Ozumacín Chinantec (Chinanteco de San Pedro Ozumacín) is a Chinantecan language of Mexico, spoken in northern Oaxaca in the towns of San Pedro Ozumacín, Ayotzintepec, Santiago Progreso.
Phonology
Vowels There are ten vowels, which may be oral or nasal. A length distinction is made in writing by doubling the vowel, but this is based on comparison with other Chinantec languages; the distinction is apparently being lost from Ozumacín Chinantec.James Rupp (2017) Propuesta de convenciones para escribir el chinanteco de Ozumacín. (Stephen Marlett, ed., Propuestas de convenciones para escribir las lenguas originarias de México #04). Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C.
FrontCentralBack Close , Mid , Open
Nasal vowels are written with an underscore, e.g. ji̱i̱ˊ 'bed'. This is not written after a nasal consonant, where there is no contrast with oral vowels.
The front rounded vowels arose historically from the influence of palatalized consonants on back vowels.
Consonants Consonants and their orthography are as follows:
Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Laryngeal Nasal Plosive &Affricate Fricative Liquid , Semivowel
/p/ and /b/ are rare in native words. Apart from loans, /d/ occurs only in the enclitic daˊ, which softens an imperative. The letters c and f are used for Spanish borrowings.
/h/ merges with a following to produce .
Tones Ozumacín Chinantec has nine tones. They are written as follows:
Tone Example Translationhigh tonetooˈ metatemid tonetooˊ mamey seedlow tonetooˉ bananahigh ballistic tonekooꜗ (it) will burnmid ballistic tone kooꜘ next tolow ballistic tonekooꜙ (s/he) is playinghigh rising tonejuuhꜚ pine(cone? apple? Sp. piña)mid rising tonejuuh˜ (s/he) is coughinglow rising tonejuuhˋ cough!
Ballistic syllables are marked by a steep drop in pitch.
Writing system
Unicode support The following diacritics are used to mark Ozumacín tones.Priest, Lorna A. (2004). Revised Proposal to Encode Chinantec Tone Marks. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
Sample text A sample with all tone marks:
This orthography is used in the Ozumacín Bible.Wycliffe Bible Translators. (2003). New Testament and Psalms in Chinantec, Ozumacín. Retrieved 27 April 2019 from https://ebible.org/pdf/chzNTps/chzNTps_all.pdf
References