The Internal Diversification and Subgrouping Of Chatino

Abstract

Boas (1913) reported that the Chatino language area (Otomanguean) of southern Oaxaca State, Mexico, consists of three distinct varieties: (1) a group of 17 villages centered on Juquila and Yaitepec, (2) Tataltepec, and (3) Zenzontepec. Upson and Longacre (1965) compare data from the three groups and reconstruct 251 Proto-Chatino lexemes, but like Boas and all other extant work on Chatino, they do not provide any linguistic evidence that Boas’s first grouping is a valid genetic unit nor do they give any account of the relationships between the three. This paper demonstrates not only that the first group is valid but also that it forms a higher level subgroup with Tataltepec. The comparison illustrates that even with a limited number of identifiable phonological innovations useful for subgrouping, a successful classification is achievable with supporting evidence from shared sporadic morphological and semantic innovations, and by taking advantage of comparative work in a sister sub-family (Zapotec) in order to filter out retentions. [Keywords: historical linguistics, language classification, subgrouping, Chatino, Zapotec]