Chocho language

Chocho
Ngigua, Ngiwa
Spoken in	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Native speakers	<1000  (date missing)
Language family	Oto-Manguean (MP) Popolocan Chocho
Language codes
ISO 639-3	coz
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Chocho (also Chocholtec, Chocholteco Chochotec, Chochon, or Ngigua) is a language of the Popolocan branch of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family spoken in Mexico in the following communities of Oaxaca: Santa María Nativitas, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca, San Miguel Tulancingo. Chocho is Spoken by 770 speakers (1998 Ethnologue Survey).

Chocho is a tonal language distinguishing low, mid and high tones.

Carol Mock (1982) argues that Chocho distinguishes morphosyntactically between subjects of willful actions whether they are transitive or intransitive and subjects of unwillful actions. This results in her analysing Chocho as an active–stative language.

As an example of how this works here is an example showing that the subject is marked with a different suffix depending on whether the action of the verb is active or inactive

In an active/voluntary transitive phrase the agent/subject is marked by the active suffix "-á" and the patient by the inactive clitic "-mī". The patient/subject of an intransitive active/voluntary phrase is marked by the same suffix.

• bì-kų̄-ámī

aspect-see-first.person.exclusive.active/second.person.informal.inactive

"I saw you"

• d-àsǭ-á

aspect-arrive-first.person.exclusive.active

"I arrive"

However in an involuntary/inactive intransitive phrase the subject/patient is marked with the inactive clitic "má" like an object/patient of a transitive phrase.

• d-ą́tʰē-má

aspect-fall-first.person.exclusive.active

"I fall"

This morphosyntactical alignment would imply Chocho being a Split-S type Active language. However, some intransitive verbs can use either the active person suffixes or the inactive enclitic, this suggests that it does in fact belong to the Fluid-S type active language.

References

• Mock, Carol C, 1982, Los Casos Morfosintacticos del Chocho. Anales de Antropología, (Instituto de investigaciónes Antropologicas, UNAM) 19(2): 345-378. (Cited from Thomas C Smith and Fermin Tapia: "El Amuzgo como lengua activa" In Paulette Levy Ed. "Del Cora al Maya Yucateco" UNAM 2002)

External links

• Ethnologue page on Chocho
• Glossed Chocho text (Spanish)