the apparent misunderstandings and occasional errors, as well as the responses in Elotepec Zapotec that, for now, remain unanalyzed. Section 8 closes the paper with concluding remarks.

 

2. Peñafiel vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec

 

The vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec appears on the folios 656 through 659 of the manuscript identified by Jorge Suárez (1972: 231) as Lenguas indígenas de Oaxaca (see Peñafiel 1880-1894). The vocabulary consists of eight photocopied pages and comprises printed and handwritten text. The centered printed heading at the top of the title page states in large block letters “Dirección General de Estadística de la República Mexicana” and is followed by the centered heading, in smaller block letters, stating “Instrucciones sobre la etnología y filología nacionales”. Underneath is the following list of preliminary questions, printed in italics, and the corresponding handwritten answers:

 

Nombre del Estado

Oaxaca = Lolá

Id. del Municipio

Agencia

Id. del Pueblo

San Juan Elotepec, Tieyé es Zuá

Id. del idioma

Zapoteco Papabuco

Id. del gentílico en que se habla

Entre Zapoteco y Chatino

Nombre de la persona que escriba las palabras que corresponden á las castellanas escritas por órden numérico

C. Lorenzo Salinas, soltero de 22 años, actual secretario del municipio

Fecha y lugar en que se escribe la traduccion de este vocabulario

 

 

Immediately underneath is the centered heading “Vocabulario comparativo”, printed in block letters and followed by a numbered list of 250 lexical entries.

 

The handwritten part of the vocabulary evidences what appear to be three different hands. The anwers to the preliminary questions above and the responses to the quesionnaire all appear to be written by the same hand, presumably that of Lorenzo Salinas. The other two handwritings are confined to the title page. One is seen in the words “Oaxaca” and “Villa alvarez”, written close to the top of the page, and the other is responsible for the words “C. Presidente mpal de S. Juan Elotepec” on the very top of the page, and for the word “Papabuco”, which is written twice, first next to and after crossing out Salinas’s response “Zapoteco” to the question Id. del idioma [name of the language], and then again above the printed heading “Vocabulario comparativo” (see Figure 1).[4]

In its top left-hand margin the title page bears an oval seal with the Mexican coat of arms and the words “Municipalidad S. Juan Elotepec” printed around its edge. The same seal appears in the bottom left-hand margin of the last page, to the left of what appears to be Salinas’s signature under two handwritten lines, which are not legible on my copy. Jorge Suárez, whose research was conducted with the help of the original Peñafiel manuscript, gives the date of the Elotepec Zapotec vocabulary as 1886 (Suárez 1972: 220, fn. 2; 229).

 

Text, letter

Description automatically generated

Figure 1. The title page of the Peñafiel vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec

 

3. Elotepec Zapotec consonants

 

The consonant inventory of Elotepec Zapotec which may be deduced from the orthography of the Peñafiel vocabulary, supplemented by Belmar’s (1901) and Rendón’s (1971) orthographies and observations and a comparison with the other Papabuco languages, is shown in Table 1. The fricatives /f/ and /h/ are confined to Spanish borrowings; apparent distributional gaps in native words include the absence of morpheme-initial /p/ and /ʒ/ and root-medial /ʎ/, /kw/ and /gw/.  

 

p

t

 

 

 

k

kw

 

b

d

 

 

g'

g

gw

 

 

ɾ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(f)

s

ʂ

ʃ

 

 

 

(h)

 

z

ʐ

ʒ

 

 

 

 

m

n

 

ɲ

 

 

 

 

 

l

 

ʎ

 

 

 

 

w

 

 

j

 

 

 

 

Table 1. Elotepec Zapotec consonants

 

 

The status of the consonant provisionally represented in Table 1 as /g'/ is unclear; this is one possible interpretation of the recurrent orthographic sequence <gui> ~ <qui> before <a> and <e> (see Table 2).

 

Elotepec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

Proto-Zapotec[5]

 

<guiagua>

/dʒaaw/

/ɟoow/

*ke:ʔku

‘river’

<quial(dó)>

/dʒal (doo)/

/ɟel/

*keʔla

‘lake’

<quia(ná)>

/gi'/

/ɟi'/

*k-iʔja

‘foot’

<guieté>

/get/

/ɟet/

*kettu

‘squash’

<quieiyé>

/gej/

/ɟej/

*kijok

‘rain’

<(y)quieyé>

/(i)gej/

/(ju) ɟeej/

*(kwe-) kiʔju

‘man’ 

<(ez)quin(cazá)>

/(ʂi)giɲ/

/(tʃi)ɟiɲ/

*(kwe-) kinni

‘bird’

<guiñí>

/giɲ/

/ɟiiɲ/

*ki:ʔnaʔ

‘chili’

<quis(iquí)>

/giʂ/

/ɟitʃ/

*kittza(ʔ)

‘hair’

<quid(labá)>

/gid (lab)/

/ɟid (lab)/

*kiti

‘leather’

<quib(iagá)>

/gib (jag)/

/ɟib(ag)/

*ki:ʔkwa

‘metal, iron’

Table 2. Elotepec Zapotec /g'/

 

Interpreting the orthographic sequence <gui> ~ <qui> before <a> and <e> as a single segment is suggested by the cognates in the other Papabuco languages, Rendón’s (1971) use of the digraphs <gy> (in <gya7a1N> ‘foot’) and <ky> (in <kye1ye> ‘rain’) (226, 228), and Belmar’s (1901) use of <gui> before <a> and <e> in such forms as <(gal)guiaa> ‘height’, <(ru)guiao> ‘river mouth’, <guier(guiñi)> ‘candle’, <(ita)guieye> ‘hail’, <guieche> ‘hole’, <guiee> ‘deep’, <guieshe> ‘town’ and of <ki> in <kieshe> ‘thorn’ and <kiete> ‘squash’. Since the Peñafiel vocabulary does not mark palatalization before <i> (see the words for ‘bird’, ‘chili’, ‘hair’, ‘leather’ and ‘metal, iron’ in Table 2), the orthographic <gu> ~ <qu> in that environment is interpreted as /g/.

 

Table 3 illustrates the occurrence of Elotepec Zapotec consonants other than /g'/ in initial and medial positions. The Elotepec forms are transcribed in IPA and, where applicable, are divided into morphemes. The morphemes in the Elotepec responses which are not anticipated by the corresponding Spanish prompts, such as the first person plural pronoun clitic -na, are enclosed in brackets.

 

/p/

/tapa/ <tapa>

‘four’

/ʂ/

/ʂona/ <zosná>

‘three’

/ʃopa/ <llopa>

‘six’

/giʂi ɾu(-na)/ <quisi runá>

‘beard’

/b/

/bi/ <viy>

‘wind’

/ʐ/

/ʐini/ <lliní>

‘deer’

/oba/ <obá>

‘corn’

/weʐe/ <guexé>

‘church’

/t/

/tibi/ <tibi>

‘one’

/ʃ/

/ʃopa/ <llopa>

‘six’

/ɾiti/ <riti>

‘bone’

/kuʂ giʃe/ <cusquillé>

‘wild boar’

/d/

/do/ <dó>

‘sea’

/ʒ/

/dʒuʒe/ <chuyé>

‘God’

/bada/ <badá>

‘duck’

--

--

/k/

/kola/ <cola>

‘turkey’

/h/

/hefe-sõ/ <jefeson>

‘boss’

/beko/ <beco>

‘dog’

--

--

/g/

/ga/ <gá>

‘nine’

/m/

/mil/ <mil>

‘thousand’

/jaga/ <lliagá>

‘wood’

/en-mi'/ <enmihí>

‘small’

/kw/

/kwiɾ(-ã)/ <cuirán>

‘leg’

/n/

/nisi/ <nisi>

‘water’

/i-kwene/ <ycuené>

‘boy’

/kano(-ɾe)/ <canoré>

‘trough’

/gw/

/gwi il(-ɾe)/ <cuiilré>

‘star’

/ɲ/

/ɲeɾ jeɲa/ <nierrieñá>

‘neck’

/i-gwi(-na)/ <higuiná>

‘see’

/baɲa/ <baña>

‘horse’

/tʃ/

/tʃo/ <chó>

‘forty’

/ɾ/

/ɾiti/ <riti>

‘bone’

/(m)betʃe/ <beché>

‘people’

/uɾaga/ <uraga>

‘dove’

/dʒ/

/dʒuʒe/ <chuyé>

‘God’

/l/

/lede/ <ledé>

‘bark’

/gedʒe/ <gueché>

‘seven’

/bala/ <balá>

‘meat’

/f/

/fletʃe-sõ/ <fleche essón>

‘arrow’

/ʎ/

/ʎaga/ <leagá>

‘leaf’

/hefe-sõ/ <jefeson>

‘boss’

/ʎag(-ɾe)/ <liagré>

‘grass’

/s/

/solteɾé/ <solteré>

‘young’

/w/

/weʐe/ <guexé>

‘church’

/nisi/ <nisi>

‘water’

/g'awa/ <guiagua>

‘river’

/z/

/zede/ <zedé>

‘salt’

/j/

/ju'/ <yuhú>

‘house’

/uze/ <uxé>

‘priest’

/beje/ <beyé>

‘moon’

Table 3. Examples of Elotepec Zapotec consonants

 

The orthographic representation of Elotepec consonants in the Peñafiel vocabulary relies on Spanish orthographic conventions. These include representation of velar stops by means of <qu>, <gu> or <c>, <g> depending on whether the following vowel is front or back, the use of both <b> and <v> to spell /b/, and an occasional silent <h>. Innovative uses of Spanish orthographic devices are found in the representation of Elotepec sounds that do not occur in Spanish; some of these, like the use of <y> to represent palatal fricatives, may have been inspired by pronunciations current in local Spanish (see, e.g., Alvar 1965-1966: 360-362 and Lope Blanch 1966:52 on rehilamiento, or fricative realization of /y/, spelled <y>, <ll>, in Oaxacan Spanish). Interpretation of the surface phonetics of some of the spellings is helped by comparison with Zaniza and/or Texmelucan Zapotec cognates.

 

The greatest challenge for the transcriber was posed by the coronal fricatives of Elotepec Zapotec (see Table 4). In some cases, the same grapheme or digraph is used for spelling different fricatives; for example, <x> stands for /z/ in <uxé> ‘priest’, /ʐ/ in <guexé> ‘church’ and /ʃ/ in <xilquité> ‘(rain)bow’. In other cases, the same fricative receives multiple orthographic representations; for instance, /z/ is represented by <x> in <uxé> ‘priest’, by <s> in <usanré> ‘my father’ and by <z> in <zedé> ‘salt’. The different orthographic solutions may be found in the spelling of the same morpheme: compare <bizná> (/(m)biz-na/) ‘fingers’ with <bisilná> (/(m)biz-il-na/) ‘thumb’ or the spelling of the animacy prefix in <esquinloyec> ‘bird’ and <esquienú> ‘mosquito’, on the one hand, and <ezquincazá> ‘crow’ and <ezquiegué> ‘fly’, on the other. The native fricatives are thus orthographically under-distinguished, both with respect to their place of articulation and voicing (or, more accurately, their distinction along the fortis/lenis dimension, partially realized through voicing) (Nellis & Hollenbach 1980; Avelino 2001; Pickett et al. 2010; Operstein 2016). The velar and labiovelar stops, and the affricates are also under-distinguished with respect to the fortis/lenis distinction; for example, <ch> is used for /tʃ/ in <cho> ‘forty’ and <beché> ‘people’, on the one hand, and for /dʒ/ in <chuyé> ‘God’ and <gueché> ‘seven’, on the other (cf. /tʃu/, /mbetʃe/, /dʒuʒ/ and /gadʒ/ in Zaniza Zapotec).

 

/p/

 

<p>

 

 

 

<tapa> ‘four’

 

 

 

/b/

<b>

<v>

 

 

<beyé> ‘moon’

<viy> ‘wind’

 

 

/t/

<t>

 

 

 

<tiñia> ‘nose’

 

 

 

/d/

<d>

 

 

 

<do> ‘sea’

 

 

 

/k/

<c>

<qu>

 

 

<cola> ‘turkey’

<quisiquí> ‘hair’

 

 

/g/

<g>

<qu>

 

 

<gá> ‘nine’

<quisiquí> ‘hair’

 

 

/g'/

<gi>

<qui>

<gui>

 

<tiomgieyé> ‘spring’

<quieiyé> ‘rain’

<guiagua> ‘river’

 

/kw/

<cu>

<qu>

 

 

<cuirán> ‘leg’

<xilquité> ‘bow’

 

 

/gw/

<cu>

 

 

 

<cuiilré> ‘star’

 

 

 

/ɾ/

<r>

<rr>

 

 

<riti> ‘bone’

<nierrieñá> ‘neck’

 

 

/tʃ/

<ch>

 

 

 

<chó> ‘forty’

 

 

 

/dʒ/

<ch>

 

 

 

<chuyé> ‘God’

 

 

 

/s/

<s>

<ss> (?)

<c>

 

<encasa> ‘black’

<fleche essón> ‘arrow’

<bilñici> ‘water snake’

 

/z/

<x>

<s>

<z>

 

<uxé> ‘priest’

<brisi> ‘squirrel’

<zede> ‘salt’

 

/ʃ/

<x>

<ll>

<y>

 

<xilquité> ‘bow’

<llopa> ‘six’

<heryímmá> ‘to bark’

 

/ʒ/

<y>

 

 

 

<chuyé> ‘God’

 

 

 

/ʂ/

 

<s>

<z>

<ll>

 

<cusquillé> ‘wild boar’

<zosná> ‘three’

<billi> ‘rabbit’

 

/ʐ/

<s>

<z>

<ll>

<y>

<billisí> ‘pine’

<rezná> ‘to shout’

<lliná> ‘day’

<tiguyé> ‘town’

<x>

<xh>

<ch>

 

<guexé> ‘church’

<chixhé> ‘coati’

<chixhé> ‘coati’

 

/f/

<f>

 

 

 

<jefeson> ‘boss’

 

 

 

/h/

 

<j>

 

 

 

<jefeson> ‘boss’

 

 

 

/m/

 

<m>

 

 

 

<mil> ‘thousand’

 

 

 

/n/

<n>

 

 

 

<nisi> ‘water’

 

 

 

/ɲ/

<ñ>

<ñi>

<ni>

<nn>

<baña> ‘horse’

<reñie> ‘blood’

<binián> ‘woman’

<beigidebesinnís> ‘bat’

<nñ>

<ny>

 

 

<bixinñí> ‘mouse’

<tenyia> ‘bad’

 

 

/l/

<l>

<ll>

 

 

<ledé> ‘bark’

<heita illi> ‘stone, rock’

 

 

/ʎ/

<li>

<le>

 

 

<liagré> ‘grass’

<leagá> ‘leaf’

 

 

/j/

<y>

<hi>

<i>

<lli>

<yu> ‘earth’

<hianá> ‘hand’

<nierrieñá> ‘neck’

<lliagá> ‘wood’

/w/

<gu>

<qu>

<u>

<hu>

<guexé> ‘church’

<tieonquasá> ‘fall’

<tabaueré> ‘tobacco’

<huillé> ‘afternoon’

Table 4. Orthographic representation of Elotepec Zapotec consonants

 

Given that the number of Elotepec forms containing coronal fricatives is relatively small and in view of the variety of the orthographic solutions, interpreting the surface phonetics of the spellings necessitates a comparative approach. A comparison of the Elotepec forms with their cognates in Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec makes it likely that Elotepec Zapotec distinguishes coronal fricatives at three places of articulation (see the examples in Table 5).

 

Elotepec Zapotec

Zaniza Zapotec

Texmelucan Zapotec

 

/s/

/s/

/s/

 

/-sil-/

/siʎ/

/siiʎ/

‘breakfast’

/nisi/

/nis/

/nis/

‘water’

/z/

/z/

/z/

 

/zede/

/zed/

/zed/

‘salt’

/uzé/

/uz/

/uz/

‘father, priest’

/ʃ/

/ʃ/

/ʃ/

 

/ʃopa/

/ʃup/

/ʃuup/

‘six’

/kuʂ giʃe/

/kuʂ giʃ/

/kutʃ ɟiʃ/

‘wild boar’

/ʒ/

/ʒ/

/ʒ/

 

/dʒuʒe/

/dʒuʒ/

/ɲɟooʒ/

‘God’

/giʒe/

/giʒ/

/ɟiʒ/

‘straw’

/ʂ/

/ʂ/

/tʃ/

 

/ʂona/

/ʂun/

/tʃon/

‘three’

/giʂi/

/giʂ/

/ɟitʃ/

‘hair’

/ʐ/

/ʐ/

/dʒ/

 

/ʐiʐe/

/ʐiʐ/

/dʒiidʒ/

‘coati’

/weʐe/

/ju' weʐ/

/ju' wedʒ/

‘church’

Table 5. Elotepec Zapotec fricatives

 

Another area in which the Peñafiel vocabulary apparently provides a less than accurate representation of the data are word-initial sequences consisting of a lenis stop preceded by a homorganic nasal. While the pre-stop nasals are not written in the Elotepec responses, their existence in these forms is likely in view of the cognates shown in Table 6 and the description in Rendón (1971), as well as the forms <mbetche> ‘people’ and <ngo> ‘egg’ cited in the same publication (Rendón 1971: 216, 224, 225). Based on the evidence of their cognates in Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec, it is likely that the last two forms in Table 6, <niaré> /ɲaɾe/ ‘husband’ and <nierrieñá> /ɲeɾjeɲa/ ‘neck’, derive their initial /ɲ/s from the earlier (or underlying) sequence [ɲg'].

 

Elotepec Zapotec

Zaniza Zapotec

Texmelucan Zapotec

 

<beché>

/mbetʃ/

/mbec/

‘people’

<biz>

/mbiz/

/mbiz/

‘finger’

<go>

/ŋgu/

/ŋguu/

‘egg’

<niaré>

/ŋge/

/ɲɟee/

‘husband’

<nierrieñá>

/geɾ jeɲ/

/ɟeɾjeɲ/

‘throat’

Table 6. Initial nasal-stop sequences in Elotepec Zapotec

 

Both Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec display stress-conditioned split of Proto-Zapotec *t' (Operstein 2012) which has produced the tap in pretonic contexts, including at the end of initial members of compounds, and a palatal obstruent in posttonic contexts (see Table 7). The presence in the Peñafiel vocabulary of forms like /ɾiti/ ‘bone’ (spelled <riti>), /ɾeɲe/ ‘blood’ (<reñié>) and /ɾu/ ‘mouth’ (in <runá>), on the one hand, and of /gedʒe/ ‘seven’ (spelled <gueché>), on the other, along with forms like <ru> ‘mouth’, <ree> ‘jug’ (< *t'eʔe), <nichi> ‘milk’ (< *ni:ʔt'iʔ) and <richi> ‘laugh’ (< *o-xit'i) reported in Belmar (1901), appear to point to the same types of outcomes of Proto-Zapotec *t' in Elotepec Zapotec.  

 

 

Pretonically

Posttonically

Proto-Zapotec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

Zaniza

Texmelucan

*t'oʔwa ‘mouth’

/ɾu'/

/ɾu'/

 

 

*t'ene ‘blood’

/ɾeɲ/

/ɾeɲ/

 

 

*kat'i ‘seven’

 

 

/gadʒ/

/gaɟ/

*kkoʔt'V(k) ‘leg, thigh’

 

 

/kwidʒ/

/kwiiɟ/

*ke:ʔt'u ‘hole’

/geɾ-/

/ɟeɾ-/

/gedʒ/

/ɟeeɟ/

*laʔt'iʔ ‘center of emotions’

/laɾ-/

/laɾ-/

/ladʒ/

/laɟ/

Table 7. Stress-conditioned split of Proto-Zapotec *t' in Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec

 

The Peñafiel vocabulary contains Elotepec cognates to several of the Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec nouns that display stress-conditioned allomorphy depending on whether the noun is used as a free form or as an initial member of a compound (cf. the words for ‘hole’ in Table 7). The Elotepec word for ‘heart, breast’ (<lere>) unexpectedly shows a tap in the free form, and so does the word for ‘leg, thigh’ (<cuir(án)>), for which this is the only form recorded (see Table 8). A potential explanation for the tap outcome in these forms is generalization of the corresponding pretonic allomorphs.

 

Elotepec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

 

<lere>, <ler(án)>, <ler(ná)>, <lec(binián)>

/ladʒ/ ~ /laɾ-/

/laɟ/ ~ /laɾ-/

‘heart, breast’

<nierr(ieñá)>

/gedʒ/ ~ /geɾ-/

/ɟeeɟ/ ~ /ɟeɾ-/

‘hole’

<ur(loná)>, <ur(sá)>

/udʒ/ ~ /uɾ-/

/uuɟ/ ~ /uɾ-/

‘fruit; pit, stone, seed’

<berlabá>

/bidʒ/  ~ /biɾ-/ ~ /beɾ-/

/biɟ/ ~ /biɾ-/

‘frog; toad’

Table 8. Outcomes of *t' in Elotepec Zapotec

 

The orthography of the Peñafiel vocabulary reflects place assimilation in nasals, as seen in the variable spelling of the prefixes in (2).

 

(2)

<enhili>

‘big’

<eññan>

‘red’

 

<encuenébiniá>

‘girl’

<embedo>

‘child’

 

Several Elotepec words in the Peñafiel vocabulary contain final consonants not found in their cognates in Zaniza or Texmelucan Zapotec, or in the corresponding forms collected by Belmar (1901) (see Table 9). The source of these consonants and their function, if any, are unclear, and their presence clashes with the strong tendency that is otherwise seen in the Elotepec responses to end words in vowels, cf. the paragogic [e] in the Spanish loanword /dʒuʒe/ ‘God’ (< Sp. dios). There are also unexplained coda consonants in <zecto> ‘far’ and <zosná> ‘three’, unless these are merely typographical errors for <zeeto> and <zoná>, respectively (cf. /zet/, /ʂun/ in Zaniza and /zet/, /tʃon/ in Texmelucan Zapotec).[6]

 

Elotepec (Peñafiel)

Elotepec  (Belmar)

Zaniza

Texmelucan

 

<chís>

<chii>

/tʃi/

/tii/

‘ten’

<beigidebesinnís>

<beguitbiziñe>

/be'jgid biziɲ/

/biɟid/, /bziɲ/

‘bat’

<guinec>

<uñie>

/uɲe/

/gunẽ/ ~ /guanẽ/

‘scorpion’

<chumdec>

<chuun>

/tʃuɲ/

/cu/

‘who’

<esquinloyec>

 

/ʂigiɲ/

/tʃiɟiɲ/

‘bird’

<gansex>

 

 

 

‘goose’

Table 9. Final consonants in Elotepec Zapotec

 

4. Elotepec Zapotec vowels

 

The vowel qualities represented in the responses to the Peñafiel questionnaire comprise /a e i o u/. The description of Elotepec Zapotec vowels in Belmar (1901: 4) confirms the existence of five vowel qualities, while Rendón (1971: 216) tentatively adds an [ɛ] (“probablemente E, palatal-baja-abierta” [probably E, palatal-low-open]), and uses it in his transcription of the word <lEre> ‘heart’. Variation in the spelling of what appears to be underlying /i/ in the linking element <bi> ~ <rebi> in numerals, and in pretonic syllables elsewhere, points to surface variation in the realization of this vowel (see 3). The same inference may be drawn from comparing the transcriptions of one of the animacy-marking prefixes in different sources: while Rendón (1971) transcribes it with <i> (<i1SSki3ñi> ‘bird’), in the Peñafiel vocabulary it is transcribed with <e> (<esquinloyec> ‘bird’, <ezquiegué> ‘fly’).

 

(3)

<chibitubi>

‘eleven’

<chibechopa>

‘twelve’

 

<quionrebichí>

‘seventy’

<galrebechí>

‘thirty’

 

<bixinñí>

‘mouse’

<beigidebesinnís>

‘bat’

 

<yta quieyé>

‘snow’

<heita illi>

‘stone, rock’

 

 

 

<heitaquibiora>

‘gold’

 

The vowels in the Peñafiel vocabulary are usually spelled <a, e, i, o, u>; in several cases, a silent <h> is added before the vowel in a word- or morpheme-initial position. Outside the variation shown in (3) above, word-initial /i/ is consistently spelled by means of <y>; word-finally, it is spelled with <iy> about three times (see Table 10). The spellings <i>/<hi> and <u>/<hu> are also used for the palatal and labial glide, respectively, while <i>/<e> and <u> also serve as markers of palatalization and labialization, respectively (see 4a-b).

 

/a/

<balá>

[bala]

‘meat’

/o/

<obá>

[oba]

‘corn’

<dó>

[do]

‘sea’

/u/

<uxé>

[uze]

‘priest’

<huniyá>

[unija]

‘to speak’

/e/

<beché>

[(m)betʃe]

‘people’

<hervezná>

[eɾbeʐna]

‘to chirp’

/i/

<bixií>

[biziɲi]

‘mouse’

<enhili>

[enili]

‘big’

<ynchí>

[indʒi]

‘Indian’

<viy>

[bi]

‘wind’

Table 10. Elotepec Zapotec vowel qualities and their spelling

 

(4a)

Palatal glide

 

Labial glide

 

<quibiagá>

‘axe’

<tabaueré>

‘tobacco’

 

<hianá>

‘hand, arm’

<huillé>

‘afternoon’

 

(4b)

Palatal(ized) consonants

 

Labialized consonants

 

<guieté>

‘squash’

<cuirán>

‘leg’

 

<leagá>

‘leaf’

<cuiilré>

‘star’

 

<reñié>

‘blood’

 

 

Other features of the Elotepec Zapotec vowel system reflected in the Peñafiel vocabulary include nasality, laryngealization and (phonetic) length. The existence of length and vowel nasality was noted by Belmar, who stressed that these features are especially associated with /a/. Intriguingly, Belmar’s description also mentions a “very short è”:

 

El papabuco tiene las mismas vocales que el castellano, esto es a, e, i, o, u, pero tiene una â, nasal y una è, brevísima que casi se pierde en la pronunciación. Estas vocales se duplican pero muy especialmente la a. (Belmar 1901: 4)[7]

 

Rendón (1971: 216) makes no mention of vowel length but notes the existence of laryngealization: “Además de estas vocales simples, encontramos una serie de rearticuladas que llevan cierre glotal suave intermedio” [In addition to these simple vowels we find a series of rearticulated ones which have a gentle glottal catch in the middle]). Rendón mentions vowel nasalization as well but is unsure of its status: “únicamente la encontramos en ambientes nasales y al final de nombres poseídos y de verbos que se refieren a la primera persona del singular” [we find it only in nasal contexts and at the end of possessed nouns and verbs that refer to the first person singular] (p. 217). The compiler of the Peñafiel vocabulary marks nasality by means of a <n> after, more rarely both before and after, the vowel; length by repeating the vowel; and laryngealization by means of an <h> between two identical vowels,[8] and possibly also by repeating the vowel (see Table 11). The laryngealization contrast is directly reflected in the minimal pair <yú> ‘earth’ / <yuhu> ‘house’. Vowel length and nasalization apparently co-occur when a vowel-final stem is followed by the first-person singular clitic pronoun /-ã/ (see, e.g., the words ‘(my) ear’, ‘(I) walk’ and ‘(I) stand (up)’ in Table 11).

 

<ruu>

[ɾu:]

‘you (sg.)’

length

<naá>

[na:]

‘today’

<encaá>

[enka']

‘sky-blue’

laryngealization

<yuhú>

[ju']

‘house’

<enmihi>

[enmi']

‘small’

<eññan>

[eɲɲã]

‘red’

nasalization

 

<aan>

[ã:]

‘I’

<ydagaán>

[idagã:]

‘(my) ear’

<binián>

[biɲã]

‘(my) wife’

<usanré>

[uzãɾe]

‘(my) father’

<ysoban>

[izobã]

‘(I) sit down’

<zanán>

[zã:]

‘(I) walk’

<guasonón>

[wasõ:]

‘(I) stand (up)’

Table 11. Vowel length, laryngealization and nasality in Elotepec Zapotec

 

A puzzling feature of the Peñafiel orthography is the acute accent mark on most final vowels. According to Rendón (1971: 217), Elotepec words of more than one syllable are generally stressed on the penult; accordingly, in such words the accent mark does not show the location of stress. The same conclusion applies to words in which the accent mark is placed on a clitic, such as the deictic <-ré> or the enclitic first person pronouns <-án> and <-ná>. The location of the accent mark coincides with that of stress only in certain types of words, such as monosyllabics, compounds whose final constituents are monosyllabic, and disyllabic words begining with a prefix (see Table 12). Though it is possible that in some of the words the acute accent indicates tone (according to Rendón 1971: 216, Elotepec Zapotec has four contrastive tones and a “posible tono neutro”), such interpretation would leave open the question of why the tones on all other vowels, including stressed vowels, are ignored. In the absence of a clear indication for its function, the acute accent mark on final vowels may perhaps be interpreted as an orthographic flourish that helps to mark the end of a word.  

 

Acute accent mark coincides

with the presumed location of stress

Acute accent mark does not coincide

with the presumed location of stress

<yú> ‘earth’

<quialdó> ‘lake’

<uxé> ‘priest’

<usanré> ‘(my) father’

<dó> ‘sea’

<ytó> ‘dead’

<galá> ‘twenty’

<cuirán> ‘(my) leg’

<gá> ‘nine’

<encaá> ‘sky-blue’

<enquesé> ‘yellow’

<loná> ‘(our) face’

<chó> ‘forty’

<binián> ‘(my) wife’

<yquieyé>  ‘man’

<dalná> ‘(we) dance’

Table 12. Acute accent mark in the Peñafiel vocabulary

 

Zapotec languages vary with respect to their treatment of unstressed final vowels, with some varieties keeping them intact and others displaying various degrees of weakening (Uchihara 2016). The Papabuco languages display the full range of possibilities in this regard: while in the Peñafiel vocabulary the final vowels are generally kept, at least in standalone forms, in Texmelucan Zapotec they are lost and in Zaniza Zapotec they neutralize to an [a]-quality vowel in citation and pre-pausal forms and are dropped elsewhere (see Table 13).

 

Elotepec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

 

<uxé>

[uza] ~ [uz]

[uz]

‘father, priest’

<ledé>

[lada] ~ [lad]

[lad]

‘bark’

<quieté>

[geta] ~ [get]

[ɟet]

‘squash’

<nisi>

[nisa] ~ [nis]

[nis]

‘water’

<riti>

[ɾita] ~ [ɾit]

[ɾit]

‘bone’

<bixinñí>

[biziɲa] ~ [biziɲ]

[bziɲ]

‘mouse’

<obá>

[uba] ~ [ub]

[uub]

‘corn’

<leagá>

[ʎaga] ~ [ʎag]

[ʎag]

‘leaf’

<guiagua>

[dʒaawa] ~ [dʒaaw]

[ɟoow]

‘river’

<beco>

[behwa] ~ [behw]

--

‘dog’

Table 13. Posttonic vowels in Papabuco languages

 

Several kinds of evidence point to the ongoing weakening of posttonic vowels in Elotepec Zapotec as well. For example, the Peñafiel vocabulary contains a mere handful of words with an unstressed final /o/ or /u/, limiting the productive inventory of posttonic vowels to /a/, /e/ and /i/. In several Spanish loans, the unstressed final vowel has been adapted as [e] (see 5). This fact, along with the use of [e] as a paragogic vowel in the loan noun <chuyé> /dʒuʒe/ ‘God’ (< Sp. dios), argues for the default status of word-final [e] in Elotepec Zapotec, a state of affairs reminiscent of posttonic vowel neutralization in Zaniza Zapotec (see Table 13).  

 

(5)

Spanish

Elotepec Zapotec

 

 

soltero

<solteré>

‘young (man)’

 

tabaco

<tabaueré>

‘tobacco’

 

tiempo

<tiemné>

‘time’

 

flecha

<fleche essón>

‘arrow’ 

 

ganso

<gansex>

‘goose’

 

dios

<chuyé>

‘God’

 

Several forms in the Peñafiel vocabulary have two allomorphs distinguished by the presence versus absence of the posttonic vowel. The full forms typically appear as standalone responses to the Spanish prompts whereas the vowelless forms are found, e.g., before clitics or second constituents of compounds (see Table 14). Preservation of the stressed final vowel in the noun ‘stone, rock’ in (6), in spite of its use as the initial member of several compounds, confirms that only unstressed vowels are subject to deletion in this environment.

 

 

Full form

Vowelless form

‘twenty’

[gala]

<galá> ‘twenty’

[gal]

<galrebechí> ‘thirty’

‘leaf, grass’

[ʎaga]

<leagá> ‘leaf’

[ʎag]

<liagré> ‘grass’

‘father, priest’

[uze]

<uxé> ‘priest’

[uz]

<usanré> ‘(my) father’

‘iron, metal’

[gibe]

<quis quibé> ‘knife’

[gib]

<quibiagá> ‘axe’

‘head’

[iki]

<quisiquí> ‘hair’

[ik]

<ycanré> ‘(my) head’

‘hair’

[giʂi]

<quisiruná> ‘beard’

[giʂ]

<quisiquí> ‘hair’

‘big’

[ili]

<enhili> ‘large’ 

[il]

<bisilná> ‘thumb’, <cuiilré> ‘star’

Table 14. Posttonic vowel loss in Elotepec Zapotec

 

(6)

<yta quieyé>

‘snow’

(lit. ‘stone rain’)

 

<heita illi>

‘hail’

(lit. ‘stone large’)

 

<heitaquibiora>

‘gold’

(lit. ‘stone metal gold’)

 

In its gradual, conditioned loss of posttonic vowels Elotepec Zapotec shows greater affinity with Zaniza than with Texmelucan Zapotec. The two languages also appear to show affinity in their preservation and gradual weakening of pretonic vowels, as seen in colonial-era borrowings from Spanish (illustrated in Tables 15 and 16, respectively).

 

Elotepec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

 

<bixinñí>

/biziɲ/

/bziɲ/

‘mouse’

<billisí>

/biʐiʐ/

/bdʒidʒ/

‘pineapple’

Table 15. Treatment of pretonic vowels in Papabuco languages

 

Spanish

Elotepec

Zaniza

 

tomín

<-timienñá>

/timiɲ/

(type of silver coin)

amigo

<ymigaré>

/miw/

‘friend’

Table 16. Treatment of pretonic vowels in early Spanish loans

 

5. Morphosyntax  

 

The responses to the Peñafiel questionnaire contain a fair amount of information about the inflection, derivation and syntactic structures of Elotepec Zapotec. They show, for instance, that Elotepec Zapotec has both free-standing and clitic forms of personal pronouns (Table 17), that the clitic forms may be used as subjects of verbs (in 7a) and as possessors of nouns (in 7b), that there is at least one deictic clitic (in 7c), that adjectives occur after the nouns they modify (in 7d) and that the modifying member of a nominal compound follows the head (in 7e). The multiword expressions in (7f) that translate Sp. lloviznar ‘to drizzle’ and trabajar ‘to work’ point, respectively, to the verb-initial constituent order and the possibility of preverbal placement of nominal objects.  

 

 

Peñafiel vocabulary

Belmar (1901)

Rendón (1971)

 

free

clitic

free

clitic[9]

free

clitic

1sg

<aan>

<an> ~ <án>

<â>

<â> / <a>

a3N

(l)a1/3N

2sg

<ruú>

<rú>

<ru>

<ru> / <ru>

ru3  

(l)ru3

3sg

<yrsé>

<ya> ~ <ia>

<iré>

<ire> / <ya>

i1r1e

(y)a3

1pl

<biegniá>

<na> ~ <ná>

<cikènana>[10]

<nîa> / <na>

bi2ge1nna3

(l)na1/3

2pl

<bigaaná>

--

<bikèru>

<bkieru> / <ru>

bi2g(i)ru3

(l)ru1

3pl

<bicailié>

--

<bikìre>

<bikire> / <ya>

bi2gi1re1

(y)a1

3an

--

<-má>

--

--

--

--

Table 17. Elotepec Zapotec personal pronouns

 

(7a)

<dezná>

<heryimmá>

 

<dez-ná>

<heryim-má>

 

sleep-1pl

bark-3animal

 

‘we sleep’

‘it barks’

 

(7b)

<luxná>

<cuirán>

 

<lux-ná>

<cuir-án>

 

tongue-1pl

leg-1sg

 

‘our tongue’

‘my leg’

 

(7c)

<baré>

<ycanré>

 

<ba-ré>

<yc-an-ré>

 

‘sky-deictic

‘head-1sg-deictic

 

‘sky’

‘my head’

 

(7d)

<heita illi>

<bichibalanré>

 

stone large

<bichi bal-an-ré>

 

‘large stone’

‘brother old-1sg-deictic’’

 

 

‘my elder brother’

 

(7e)

<quisiquí>

<tiomgieyé>

 

<quis iquí>

<tiom gieyé>

 

hair head

time rain

 

‘(head) hair’

‘rain season’

 

(7f)

<yatiguieyé>

<riniricháán>

 

<yati guieyé>

<rini rich-áán>

 

fall rain

work do-1sg

 

‘it rains’

‘I work’

 

From the viewpoint of their morphological makeup, the native noun types comprise mono- and disyllabic root nouns, nouns of two or more syllables that contain a prefix, and compounds. Three of the nouns borrowed from Spanish are furnished with what appears to be a suffix (see Table 18).

 

Type of noun

Examples

Root noun

<dó> ‘sea’

<nisi> ‘water’

Prefixed noun

<ygalá> ‘old (man)’

<bixinñí> ‘mouse’

<ezquiegué> ‘fly’

Compound

<yta quieyé> ‘snow’ (lit. ‘stone rain’)

<quisiquí> ‘hair’ (lit. ‘hair head’)

<bisilná> ‘thumb’ (lit. ‘finger large’)

Spanish loan noun with a suffix

<jefeson> ‘boss’

<tigreson> ‘tiger’

<fleche essón> ‘arrow’

Table 18. Structural types of nouns in Elotepec Zapotec

 

The body-part and kinship terms are typically furnished with a first person clitic pronoun and/or the deictic clitic <ré> (see 8a); the deictic is found on other nouns as well (see 8b). If both types of clitics are present, the pronoun occurs closer to the noun stem (see 8c).

 

(8a)

<loná>

/lo-na/

‘face-1pl

‘our face’

 

<cuirán>

/kwiɾ-ã/

‘leg-1sg

‘my leg’

 

<binián>

/biɲ-ã/

‘woman-1sg

‘my wife’

 

<bedoré>

/bedo-ɾe/

‘child-deictic

‘child’

 

(8b)

<baré>

/ba-ɾe/

‘sky-deictic

‘sky’

 

<canoré>

/kano-ɾe/

‘trough-deictic

‘trough’

 

(8c)

<ycanré>

/ik-ã-ɾe/

‘head-1sg-deictic

‘my head’

 

<usanré>

/uz-ã-ɾe/

‘father-1sg-deictic

‘my father’

 

Identifiable noun prefixes (or proclitics) include animacy markers (see 9a) and what appear to be nominalization markers (see 9b); the prefix <en> is also used with adjectives (see 9b).

 

(9a)

Animacy markers

 

<bi> ~ <b>

 

<ez> ~ <es>

 

 

<binián>

‘woman’

<ezquiegué>

‘fly’

 

<bixinñí>

‘mouse’

<ezquincazá>

‘crow’

 

<billisí>

‘pineapple’

<esquienú>

‘mosquito’

 

<brisi>

‘squirrel’

<esquinloyec>

‘bird’

 

(9b)

Nominalization markers

 

<y> / <en>

 

<en>

 

 

<ycuené>

‘boy’

<encasá>

‘black’

 

<yquieyé>

‘man’

<encaá>

‘sky-blue’

 

<ygalá>

‘old (man)’

<enguesé>

‘yellow’

 

<ybana>

‘thief’

<enquiné>

‘green’

 

<ytó>

‘dead (person)’

<eññan>

‘red’

 

<embedo>

 ‘child’

<enmihi>

‘small’

 

<encuenébiniá>

‘girl’

<enhili>

‘big’

 

Most cardinal numerals above ten are built by using the linking elements <bi> ~ <be> and <rebi> ~ <rebe> (see 10). The element <nala>, apparently morphologically related to <galá> ‘twenty’, functions with the meanings of ‘twenty’ (in <taabinala> ‘eighty-and-twenty’, i.e. ‘hundred’) and ‘hundred’ (in <chalnalá> ‘half-hundred’, i.e. ‘fifty’). The cognate form in Texmelucan Zapotec has the meaning of ‘twenty’ in /gajnal/ ‘hundred’ (lit. ‘five-twenty’); the cognate in Zaniza Zapotec has the meaning of ‘hundred’, both by itself and in /tʃal nal/ ‘fifty’ (lit. ‘half-hundred’).

 

(10)

<chi-bi-tubi>

‘10-and-1’

=

‘11’

 

<chi-be-chopa>

‘10-and-2’

=

‘12’

 

<gal-rebe-chí>

‘20-and-10’

=

‘30’

 

<chal-nalá>

‘half-100’

=

‘50’

 

<quion-rebi-chí>

‘60-and-10’

=

‘70’

 

<taa-bi-chí>

‘80-and-10’

=

‘90’

 

<taa-bi-nala>

‘80-and-20’

=

‘100’

 

Both Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec morphologically distinguish five TAM categories: potential, habitual, completive, irrealis and stative/continuative (Speck 1978: 26-28; Operstein 2015a: 28ff). The Peñafiel vocabulary contains a sufficient number of verb forms in its responses to identify four of these in Elotepec Zapotec (see Table 19).

 

Potential

Habitual

Completive

Stative/Continuative

<hi-ñi-na>

‘we will speak’

<her-yím-má>

‘it barks’

<hu-ni-yá>

‘he spoke’

<yati guieyé>

‘it rains’

<y-sob-an>

‘I will sit down’

<ni er-sob ru-yá>

‘which he puts in his mouth’

 

 

<dau-na>

‘we will eat’

<r-au-rú>

‘you eat’

 

 

Table 19. TAM categories in Elotepec Zapotec[11]

 

Texmelucan and Zaniza Zapotec both possess a substantial number of verbs in which the stem used with first-person subjects differs from the one used with second- and third-person subjects (Speck 1978: 37; Operstein 2002: 53-54, 2015a: 55, 2017a). The practice of the Peñafiel questionnaire’s respondent to supply many of the Spanish verbs with first-person subjects in his transations provides us with valuable information about this type of suppletion in Elotepec Zapotec. The form <raurú> ‘you eat’, an apparently erroneous response to the Spanish prompt correr ‘to run’, supplies direct confirmation of the existence of this suppletion type in Elotepec Zapotec in view of the respose <dauna> ‘we eat’ to the prompt comer ‘to eat’ (see Table 20).

 

Elotepec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

 

1 person

2/3 person

1 person

2/3 person

1 person

2/3 person

<dauna>

<raurú>

/daw/

/aw/

/daw/

/o/

‘eat’

<diena>

 

/do'/

/o'/

/do'/

/o'/

‘drink’

<dalná>, <dalruná>

 

/dul/

/ul/

/dul/

/ul/

‘dance’,

‘sing’

<dezná>

 

/das/

/as/

/das/

/aas/

‘sleep’

<dutaní>

 

/dut/

/ut/

/dut/

/ut/

‘kill’

<yapaán>

 

/jap/

/jed/

/jap/

/jed/

‘come’

Table 20. Suppletive first-person verb forms in Elotepec Zapotec

 

6. Spanish loanwords

 

Twenty-two responses in the Peñafiel vocabulary contain nouns borrowed from Spanish. Several of the borrowings have an added suffix or final consonant (see 11b) and several more occur in hybrid compounds that combine Zapotec and Spanish material (see 11c). The words for ‘friend’, ‘tobacco’, ‘trough’ and, possibly, ‘time’ are supplied with a deictic. In percentage terms, the lexical items built in whole or in part on Spanish-derived items constitute about 9% of the total.  

 

 

Spanish prompt

Elotepec response

 

 

(11a)

dios

<chuyé>

‘God’

 

 

indio

<ynchí>

‘Indian’

 

 

amigo

<ymigaré>

‘friend’

 

 

soltero

<solteré>

‘young (man)’

 

 

tortuga

<tortuga>

‘turtle’

 

 

paloma

<uraga>

‘dove’

(< urraca)

 

pato

<badá>

‘duck’

 

 

villa

<villi>

‘villa’

 

 

canoa

<canoré>

‘trough’

 

 

tabaco

<tabaueré>

‘tobacco’

 

 

pipa

<barril ó cachimba>

‘pipe’

(< barril, cachimba)

 

mil

<mil>

‘thousand’

 

 

tiempo

<tiemné>

‘time’

 

 

(11b)

jefe

<jefeson>

‘boss’

 

tigre

<tigreson>

‘tiger’

 

flecha

<fleche essón>

‘arrow’

 

ganso

<gansex>

‘goose’

 

(11c)

plata

<guibitimienñá>

‘silver, money’

(< tomín)

 

jabalí

<cusquillé>

‘wild boar’

(< cuche)

 

primavera

<tiomgieyé>

‘spring’

(< tiempo)

 

otoño

<tieonquasá>

‘fall’

(< tiempo)

 

verano

<tieomerrubiy>

‘summer’

(< tiempo)

 

The phonological shape of several of the loans betrays an early date of borrowing. For <chuyé> ‘God’ (< Sp. dios), this inference follows from the adaptation of the Spanish sibilant as a palatal fricative, a common strategy for adapting this sound in early Spanish loans in Latin American indigenous languages (Parodi 1995, 2017; Smith Stark 2007; Operstein 2016, 2017b). This type of adaptation is not apparent in <solteré> ‘young (man)’ or <gansex> ‘goose’, which thus appear to have been borrowed more recently. For <chuyé> ‘God’ and <ynchí> ‘Indian’ (< Sp. indio), an early date of introduction may additionally be inferred from the adaptation of the sequence /dj/. As seen in Table 21, in the early loan dios all Papabuco languages reflect this sequence in the same way as Proto-Zapotec *t' (Operstein 2005: 110-111, 2012: 8-9) whereas in more recent loans it is borrowed unchanged, cf. Texmelucan /ɾadjo/ (< Sp. radio), Zaniza /djeg/ (< Sp. Diego (name)). The early date of borrowing of <cus-> ‘pig’ (< Sp. cuche) is suggested by deaffrication of the Spanish affricate: this treatment contrasts with the absence of deaffrication in what are apparently later loans <cachimba> ‘pipe’ (< Sp. cachimba) and <fleche essón> ‘arrow’ (< Sp. flecha). Deaffrication of /tʃ/ in this loan indicates that the Spanish affricate was initially adapted with the native fortis affricate (see Table 21). The early date of entry of <badá> ‘duck’ (< Sp. pato) is suggested by the adaptation of the Spanish voiceless stops as lenis (voiced) rather than fortis (unvoiced); this contrasts with the adaptation of voiceless stops in more recent loans such as <tigreson> ‘tiger’ and <tortuga> ‘turtle’. Other early loans include <ymigaré> ‘friend’ and <-timienñá> which show raising of pretonic vowels; this treatment contrasts with the lack of pretonic vowel raising in <tortuga> ‘turtle’ and <solteré> ‘young (man)’. A few of the Spanish-origin words appear to be completely unadapted phonologically; these include <tortuga> ‘turtle’, <mil> ‘thousand’ and <cachimba> ‘pipe’. The remaining borrowings show various degrees of phonological and/or morphological adaptation to the Elotepec structures.

 

 

 

Texmelucan

Zaniza

Elotepec

 

/dj/

Sp. dios

/ɲɟooʒ/

/dʒuʒ/

<chuyé>

‘God’

*t'

*kat'i

/gaɟ/

/gadʒ/

<gueché>

‘seven’

/tʃ/

Sp. cuche

/kutʃ/

/kuʂ/

<cus(quillé)>

‘pig’

*ttz

*kittza(ʔ)

/ɟitʃ/

/giʂ/

<quis(iquí)>

‘hair’

Table 21. Adaptation of Spanish /dj/ and /tʃ/ in early Spanish loans

 

7. Residual issues

 

Some of the responses to the Spanish prompts present inconsistencies and apparent orthographical errors, which in some cases may affect the correctness of their interpretation. For example, <zan maré> ‘my younger sister’ is an apparent typo for <zan miaré>; this inference follows from comparing this entry with <bichimiaré> ‘my younger brother’, <lechimiré> ‘plain’ and <enmihi> ‘small’, and in light of the Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec cognate /mi'/ ‘small’. The form <lechilgré> ‘valley’ is an apparent typo for <lechilré> (i.e. <lech il-ré>), as is suggested by the immediately following response <lechimiré> (i.e. <lechi mi-ré>) ‘plain’: these entries arguably contain as their second elements the adjectives ‘large’ and ‘small’, respectively. The response <biltí> ‘rabbit’ is an apparent typo for <billí> (/biʂi/); this inference follows from the cognate forms in Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec (/biʂ/ and /bitʃ/, respectively) and from Belmar’s (1901) form <bisekuliana> ‘hare’, a compound of <bise> ‘rabbit’ and <kuliana> ‘hare’. The <t> for <l> typo is also found in <biti quillé> ‘snake’ for the intended <bili quillé>, in light of the cognate /biʎ/ ‘snake’ in Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec and the immediately following entry, <billesie> ‘rattlesnake’. <lumní> ‘eight’ appears to be a typo for <lluní>, or perhaps <lluñí>, since this form is given as <shuñi> by Belmar (1901) and in view of its cognate /ʃuɲ/ in Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec.     

 

Another orthographic issue is inconsistent representation of the first person singular clitic pronoun /-ã/: while its nasality is often marked by a following <n>, this tends not to happen when there is an immediately preceding nasal consonant (see 12). Based on Rendón’s (1971) observation that in Elotepec Zapotec nasality is found in nasal contexts, I assume that all the forms in (12) contain the first person singular clitic pronoun /-ã/.  

 

(12)

Nasality marked

Nasality unmarked

 

<bichibalanré> ‘my older brother’

<bichimiaré> ‘my younger brother’

 

<usanré> ‘my father’

<naré> ‘my mother’

 

 

<niaré> ‘my husband’

 

 

<biniaré> ‘my wife’

 

A few of the responses contain what appear to be errors. For example, the form <billisí>, given in response to the Spanish prompt pino ‘pine tree’, is clearly cognate with the Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec words for ‘pineapple’ (Sp. piña). The form <bití>, given in response to Sp. zorra ‘(female) fox’, is cognate with Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec words for ‘skunk’ (Sp. zorrillo). The form <raurú> ‘you eat’ (Sp. comer) was apparently given in error in response to Sp. correr ‘to run’ (see Table 22).

 

Spanish prompt

Elotepec response

Zaniza cognate

Texmelucan cognate

pino ‘pine tree’

<billisí>

/biʐiʐi/ ‘pineapple’

/bdʒidʒ/ ‘pineapple’

zorra ‘fox’

<bití>

/bit/ ‘skunk’

/bit/ ‘skunk’

correr ‘to run’

<raurú>

/ɾawɾ/ ‘you eat’

/ɾoɾ/ ‘you eat’

Table 22. Apparent errors in Elotepec responses

 

Some of the Elotepec responses contain added material that is not found in their cognates in the other Papabuco languages or in the Elotepec forms cited by Belmar (1901) or Rendón (1971). Some of the responses disagree with the Elotepec forms reported in the other sources. An interesting example of the latter are different allomorphs of the numerals ‘one’ and ‘two’ depending on whether they are cited in isolation or as part of the numerals ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’: as seen in Table 23, the allomorphy <tibi> ~ <tubi> ‘one’ and <chabá> ~ <chopa> ‘two’ is not reported by Belmar (1901) and is not present in the other Papabuco languages. The form <bilñici>, given in response to the prompt nombre ‘name’, may have been influenced by, or perhaps actually given in response to, the immediately preceding entry anguila ‘eel’ (<bilñici> appears to be composed of <bil> ‘snake’ and <ñici> ‘water’).  

 

Peñafiel vocabulary

Belmar (1901)

Rendón (1971)

Zaniza cognate

Texmelucan cognate

 

<llaegrellé>[12]

<yaga>

<yaga>

/jag/

/jag/

‘tree’

<balsedé>[13]

<balla>

<bala>

/bal/

/bel/

‘fish’

<ticiudán>

<shina>

<Sa1N>

/ʃi/

/ʃe/

‘belly’

<betbalná>

<balla>

<ba3la>

/bal/

/beel/

‘body’ / ‘meat’

<bilñici>

<laa>

<la3>

/la/

/nu la/

‘name’

<esquinloyec>

 

<i1SSki3ñi>

/ʂigiɲ/

/tʃiɟiɲ/

‘bird’

<ynquillanré>

<iñi>

 

/i'ɲ/

/i'ɲ/

‘son’

<billesie>

 

 

/biʎ bisuɲ/

/biʎ daab/

‘rattlesnake’

<loxilna>

 

 

/ʃiʎ/

/lowe/

‘wing’[14]

<yuhu dusanguaquiyé>

 

 

/ju' giʒ/

/ju' ɟiʒ/

‘thatch hut’

<tibi>,

<chibitubi>

<tibi>,

<chiirbititibi>

 

/tib/,

/tʃiɾibitib/

/tub/,

/tɾotub/

‘one’

‘eleven’

<chabá>,

<chibechopa>

<chopa>,

<chiirbichopa>

 

/tʃup/,

/tʃiʃibitʃup/

/cup/,

/tɾocup/

‘two’

‘twelve’

Table 23. Selected Elotepec responses

 

Some of the responses to the noun prompts in Spanish consist of verb forms or multiword expressions. For example, the Elotepec translation for Sp. mañana ‘morning’ is given as <hersilná>, which appears to be the habitual aspect form of the verb <sil> with the first person plural subject marker (<her-sil-na>); this verb appears to be related to the noun ‘breakfast’ in Texmelucan Zapotec (/siiʎ/) and Zaniza Zapotec (/siʎ/). The translations for Sp. trueno ‘thunder’ (<herniquiuxi>) and relámpago ‘lightning’ (<heryiloquixi>) are also verbal in form and appear to contain the noun meaning ‘thunder’ (cf. /guzii/ ‘thunder’, /ɟi ni guzii/ ‘lightning’ in Texmelucan Zapotec; /uzi/ ‘thunder’, /ʃi lo uzi/ ‘lightning’ in Zaniza Zapotec). The Elotepec response to Sp. pipa ‘pipe’ is <niersobruyá>, ‘what he puts in his mouth’ or, possibly, ‘what is in his mouth’ (<ni er-sob ru-yá>). The translation for Sp. caldera ‘cauldron’, <serupinieyé>, is perhaps analyzable as a place nominalization, <se rupi nieyé> ‘where clothes are washed’ (cf. /ze'/ ‘there’, /ɲedʒ/ ‘clothes’ in Zaniza Zapotec; /ze'/ ‘there’, /neɟ/ ‘clothes’ in Texmelucan Zapotec).

 

Eight of the ten translations for the abstract nouns that round off the Peñafiel questionnaire prove to be challenging (and, perhaps, were so for the respondent). While some contain identifiable morphemes – for example, the <xede> of <becuexedé> ‘laziness’ is almost certainly the morpheme for ‘lazy’ (cf. Zaniza /zed/, Texmelucan /zeed/) and the <aan> of <hudimbraán> ‘kindness’ is the first person singular pronoun clitic – the limited amount of data at our disposal precludes their full analysis at this time. This is also true of the words for the seasons of the year: while the translations for spring (<tiomgieyé>, lit. ‘rain time’) and fall (<tieonquasá>, lit. ‘dry time’) are transparent, the one for winter (<visgraená>) is not, and the one for summer (<tieomerrubiy>) contains an unidentified second element. The translation for guerrero ‘warrior’, given as <ygqui, eryú>, is both phonologically and morphologically unclear.

 

8. Conclusion

 

This paper has presented a proposed transcription and a linguistic and orthographic analysis of the Peñafiel vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec. Where applicable, the Peñafiel were evaluated against the other published descriptions of Elotepec Zapotec, Belmar (1901) and Rendón (1971), and compared with cognates from the other Papabuco languages.

 

The Peñafiel vocabulary reveals that, individual innovations apart, late nineteenth-century Elotepec Zapotec shares more phonological features with present-day Zaniza than Texmelucan Zapotec. The shared similarities include the treatment of unstressed vowels, which are preserved in pretonic position and subjected to conditioned loss in posttonic position; fricativization of Proto-Zapotec *ttz and *tz, which has produced an additional set of coronal fricatives in Elotepec and Zaniza Zapotec as compared to Texmelucan Zapotec; and affrication of Proto-Zapotec *tt' and posttonic *t', which continue to retain their stop articulation in Texmelucan Zapotec (see Table 24 below as well as Tables 5, 15 and 16 above). The features that Elotepec Zapotec shares with Texmelucan Zapotec to the exclusion of Zaniza Zapotec include preservation of the stop articulation of medial *kk and of *k in the palatalizing environment of *keʔla ‘lake’ (shown in Table 24).

 

The Spanish loanwords captured by the Peñafiel questionnaire consist of borrowings that are common to all Papabuco languages, such as dios ‘God’ and amigo ‘friend’, and those for which present-day Zaniza and Texmelucan Zapotec continue to use inherited words; these include the words for tobacco and turtle. The phonological shape of the borrowings points to at least two chronological layers of Spanish loanwords in Elotepec Zapotec.

 

In the larger context of Zapotec comparative linguistics, the Peñafiel vocabulary provides valuable evidence from the Papabuco branch of the family relevant to reconstruction of posttonic vowels, and a unique instrument for observing linguistic change in a Zapotec language over the period of more than a century. In light of the critical dearth of published information on Elotepec Zapotec, the Peñafiel vocabulary also helps fill important lacunae in our understanding of this endangered and under-documented language.

 

 

Elotepec

Zaniza

Texmelucan

 

*tt'

*laʔtt'iʔ

<ch>

<lech(ilgré)>

/tʃ/

/latʃ/

/c/

/lac/

 

‘valley’

*t'

*kat'i

<ch>

<gueché>

/dʒ/

/gadʒ/

/ɟ/

/gaɟ/

 

‘seven’

*ttz

*kittza(ʔ)

<s>

<quis(iquí)>

/ʂ/

/giʂ/

/tʃ/

/ɟitʃ/

 

‘hair’

*tz

*(kwe-)tzinaʔ

<ll>

<lliní>

/ʐ/

/ʐiɲ/

/dʒ/

/dʒiɲ/

 

‘deer’

*-kk-

*yekkek

<c>

<yc(anré)>

/h/

/ih/

/k/

/ik/

 

‘head’

*k

*keʔla

<qui>

<quial(dó)>

/dʒ/

/dʒal (doo)/

/ɟ/

/ɟel/

 

‘lake’

Table 24. Selected Papabuco cognates

 

Acknowledgment. I am grateful to late Thomas C. Smith Stark for sharing with me copies of the Peñafiel vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec and of his transcription of the vocabulary, and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.  

 

References

 

Alvar, Manuel. 1965-1966. Algunas cuestiones fonéticas del español hablado en Oaxaca (México). Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 18.353-377.

Avelino, Heriberto. 2001. The phonetic correlates of fortis-lenis in Yalálag Zapotec consonants. University of California Los Angeles M.A. Thesis.

Belmar, Francisco. 1901. Breve noticia del idioma papabuco del pueblo de Elotepec. Oaxaca: Imprenta del Comercio.

Bright, William. 1967. Inventory of descriptive materials. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 5, Linguistics, Norman A. McQuown (ed), 9-62. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2019. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 22nd ed. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.

INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (México)). 2009. 125 años de la Dirección General de Estadística: 1882-2007. Online at https://unstats.un.org/unsd/wsd/docs/Mexico_wsd_125_anos_DGE.pdf.

Kaufman, Terrence. 2016. Proto-Sapotec(an) reconstructions. University of Pittsburgh Manuscript. Online at      https://www.albany.edu/ims/pdlma/SapRec16%20for%20posting.pdf.

Lope Blanch, José M. 1966. Sobre el rehilamiento de ll/y en México. Anuario de Letras 6.43-60.

Mechling, William H. 1912. The Indian linguistic stocks of Oaxaca. American Anthropologist n.s. 14.643-682.

Nellis, Donald G. & Barbara E. Hollenbach. 1980. Fortis versus lenis in Cajonos Zapotec phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 46.92-105.

Operstein, Natalie. 2002. First-person plural and the aspect morphology of Zapotec. In Jeanie Castillo (ed), Proceedings from the Fifth Workshop on American Indigenous Languages, April 26-28, 2002, 53-64. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics 13.

Operstein, Natalie. 2005. Spanish loanwords and the historical phonology of Zaniza Zapotec. In Rosemary Beam de Azcona & Mary Paster (eds), Papers from the Conference on Otomanguean and Other Oaxacan Languages, 107-116. Berkeley: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Report 13.

Operstein, Natalie. 2012. Proto-Zapotec *tty/*ty and *ttz/*tz. International Journal of American Linguistics 78.1-40.  

Operstein, Natalie. 2015a. Zaniza Zapotec. Munich: Lincom Europa.

Operstein, Natalie. 2015b. Valence-altering operations in Zaniza Zapotec. In Natalie Operstein &Aaron Huey Sonnenschein (eds), Valence Changes in Zapotec: Synchrony, Diachrony, Typology, 175-190. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins.

Operstein, Natalie. 2016. Phonological adaptation of Spanish loanwords in Zaniza Zapotec. International Journal of American Linguistics 82.211-238. 

Operstein, Natalie. 2017a. Suppletion in Zapotec. Linguistics 55.739-782.

Operstein, Natalie. 2017b. Loanword evidence for dialect mixing in colonial American Spanish. In Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond, Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi & Natalie Operstein (eds), 171-186. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Parodi, Claudia. 1995. Orígenes del español americano, vol. 1, Reconstrucción de la pronunciación. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. 

Parodi, Claudia. 2017. Spanish loanwords in Amerindian languages and their implications for the reconstruction of the pronunciation of Spanish in Mesoamerica. In Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond, Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi & Natalie Operstein (eds), 155-169. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Peñafiel, Antonio. 1880-1894. Lenguas indígenas de Oaxaca. La Sección de Antropología del Instituto de Historia de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Manuscript.[15]

Peñafiel, Antonio. 1897. Cuestión núm. 31.—División y clasificación de las lenguas y dialectos que usaron los antiguos habitantes del actual territorio mexicano.—Su estado presente. In Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Actas de la Undécima Reunión, México, 1895, 91-96. Mexico City: Agencia Tipográfica de F. Díaz de León.

Pickett, Velma B., María Villalobos Villalobos & Stephen A. Marlett. 2010. Isthmus (Juchitán) Zapotec. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40.365-372.

Rendón, Juan José. 1971. Relaciones externas del llamado idioma papabuco. Anales de Antropología 8.213-231.

Smith Stark, Thomas S. 1999. El solteco y el zapoteco occidental: un aprecio a partir de los vocabularios de Peñafiel. Paper presented at the V Congreso Nacional de Lingüística, Monterrey, Nuevo León, México.

Smith Stark, Thomas S. 2003. La ortografía del zapoteco en el Vocabvlario de fray Juan de Córdova. In Escritura zapoteca: 2500 años de historia, María de los Ángeles Romero Frizzi (ed), 173-240. Mexico City: CIESAS / Miguel Ángel Porrúa / Conaculta / INAH.

Smith Stark, Thomas C. 2007. Los préstamos entre el español y el zapoteco de San Baltasar Chichicapan. UniverSOS 4.9-39.

Speck, Charles H. 1978. The phonology of Texmelucan Zapotec verb irregularity. University of North Dakota M.A. Thesis.

Speck, Charles H. 2005a. Vocabulario zapoteco (parte zapoteco – español). Summer Institute of Linguistics Manuscript.

Speck, Charles H. 2005b. Verbos irregulares: zapoteco de San Lorenzo Texmelucan. Summer Institute of Linguistics Manuscript.

Suárez, Jorge A. 1972. La clasificación del papabuco y del solteco. Anuario de Letras 10.219-232.

Uchihara, Hiroto. 2016. La pérdida de la vocal átona en zapoteco central. Paper presented at the 7th Coloquio Sobre Lenguas Otomangues y Vecinas, Oaxaca, April 2016. 

 

 

Appendix

 

The table below presents the proposed transcription as well as a possible phonological and morphological analysis of the responses to the Peñafiel vocabulary from San Juan Elotepec. The first column shows the item’s number in the Peñafiel vocabulary, the second column contains the Spanish prompt, and the third column gives the corresponding response in Elotepec; both the prompt and the response are given in the original orthography, except for capitalization, which has been eliminated. When the Elotepec response contains an apparent typo, the hypothesized intended form follows the actual form in brackets. The fourth and fifth columns contain the proposed phonological analysis and morphological breakdown of the Elotepec response; the affixes and clitics are separated from each other and the other morphemes by dashes, and the compound constituents are separated from each other by a blank space. The animacy and nominalization markers are indicated only where practicable. The last column supplies the glosses in English; if the Elotepec response differs from the one intended by the Spanish prompt, the prompt and the response are glossed separately, with the two glosses separated by a slash.

 

No

Spanish Prompt

Elotepec Response

Phonological Analysis

Morphological Analysis

Gloss

1

dios

chuyé

/dʒuʒe/

 

God

2

sacerdote

uxé

/uze/

 

priest

3

templo

guexé

/weʐe/

 

church

4

hombre

yquieyé

/ig'eje/

/i-g'eje/

man

5

mujer

binián

/biɲã/

/biɲ-ã/

woman / my wife

6

muchacho

ycuené

/ikwene/

/i-kwene/

boy

7

muchacha

encuenébiniá

/enkwenebiɲa/

/en-kwene biɲa/

girl

8

niño ó niña

embedo ó bedoré

/enbedo/, 

/bedoɾe/

/en-bedo/,

/bedo-ɾe/

child

9

mi padre, dice el hijo

usanré

/uzãɾe/

/uz-ã-ɾe/

my father, says the son

10

" "

dice la hija

usanré

/uzãɾe/

/uz-ã-ɾe/

" "

says the daughter

11

mi madre, dice el hijo

naré

/nãɾe/

/n-ã-ɾe/

my mother, says the son

12

" "

dice la hija

naré

/nãɾe/

/n-ã-ɾe/

" "

says the daughter

13

mi marido

niaré

/ɲãɾe/

/ɲ-ã-ɾe/

my husband

14

mi esposa

biniaré

/biɲãɾe/

/biɲ-ã-ɾe/

my wife

15

mi hijo, dice el padre

ynquillanré

/ingiʃãɾe/

/in giʃ-ã-ɾe/

my son, says the father

16

mi hijo, dice la madre

ynquillanré

/ingiʃãɾe/

/in giʃ-ã-ɾe/

my son, says the mother

17

mi hija, dice el padre

ynquillanré

/ingiʃãɾe/

/in giʃ-ã-ɾe/

my daughter, says the father

18

mi hija, dice la madre

ynquillaré

(ynquillanré)

/ingiʃãɾe/

/in giʃ-ã-ɾe/

my daughter, says the mother

19

mi hermano mayor

bichibalanré

/bitʃibalãɾe/

/bitʃi bal-ã-ɾe/

my elder brother

20

mi hermano menor

bichimiaré

 

/bitʃimiãɾe/

 

/bitʃi mi-ã-ɾe/

 

my younger brother

21

mi hermana mayor

zan balanré

/zan balãɾe/

/zan bal-ã-ɾe/

my elder sister

22

mi hermana menor

zan maré

(zan miaré)

/zan miãɾe/

/zan mi-ã-ɾe/

my younger sister

23

indio

ynchí

/indʒi/

 

Indian

24

gente

beché

/(m)betʃe/

 

people

25

cabeza

ycanré

/ikãɾe/

/ik-ã-ɾe/

head / my head

26

pelo

quisiquí

/giʂiki/

/giʂ iki/

hair / head hair

27

cara

loná

/lona/

/lo-na/

face /

our face

28

frente

tegaán

/tegaã/

/te-ga-ã/

forehead / my forehead

29

oreja

ydagaán

/idagaã/

/i-daga-ã/

ear /

my ear

30

ojo

urloná

/uɾlona/

/uɾ lo-na/

eye /

our eye

31

nariz

tiñia

/tiɲa/

 

nose

32

boca

runá

/ɾuna/

/ɾu-na/

mouth / our mouth

33

lengua

luxná

/luʐna/

/luʐ-na/

tongue / our tongue

34

dientes

leyná

/lejna/

/lej-na/

teeth / our teeth

35

barba

quisiruná

/giʂiɾuna/

/giʂi ɾu-na/

beard / our beard

36

cuello

nierrieñá

/ɲeɾjeɲa/

/ɲeɾ jeɲa/

neck

37

brazo

hianá

/jana/

/ja-na/

arm /

our arm

38

mano

hianá

/jana/

/ja-na/

hand / our hand

39

dedos

bizná

/(m)bizna/

/(m)biz-na/

fingers / our fingers

40

dedo pulgar

bisilná

/(m)bizilna/

/(m)biz il-na/

thumb / our thumb

41

uñas

choquianá

/tʃogjana/

/tʃog ja-na/

nails / our nails

42

cuerpo

betbalná

/betbalna/

/bet bal-na/

body / our body

43

pecho

lerán

/leɾã/

/leɾ-ã/

breast / my breast

44

barriga

ticiudán

/(?)ã/

/(?)-ã/

belly / my belly

45

pechos de mujer

lecbinián

/le(g')biɲã/

/le(g') biɲ-ã/

woman’s breasts / my wife’s breasts

46

pierna

cuirán

/kwiɾã/

/kwiɾ-ã/

leg /

my leg

47

pié

quianá

/g'ana/

/g'a-na/

foot /

our feet

48

dedos del pié

bizquianré

/(m)bizg'ãɾe/

/(m)biz g'-ã-ɾe/

toes /

my toes

49

hueso

riti

/ɾiti/

 

bone

50

corazon

lerná

/leɾna/

/leɾ-na/

heart / our heart

51

sangre

reñié

/ɾeɲe/

 

blood

52

pueblo, villa, aldea

tiguyé (tigueyé),

villi, renyé

/tigeʐe/,

/bili/,

/ɾeɲe/

/ti-geʐe/

town, village, hamlet

53

jefe

jefeson

/hefesõ/ (?)

/hefe-sõ/

boss

54

guerrero

ygqui, eryú

(?)

(?)

warrior

55

amigo

ymigaré

/imigaɾe/

/imiga-ɾe/

friend

56

cuna

yagilo

/jagilo/

/jag ilo/

cradle

57

casa

yuhú

/ju'/

 

house

58

choza, casa de paja

yuhu dusanguaquiyé

/ju'duzãwagiʒe/

/ju' du-zãwa (?) giʒe/

thatch hut

59

sepulcro

rubá

/ɾuba/

/ɾu ba/

tomb

60

caldera

serupinieyé

/zeɾupiɲedʒe/

/ze ɾupi ɲedʒe/

cauldron / where clothes are washed

61

arco

xilquité

/ʃilkwite/

/ʃil kwite/

bow / rainbow

62

flecha

fleche essón

/fletʃesõ/ (?)

/fletʃe-sõ/ (?)

arrow

63

hacha

quibiagá

/gibjaga/

/gib jaga/

axe

64

cuchillo

quis quibé

/gis gibe/

/gis gibe/

knife

65

canoa

canoré

/kanoɾe/

/kano-ɾe/

trough

66

guarache ó zapato

quitlabá, labiquidé

/gidlaba/, /labigide/

/gid laba/,

/labi gide/

sandal or shoe

67

pipa

niersobruyá / barril ó cachimba

/nieɾzobɾuja/

/ni eɾ-zob ɾu-j/

pipe / what he puts in his mouth or what is in his mouth

68

tabaco

tabaueré

/tabaweɾe/

/tabawe-ɾe/

tobacco

69

cielo

baré

/baɾe/

/ba-ɾe/

sky

70

sol

doré

/doɾe/

/do-ɾe/

sun

71

luna

beyé

/beje/

 

moon

72

estrella

cuiilré

/gwiilɾe/

/gwi il-ɾe/

star /

big star

73

dia

lliná

/ʐína/

/ʐi na/

day /

this day

74

noche

ralná

/ɾálna/

/ɾal na/

night / this night

75

mañana

hersilná

/eɾsilna/

/eɾ-sil-na/

morning / we eat breakfast

76

tarde

huillé

 

/wiʐe/

 

afternoon

77

primavera

tiomgieyé

/tjomg'eje/

/tjom g'eje/

spring / rainy season

78

verano

tieomerrubiy

/tjomeɾubi/

/tjom eɾubi/ (?)

summer / (?) season

79

otoño

tieonquasá

/tjomwaʂa/

/tjom waʂa/

fall / dry season

80

invierno

vizgraená

(?)

(?)

winter

81

viento

viy

/bi/

 

wind

82

trueno

herniquiuxi

/eɾnigiuzi/

/eɾ-ni gi uzi/

thunder

83

relámpago

heryiloquixi

(heryiloquiuxi)

/eɾʃilogiuzi/

/eɾ-ʃi lo gi uzi/

lightning

84

lluvia

quieiyé

/g'eje/

 

rain

85

nieve

yta quieyé

/ita g'eje/

/i-ta g'eje/

snow

86

fuego

guiyé

/gije/

 

fire

87

agua

nisi

/nisi/

 

water

88

hielo

quiegué

/g'ege/

 

ice

89

tierra

/ju/

 

earth

90

mar

/do/

 

sea

91

rio

guiagua

/g'awa/

 

river

92

lago

quialdó

/g'aldo/

/g'al do/

lake

93

valle

lechilgré

(lechilré)

/letʃilɾe/

/letʃ il-ɾe/

valley / big valley

94

llano

lechimiré

/letʃimiɾe/

/letʃi mi-ɾe/

plain / small valley

95

cerro, montaña

las ibré

(las ilré)

/laʂ ilɾe/

/laʂ il-ɾe/

hill, mountain / large hill

96

isla

layú ullré

/laju uʒɾe/ (?)

/laju uʒ-ɾe/

island / small (?)

97

piedra, roca

heita illi

/ita ili/

/i-ta ili/

stone, rock /

large stone

98

sal

zedé

/zede/

 

salt

99

cobre

guibequesé

/gíbekeʂe/

/gibe keʂe/

copper

100

plata

guibitimienñá

/gibitimiɲa/

/gibi timiɲa/

silver

101

oro

heitaquibiora

/itagibioɾa/

/i-ta gibi oɾa/

gold

102

bosque, selva

laquí ilí

/lagi ili/

/lagi ili/

woods, forest / large (?)

103

arbol

llaegrellé

/jagɾe(?)e/

/jag ɾe(?)e/

tree / (?) tree

104

madera

lliagá

/jaga/

 

wood

105

hoja

leagá

/ʎaga/

 

leaf

106

corteza

ledé

/lede/

 

bark

107

yerba

liagré

/ʎagɾe/

/ʎag-ɾe/

grass

108

pino

billisí

/biʐiʐi/

/bi-ʐiʐi/

pine tree / pineapple

109

maíz

obá

/oba/

 

corn

110

frijol

ursá

/uɾza/

/uɾ za/

beans

111

calabaza

guieté

/g'ete/

 

squash

112

chile, pimiento

guiñí

/giɲi/

 

chili, pepper

113

carne

balá

/bala/

 

meat

114

murciélago

beigidebesinnís

/begidebeziɲis/

/be-gide be-ziɲi-s/

bat

115

perro

beco

/beko/

 

dog

116

coyote

yieñé

/jeɲe/ (?)

 

coyote

117

tigre

tigreson

/tigɾesõ/ (?)

/tigɾe-sõ/

tiger

118

oso

banasé

/banaze/ (?)

 

bear

119

leon, puma

bizquixé

/biʐgiʃe/

/biʐ giʃe/

lion, puma

120

lobo

bizquiasá

/biʐg'aza/ (?)

/biʐ g'aza/

wolf

121

zorra

bití

/biti/

 

fox / skunk

122

tejon

chixhé

/ʐiʐe/

 

coati

123

ciervo

lliní

/ʐini/

 

deer

124

jabalí

cusquillé

/kuʂgiʃe/

/kuʂ giʃe/

wild boar

125

armadillo

bixi

/bizi/

 

armadillo

126

raton

bixinñí

/biziɲi/

/bi-ziɲi/

mouse

127

conejo

biltí (billí)

/biʂi/

 

rabbit

128

ardilla

brisi

/bɾizi/

/b-ɾizi/

squirrel

129

tortuga

tortuga

/toɾtuga/

 

turtle

130

lagartija

bizquidí

/biʐgidi/

/biʐ gidi/

lizard

131

caballo

baña

/baɲa/

 

horse

132

mosca

ezquiegué

/eʂg'ege/

/eʂ-g'ege/

fly

133

mosquito

esquienú

/eʂg'enu/

/eʂ-g'enu/

mosquito

134

sapo

berlabá

/beɾlaba/

/beɾ laba/

toad

135

culebra, serpiente

biti quillé

(bili quillé)

/bili giʃe/

/bili giʃe/

snake

136

culebra de cascabel

billesié

/billeze/ (?)

/bil leze/ (?)

rattlesnake

137

alacran

guinec

/winek/ or /wineʔ/

/wine-k/ (?)

scorpion

138

ave

esquinloyec

/eʂginlojek/ or /eʂginlojeʔ/

/eʂ-gin lojek/  or  /eʂ-gin lojeʔ/ (?)

bird

139

huevo

go

/(ŋ)go/

 

egg

140

plumas

debé

/debe/

 

feather

141

alas

loxilná

/loʃilna/

/lo ʃil-na/

wings19

142

ganso

gansex

/ganseʃ/ (?)

/ganse-ʃ/ (?)

goose

143

pato

badá

/bada/

 

duck

144

zopilote

lieyé

/ʎeʃe/

 

buzzard[16]

145

cuervo

ezquincazá

/eʂginkasa/

/eʂ-gin kasa/

crow

146

guajolote

cola

/kola/

 

turkey

147

paloma

uraga

/uɾaga/

 

dove

148

pez

balsedé

/balzede/

/bal zede/

fish / salted fish (?)

149

bobo, pescado

balá

/bala/

 

fish sp.

150

bagre

bal nullelmá

/bal nuʃelma/ (?)

bal nuʃelma (?)

catfish

151

anguila

bili nullelmá

/bili nuʃelma/ (?)

bili nuʃelma (?)

eel

152

nombre

bilñici

/bilñisi/

/bil nisi/

name / water snake[17]

153

blanco

quicheguesé

/kitʃekeʂe/

/kitʃe keʂe/

white

154

negro

encasá

/enkasa/

/en-kasa/

black

155

colorado

eññan

/enɲa/

/en-ɲa/

red

156

azul celeste

encaá

/enka'/

/en-ka'/

sky-blue

157

amarillo

enquesé

/enkeʂe/

/en-keʂe/

yellow

158

verde

enquiné

/enkine/

/en-kine/

green

159

grande

enhili

/enili/

/en-ili/

big

160

pequeño

enmihi

/enmi'/

/en-mi'/

small

161

fuerte

robrú

/ɾobɾu/

/ɾob-ɾu/

strong / you are strong

162

viejo

ygalá

/igala/

/i-gala/

old (man)

163

jóven

solteré

/solteɾe/

 

young (man)

164

bueno

napia

/napja/

/nap-ja/

good / he is good

165

malo

tenyia

/teɲja/

/teɲ-ja/

bad / he is bad

166

muerto

ytó

/ito/

/i-to/

dead (person)

167

vivo

zanayaá

/zanaja/ (?)

/zana-ja/ (?)

alive / he is alive (?)

168

frio

rayá

/ɾaja/

 

cold

169

caliente

bexiguí

/bezigi/

/be-zigi/

hot

170

yo

aan

/ã/

 

I

171

ruú

/ɾu/

 

you (sg.)

172

él

yrsé

/iɾze/

/i-ɾ-ze/

he

173

nosotros

biegniá

(?)

bieg-nia (?)

we

174

vosotros

bigaaná

(?)

big-aana (?)

you (pl.)

175

ellos

bicailié

(?)

bic-ailie (?)

they

176

este

yiesán

/jezã/ (?)

 

this

177

aquel

yrecáá

/iɾeka/

/i-ɾe-ka/ (?)

that

178

todo, todos

ydelní

/idelni/

/i-del-ni/

all

179

mucho, muchos

bierobbigía

/biɾobigia/ (?)

/bi-ɾob igia/

much, many[18]

180

quien

chumdec

/tʃumdek/ or /tʃumdeʔ/

/tʃum-dek/ or /tʃum-deʔ/

who

181

léjos

zecto

/zeʔto/ (?)

 

far

182

cerca de

gabá

/gaba/

 

near

183

aquí

ylá

/ila/

 

here

184

allá

yuní

/juni/

 

there

185

hoy

naá

/na/

 

today

186

ayer

nagée

/nage/

 

yesterday

187

mañana (el dia de)

galibé

/galibe/

 

tomorrow

188

han

ã (?)

 

yes

189

no

haan

ã' (?)

 

no

190

uno

tibi

/tibi/

 

one

191

dos

chabá

/tʃaba/

 

two

192

tres

zosná (zoná)

/ʂona/

 

three

193

cuatro

tapa

/tapa/

 

four

194

cinco

guiyé

/gije/

 

five

195

seis

llopa

/ʃopa/

 

six

196

siete

gueché

/gedʒe/

 

seven

197

ocho

lumní (llunní)

/ʃuɲi/

 

eight

198

nueve

/ga/

 

nine

199

diez

chís

/tʃis/

/tʃi-s/ (?)

ten

200

once

chibitubi

/tʃibitubi/

/tʃi-bi-tubi/

eleven

201

doce

chibechopa

/tʃibitʃopa/

/tʃi-bi-tʃopa/

twelve

202

veinte

galá

/gala/

 

twenty

203

treinta

galrebechí

/galɾebitʃi/

/gal-ɾebi-tʃi/

thirty

204

cuarenta

chó

/tʃo/

 

forty

205

cincuenta

chalnalá

/tʃalnala/

/tʃal nala/

fifty

206

sesenta

quioná

/gijona/

/gi-jona/

sixty

207

setenta

quionrebichí

/gijonɾebitʃi/

/gi-jon-ɾebi-tʃi/

seventy

208

ochenta

taa

/ta'/

 

eighty

209

noventa

taabichí

/ta'bitʃi/

/ta'-bi-tʃi/

ninety

210

ciento

taabinala

/ta'binala/

/ta'-bi-nala/

hundred

211

mil

mil

/mil/

 

thousand

212

comer

dauna

/dawna/

/d-aw-na/

to eat /

we eat

213

beber

diena

/diena/

/d-ie-na/

to drink / we drink

214

correr

raurú

/ɾawɾu/

/ɾ-aw-ɾu/

to run / you eat

215

bailar

dalná

/dalna/

/d-al-na/

to dance / we dance

216

cantar

dalruná

/dalɾuna/

/d-al ɾu-na/

to sing / we sing

217

dormir

dezná

/desna/

/d-es-na/

to sleep / we sleep

218

hablar

hiñina

/iɲina/

/i-ɲi-na/

to speak / we speak

219

ver

higuiná

/igwina/

/i-gwi-na/

to see /

we see

220

amar

guitiragueleranloru

/kitiɾakeleɾãloɾu/

/kiti ɾake leɾ-ã lo-ɾu/

to love / I love you

221

matar

dutaní

/dutãni/ 

/d-ut-ã(n)-i/ (?)

to kill / I kill him

222

sentarse

ysoban

/izobã/

/i-zob-ã/

to sit down / I sit down

223

estar en pié, pararse

guasonón

/wasõ/ (?)

/was-õ/ (?)

to stand (up) / I stand (up)

224

ir

zabanán

/zabã/ (?)

/zab-ã/ (?)

to go / I go

225

venir

yapaán

/japã/

/jap-ã/

to come / I come

226

andar

zanán

/zaã/

/za-ã/

to walk / I walk

227

trabajar

riniricháán

/ɾiniɾitʃã/

/ɾini ɾitʃ-ã/

to work / I work

228

robar

ybana

/ibana/

/i-bana/

to rob / thief

229

mentir

liemé

/ʎeme/ (?)

 

to lie

230

dar

risarú

/ɾizaɾu/

/ɾi-za-ɾu/ (?)

to give / you give (?)

231

reir

riená

/ɾiena/

/ɾ-ie-na/

to laugh / we laugh

232

gritar

rezná

/ɾeʐna/

/ɾ-eʐ-na/

to shout / we shout

233

bramar

ruconá

/ɾukona/

/ɾuko-na/ (?)

to bellow / we bellow (?)

234

ladrar

heryímmá

/eɾʃinma/

/eɾ-ʃin-ma/

to bark / it barks

235

cacarear

yzervezrrucaom

/izeɾbeʐɾukoma/ (?)

/iz eɾ-beʐ ɾuko-ma/ (?)

to crow / it crows (?)

236

tronar

herzechí

/eɾzedʒi/

/eɾ-zedʒi/

to thunder

237

gótear

rabá

/ɾaba/

 

to drip

238

charlar

huniyá

/unija/

/u-ni-ja/

to chat / he chatted

239

lloviznar

yatiguieyé

/jatig'eje/

/jati g'eje/

to drizzle / it rains

240

gorjear

hervezná

/eɾbeʐna/

/eɾ-beʐ-na/

to chirp / we chirp

241

voluntad

hurulerán (?)

/uɾuleɾã/

/u-ɾu leɾ-ã/ (?)[19]

will / my heart came out (?)

242

memoria

zinyguá

(?)

(?)

memory

243

pensamiento

herhabruá

(?)

(?)

thought

244

bondad

hudimbraán

(?)

(?)

kindness

245

amor

engueganré

/engegãɾe/ (?)

/en-geg-ã-ɾe/ (?)

love

246

olvido

bietíbrandí

(?)

(?)

oblivion

247

verdad

solsí

(?)

(?)

truth

248

tiempo

tiemné

/tjemne/

/tjem-ne/ (?)

time

249

razon

loliy

/loli/

/lo li/

reason

250

pereza

becuexedé

/bekwezede/

/bekwe zede/ (?)

laziness

 



[1] The precise beginning and end dates of the survey are somewhat unclear. Bright (1967) and Suárez (1972) each note that the dates of the Peñafiel vocabularies examined by them ranged between 1880 and 1894. On the other hand, Peñafiel observes in his presentation to the Eleventh Congress of Americanists that assembling the vocabularies has taken him nine years (Peñafiel 1897: 92). The Dirección General de Estadística was founded in 1882; Peñafiel served as its general director for 28 years, beginning in 1883 (INEGI 2009: 20). 

[2] “What was wanted was neither classification of the languages nor painstaking philological study but rather a simple compilation, a general comparative catalog for functional and practical uses”.

[3] These publications are the source of the Texmelucan Zapotec forms cited in the paper.

[4] The fact that the person who filled out the questionnaire identified the language as Zapotec rather than Papabuco is commented upon by Suárez (1972: 229), who also reminds us of Belmar’s observation that “in the administrative memory of 1873” the language of San Juan Elotepec was called Zapotec rather than Papabuco (see Belmar 1901: 4). 

[5] Proto-Zapotec reconstructions are cited after Kaufman (2016). The symbols <7>, <y>, <kw> and <ty> have been replaced with <ʔ>, <j>, <kw> and <t'>, respectively.   

[6] A reviewer suggests that the final <c> may represent a glottal stop or checked vowel.

[7] “Papabuco has the same vowels as Spanish, that is a, e, i, o, u, but it also has a nasal â and a very short è which is almost lost in the pronunciation. These vowels may be doubled, especially the a.”

[8] The use of <VhV> for representing laryngealized vowels has a long history in Zapotec writing (cf. Smith Stark 2003: 209-210).

[9] The first form in each set is the possessor clitic and the second form is the subject clitic (Belmar 1901: 4-7).

[10] A likely typo for <bikèna>. According to Belmar (1901: 4-5), <bike> is a plural morpheme. 

[11] The English glosses reflect the morphological makeup of the Zapotec responses rather than the corresponding Spanish prompts.

[12] Compare with <guibiagá> ‘axe’, a compound whose second member <iaga> is the word for tree or wood.

[13] Compare with <zedé> ‘salt’.

[14] The Zaniza and Texmelucan forms may be cognate with different component parts of the Elotepec form. 

[15] This is the way the Peñafiel manuscript is cited in Suárez (1972: 231).

[16] The initial letter of Nos. 141 and 144 appears to be the same. It is assumed to be <l> based on comparison with the likely cognates of these words: No. 141 <loxilná> ‘wings’ is assumed to be related to /lowe'/ ‘wing’ in Texmelucan Zapotec and /ʃiʎ/ ‘wing’ in Zaniza Zapotec, and No. 144 <lieyé> ‘buzzard’ is assumed to be cognate with the word for ‘buzzard’ in Texmelucan Zapotec (/ʎaʃ/) and Zaniza Zapotec (/ʎeʃ/). 

[17] See Table 23 above and the accompanying discussion. 

[18] Cf. <bi-goroba> ‘many’ in Rendón (1971: 223). 

[19] In several of the responses, it is unclear whether the intended sequence is <ler> or <br>. No. 241 is one of them, and the provisional analysis in the table depends on the assumption that it contains the sequence <ler>.

[ Home | Current Issue | Browse the Archive | Search the Site | Submission Information | Register for Updates | About | Editorial Board | Site Map | Help ]

Published by the Dartmouth College Library.
Copyright © 2002 Trustees of Dartmouth College.
For comments or feedback E-mail the site editor.
ISSN 1537-0852

Linguistic Discovery HomeDartmouth College Home