A Preliminary Sketch of the Zapotec Language

Abstract

INTRODUCTION.' In contradistinction to the aboriginal languages of the United States, those of Mexico possess a fairly well-documented history. This is particularly the case for Zapotec. A representative series of grammars, dictionaries, and confesionarios beginning with 1578 and extending to our own time enables us to get a fairly good insight into both the phonetics and the structure of the language throughout the vicissitudes of the last 350 years. For a language like Zapotec, which has incorporated so many Spanish loan-words into its vocabulary, this is of considerable importance. At a moderate estimate no Zapotec dialect today has less than 20% Spanish vocabulary and most of them have from 20 to 30%. Yet strangely enough, in spite of this great influx of Spanish loan-words, the structure of the language itself has been entirely unaffected by Spanish. The changes that have occurred are those that we are to expect in any language over a period of 350 years. Indeed, as compared with the differences between the English of Shakespeare and modern English, Zapotec can be said to have remained almost unchanged. With all their defects the grammars and the dictionaries written by the missionaries between 1578 and 1824 are extremely valuable. To mention only the most important and available they are, first and foremost, the famous grammar and dictionary of the Dominican friar Juan de Cordova;2 an anonymous dictionary, probably that of Aguero;3 a