- Cuitlatec language
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Cuitlatec Spoken in Mexico Region Guerrero Extinct 1960s, with the death of Juana Can Language family Language codes ISO 639-3 – Linguist List qpb This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. Cuitlatec, or Cuitlateco, is an extinct language of Mexico, formerly spoken by an indigenous people also known as Cuitlatec.
Contents
Classification
Cuitlatec has not been convincingly classified as belonging to any language family. It is believed to be language isolate. In their controversial classification of the indigenous languages of the Americas, Greenberg and Ruhlen include Cuitlatec in an expanded Chibchan language family, along with a variety of other Mesoamerican and South American languages.[1] Hernández suggests a possible relation to the Uto-Aztecan languages.[2]
Geographic distribution
Cuitlatec was spoken in the state of Guerrero. By the 1930s, Cuitlatec was spoken only in San Miguel Totolapan. The last speaker of the language, Juana Can, is believed to have died in the 1960s.[2]
Phonology
Consonants
Cuitlatec consonant phonemes Bilabial Dental Postalveolar/
PalatalVelar Labio-velar Glottal Plosive p b t d k ɡ kʷ ʔ Affricate tʃ Fricative ʃ h Lateral approximant l Lateral fricative ɬ Nasal m n Approximant j w - The sounds /f/, /s/, /r/, and /ɾ/ are found in loan words from Spanish.
Vowels
Cuitlatec vowel phonemes Front Central Back High i ɨ u Low e a o Grammar
Sentences generally follow SVO word order. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify.
References
- ^ Greenberg, Joseph; Ruhlen, Merritt (2007-09-04) (pdf). An Amerind Etymological Dictionary (12 ed.). Stanford: Dept. of Anthropological Sciences Stanford University. http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/AED5.pdf. Retrieved 2008-06-27
- ^ a b Escalante Hernández, Robert (1962). El Cuitlateco. México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
Categories:- Languages with Linglist but no iso3 codes
- Mesoamerican languages
- Extinct languages of North America
- Indigenous languages of Mexico
- Language articles without language code
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