Cuicatec language

Not to be confused with the Cuitlatec language.

Cuicatec
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Ethnicity	Cuicatec
Native speakers	13,000 (2020 census) [1]
Language family	Oto-Manguean Mixtecan Cuicatec
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: cux  – Tepeuxila cut  – Teutila
Glottolog	cuic1234
ELP	Cuicatec
Extent of the Cuicatec language: prior to contact (olive green) and current (red)
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Cuicatec is an Oto-Manguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. It belongs to the Mixtecan branch together with the Mixtec languages and the Trique language. ^[2] The Ethnologue lists two major dialects of Cuicatec: Tepeuxila Cuicatec and Teutila Cuicatec. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, Cuicatec is tonal.

The Cuicatecs are closely related to the Mixtecs. They inhabit two towns: Teutila and Tepeuxila in western Oaxaca. According to the 2000 census, they number around 23,000, of whom an estimated 65% are speakers of the language. ^[3] The name Cuicatec is a Nahuatl exonym, from [ˈkʷika] 'song' [ˈteka] 'inhabitant of place of'. ^[4]

Cuicatec-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XEOJN, based in San Lucas Ojitlán, Oaxaca.

Phonology

Vowels

The Santa Maria Papalo dialect contains six vowel sounds both oral and nasal:

	Front	Back
Close	i ĩ	u ũ
Mid	e ẽ	o õ
		ɔ ɔ̃
Open	a ã

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
					plain	lab.
Plosive		p	t		k	kʷ	ʔ
Affricate				tʃ
Fricative	voiceless		s
	voiced	β	ð		ɣ	ɣʷ
Nasal		m	n
Rhotic			ɾ , r
Approximant			l	j		w

Allophones of the following sounds /β ð ɣ n j t tʃ/ include [b d ɡ~x ŋ j̈ θ ʃ], respectively.

Notes

1. Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
2. The proposal to group Mixtec, Trique and Cuicatec into a single family (none more closely related to one than to the other) was made by Longacre (1957) with convincing evidence.
3. Website of the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, http://www.cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=660 Archived 2019-09-15 at the Wayback Machine , accessed 28 July 2008.
4. Campbell 1997:402)

Bibliography

• Anderson, E. Richard & Hilario Concepción R. 1983. Diccionario cuicateco: español-cuicateco, cuicateco-español. Mexico City: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
• Bradley, David P. 1991. A preliminary syntactic sketch of Concepción Pápalo Cuicatec. In C. Henry Bradley and Barbara E. Hollenbach (eds.), Studies in the syntax of Mixtecan languages 3, pp. 409–506. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington.
• Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Needham, Doris & Marjorie Davis. 1946. Cuicateco phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 12: 139-46.
• Prewett, Joanne and Omer E. 1974. The Segmental Phonology of Cuicateco of Santa María Pápalo Oaxaca, Mexico, pp. 53–92