Tlapanec language

Tlapanec
Me'phaa
Spoken in	Mexico
Region	Guerrero, Morelos
Native speakers	more than 98,000  (date missing)
Language family	Oto-Mangue Tlapanecan Tlapanec
Language codes
ISO 639-3	variously: tcf – Malinaltepec tpc – Azoyú tpl – Tlacoapa tpx – Acatepec
Tlapaneco (Ochre, number 13) and the rest of the modern Oto-Manguean languages.

Tlapanec is an indigenous Mexican language spoken by more than 98,000 Tlapanec people in the state of Guerrero.^[1] Like other Oto-Manguean languages, it is tonal and has complex inflectional morphology. The Tlapanec themselves currently refer to their language using the adjective Me'phaa.^[2]

Before much information was known about it, Tlapanec (sometimes written "Tlappanec" in earlier publications) was either considered unclassified or linked to the controversial Hokan language family. It is now definitively considered part of the Oto-Manguean language family, of which it forms its own branch along with the extinct and very closely related Subtiaba language of Nicaragua.^[3]

Me'phaa people temporarily move to other locations, including Mexico City, Morelos and various locations in the United States, for reasons of work.

Dialects

Ethnologue lists four principal varieties of Tlapanec:^[4]

• Acatepec
• Azoyú
• Malinaltepec
• Tlacoapa.

Other sources of information, including native speakers and the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas of the Mexican government, identify as many as nine varieties, which have been given official status.

The Azoyú variety is the only natural language reported to have used the pegative case.^[5]

Media

Tlapanec-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XEZV-AM, broadcasting from Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero.

Notes

1. ^ INEGI 2005: http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx/impresion/poblacion/lindigena.asp
2. ^ Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas. 2008. Catálogo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales: Variantes lingüísticas de México con sus autodenominaciones y referencias geoestadísticas. Diario Oficial 14 enero, Primera Sección: 31-78, Segunda Sección: 1-96, Tercera Sección: 1-112.
3. ^ See Suárez (1977; 1986).
4. ^ "Ethnologue report for Subtiaba-Tlapanec" (Gordon 2005).
5. ^ Wichmann (2005).

References

Fernández de Miranda, María Teresa (1968). "Inventory of Classificatory Materials". In Norman A. McQuown (volume editor). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 5: Linguistics. R. Wauchope (general editor). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 63–78. ISBN 0-292-73665-7. OCLC 277126. 

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition (online version ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 

Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (n.d.). "Tlapanecan family". El Instituto Lingüístico de Verano en México. http://www.sil.org/mexico/tlapaneca/00i-tlapaneca.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-13. 

Sapir, Edward (1925). "The Hokan affinity of Subtiaba in Nicaragua". American Anthropologist (New Series) 27 (3,4): pp.402–435, 491–527. doi:10.1525/aa.1925.27.3.02a00040. 

Suárez, Jorge A. (1977) (MS). El tlapaneco como lengua Otomangue. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.  (Spanish)

 ——— (1983). La lengua tlapaneca de Malinaltepec. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Filologicas. ISBN 968-5805-07-5.  (Spanish)

 ——— (1986). "Elementos gramaticales otomangues en tlapaneco". In Benjamin F. Elson (ed.). Language in a global perspective (Papers in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Summer Institute of Linguistics 1935-1985. Dallas: The Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 0-714-17263-5. 

Swadesh, Morris (1968). "Lexicostatistic Classification". In Norman A. McQuown (volume editor). Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 5: Linguistics. R. Wauchope (general editor). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 79–116. ISBN 0-292-73665-7. OCLC 277126. 

Weathers, Mark L. (1976). "Tlapanec 1975". International Journal of American Linguistics 42 (4): pp.367–371. doi:10.1086/465442. JSTOR 1264270. 

Weathers, Mark L.; and Abad Carrasco Zúñiga (1989). Xó nitháán mè’phàà: Cómo se escribe el tlapaneco. México, D.F.: Editorial Cuajimalpa. 

Wichmann, Søren (2005). "Tlapanec Cases". In Rosemary Beam de Azcona and Mary Paster (eds.) (PDF). Report 13, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. Conference on Otomanguean and Oaxacan Languages, March 19–21, 2004. Berkeley CA: University of California at Berkeley. pp. 133–145. http://email.eva.mpg.de/~wichmann/Tlapanec%20cases3.pdf. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 

External links

• SIL description of Tlapanecan languages
• Ethnologue