Mazahua language

Not to be confused with Mazatec language.

Mazahua
Jñatio
Spoken in	Mexico: Estado de México, Michoacán
Native speakers	ca 350,000[1]  (date missing)
Language family	Oto-Manguean Oto-Pamean Otomian Mazahua
Official status
Official language in	None
Regulated by	Secretaría de Educación Pública
Language codes
ISO 639-3	either: mmc – Michoacan Mazahua maz – Central Mazahua
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The Mazahua language is an indigenous language of Mexico, spoken in the country's central states by the ethnic group widely known as the Mazahua but who refer to themselves as Hñatho. Mazahua is a Mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits which define the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Along with some 62 other indigenous languages, it is recognised by a statutory law of Mexico^[2] as an official language in the Federal District and the other administrative divisions in which it is spoken, and on an equal footing with Spanish. The largest concentration of Mazahua is found in the municipality of San Felipe del Progreso, State of México, near Toluca.

The closest relatives of the Mazahua language are the Otomi, Matlatzinca and Ocuilteco/Tlahuica languages, which together with Mazahua form the Otomian subgroup of the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean language family.

Mazahua is a tonal language and distinguishes high, low, and falling tones on all syllables except the final syllable of a word, on which the word stress falls predictably.

Mazahua's most distinctive feature is its abnormally large phoneme inventory, which totals around sixty phonemes, or twice the number in English. There are eight vowel phonemes, seven contrastive nasal vowels, and as many as forty-five consonants.

Amongst these are ejectives, implosives and contrastive voiceless sonorants. Along with Sindhi and Tukang Besi, Mazahua is a rare case of a language with true implosives far isolated from regions where implosives are commonly encountered. It is also one of the few languages with ejective fricatives^[3].

Mazahua-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XETUMI-AM, broadcasting from Tuxpan, Michoacán.

Sounds

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
					plain	lab.
Nasal	glott.	mʼ	nʼ	ɲʼ
	voiceless	m̥	n̥	ɲ̥
	plain	m	n	ɲ
Implosive		ɓ	ɗ
Plosive	ejective		tʼ		kʼ	kʼʷ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ	kʷʰ
	unaspirated	p	t		k	kʷ	ʔ
	voiced				ɡ	ɡʷ
Affricate	ejective		tsʼ	tʃʼ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tʃʰ
	unaspirated		ts	tʃ
Fricative	ejective		sʼ
	aspirated		sʰ
	voiceless		s	ʃ			h
	voiced		z	ʒ
Approximant	glott.			jʼ		wʼ
	voiceless			ȷ̊		ʍ
	plain		l	j		w
Trill			r

Oral vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Mid	ə
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a

Nasal vowels

	Front	Back
Close	ĩ	ũ
Close-mid	ẽ	õ
Open-mid	ɛ̃	ɔ̃
Open	ã

Notes

1. ^ According to the 1990 INEGI census Mazahua speakers numbered 127,826; the Ethnologue counts some 350,000 Mazahua but this number is thought to be exaggerated (Knapp 2002).
2. ^ The Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ("General Law of the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous peoples"), decree published 13 March 2003
3. ^ Ian Maddieson (with a chapter contributed by Sandra Ferrari Disner); Patterns of sounds; Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-521-26536-3

References

• Knapp Ring, Michael Herbert, Fonología del mazahua, Tesis de licenciatura, ENAH, México, 1996
• Michael Knapp, 2002 “Elementos de dialectología Mazahua" In "Del Cora Al Maya Yucateco: Estudios Linguisticos Sobre Algunas Lenguas Indigenas Mexicanas" Paulette Levy (Ed.), Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico

External links