Guerrero Chontal language

Not to be confused with Chontal Maya language or Highland Oaxaca Chontal.

Guerrero Chontal
Native to	Mexico
Region	Guerrero
Extinct	after 16th century
Language family	unclassified
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)

Guerrero Chontal (or Chontal of Guerrero, Chontal de Guerrero) is an unclassified language that was spoken in what is now the Mexican state of Guerrero during the prehispanic and early colonial periods. It is now extinct. There is no existing description of this language.

Guerrero Chontal should not be confused with Chontal Maya, which is a Mayan language that is still spoken, nor with Oaxaca Chontal, an endangered language spoken in Oaxaca. Chontal is a generic Nahuatl word for foreigner, applied to several unrelated ethnic groups.

Distribution

According to colonial records, this language was spoken to the north of the Balsas River and to the west of the Coixca River, in the northern region of the state of Guerrero. In the 16th century, the primary Chontal settlements were Ixcateopan, Alahuistlan, Ostuma, Coatepec, Toltoltepec, Teloloapan, and Apastla. ^[1] Other towns where Chontal was spoken included Iguala, Tepecoacuilco, Cocula, Chilacachapa, Acamixtla, Chontalcoatlán, Noxtepec, Tetipac, Tlamacazapa, and Zacualpan. A Chontal language was also mentioned at Pungarabato, now Ciudad Altamirano. ^[2]

Classification

Due to the lack of data, Chontal of Guerrero is unclassifiable. One 16th-century report mentioned that it was "spoken in the throat" and that "it wasn't written because it wasn't pronounced". The same report related it to Tuxtec, another unclassified language spoken to the east, in towns such as Iguala, Mayanalan, Tlalcozauhtitlan and Oapan. It has thus been suggested that Chontal and Tuxtec could have been related, or even dialects of the same language. However, a different source mentioned that Tuxtec was once spoken in Ixcateopan, but by 1579 Chontal had replaced it.

In the 16th century, Chontal was evidently a fairly widespread language, but was ignored by Spanish missionaries, despite smaller languages receiving some attention. Given that the Chontal region was home to many people bilingual in both Chontal and Nahuatl, the missionaries were perhaps able to rely on the latter language in order to communicate and preach their religion, without needing to know Chontal.

Donald Brand opined that Chontal was probably an Oto-Manguean language. ^[3]

References

1. Howard F. Cline (1972). "Relaciones geográficas: Native Languages". Guide to ethnohistorical sources (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0292701527. p. 311.
2. Gerhard, Peter (1993). A guide to the historical geography of New Spain (Rev. ed.). Norman, Okla. London: Univ. of Oklahoma Pr. pp. 136, 146, 152, 252, 397. ISBN   9780806125534.
3. Brand, Donald D. “An Historical Sketch of Geography and Anthropology in the Tarascan Region: Part I.” New Mexico Anthropologist, vol. 6/7, no. 2, 1943, p. 50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4291263. Accessed 18 Sept. 2025.