User:Jonthephilosopher/sandbox

---

Zacatepec Chatino is an indigenous Mesoamerican language, one of the Chatino family of the Oto-Manguean languages. It is often referred to as Chatino de San Marcos Zacatepec or Chatino de Zacatepec as it is distinct from other Chatino languages in the region. Unfortunately, it is not intelligible with other Chatino languages, but is closely related to Highland Chatino. It is spoken in the town of San Marcos Zacatepec, a town of approximately 1,000 people and inhabited by an indigenous group known as the Chatino people. The language is was once spoken in the village of Juquila, but is now virtually extinct with two surviving speakers.

Zacatepec Chatino is a highly endangered language as it is spoken by about 300 Chatino's whom are all above 50 years of age.

Zacatepec Chatino
Chatino de San Marcos Zacatepec
Cha’ jna’a
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca, Southern Central Mexico
Native speakers	300 (2015)
Language family	Oto-Manguean Zapotecan Chatino Zacatepec–Highlands Zacatepec Chatino
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ctz
Glottolog	zaca1242  Zacatepec Chatino

Classification

Chatino refers to three closely related languages; the three being Eastern Chatino, Tataltepec Chatino, and Zenzontepec Chatino of the Zapotecan branch. Zacatepec Chatino falls under the Eastern Chatino branch.

Zacatepec Chatino, being part of Chatino language family, has shallow orthography. It is more conservative then its Chatino counterparts as it conserves the penultimate syllables of disyllabic roots.

History

Little is known about the history of Zacatepec Chatino but according to Stéphanie Villard who studied and presented her thesis on the language, the language has been on a decline since the past 40 years as natives continue to expand their ties with non-Chatino communities. The major language spoken in Zapotec Chatino and its surrounding regions is Spanish so it is no surprise that many foreigners are coming to San Marcos Zacatepec speaking Spanish and not Chatino.

Although Spanish is the official language in San Marcos Zacatepec, Oaxaca, many government officials communicate in Zacatepec Chatino. A study conducted by Villard revealed that majority of the younger population are monolingual Spanish speakers.

Geographic distribution

Zacatepec Chatino is only spoken in San Marcos Zacatepec, Oaxaca.

Dialects/Varieties

Since Zacatepec Chatino is unintelligible with other Chatino varieties, it does not have any other dialects or varieties associated with it.

Sounds/Phonology

Zacatepec Chatino represents

Grammar

A general outline of the grammar of the language. Focus on what makes the grammar of the language unique compared to other languages, related as well as unrelated. Lists of each word class and their individual properties, as well as full-fledged inflection or conjugation tables, are probably best put in a separate article.

Morphology

San Marcos Zacatepec is considered a head-marking language as it is synthetic and analytic.

Syntax

The basic word order is VSO but there are other orders present. Here is an example of the Chatino Language VSO:

N-da	nu	xni	ndaha	ska	ha	xtlya	?i	nu	'o
con-give	the	dog	lazy	one	tortilla	Spanish	to	the	Coyote

This would say "The lay dog gave a sweetbread to the coyote".

Vocabulary/Lexis

This section should contain a discussion of any special features of the vocabulary of the language, like if it contains a large number of borrowed words or a different sets of words for different politeness levels, taboo groups, etc.

Writing system

A brief description of the writing system(s) used to write the language. Writing systems have their own page, so what's written here should just be a brief discussion of how this language makes any special use of the writing system and a link to all the writing systems used to write the language.

Examples

Some short examples of the language in the writing system(s) used to write the language. You might also include sound samples of the language being spoken. Avoid making lists of tourist phrases such as "hello", "goodbye" and "where's the lavatory?" since these do not represent the specifics of either grammar or phonetics particularly well.

External links

The first link should be the appropriate {{Interwiki}}, if such a thing exists.

Websites like Ethnologue, Language Museum, the Rosetta Project Archive, and Omniglot often have useful information on languages; if so, they should be provided in the external links.

where XYZ is Ethnologue's name. Otherwise Wikipedia's name gets inserted by default.

Omniglot provides information about writing systems, not languages per se, and so is not appropriate for languages without a written tradition.