Cuitlatec language
{{Short description|Extinct isolate language of Mexico}}
{{Distinguish|text= the Cuicatec language}}
{{Expand language|topic=|langcode=es|otherarticle=Idioma cuitlateco|date=February 2025}}
{{Lead too short|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Cuitlatec
| states = Mexico
| region = Guerrero
| extinct = 1960s, with the death of Juana Can
| familycolor = american
| family = Language isolate
| iso3 = cuy
| glotto = cuit1236
| glottorefname = Cuitlatec
| notice = IPA
| ethnicity = Cuitlatec people
| altname = Cuitlateco
| linglist = qpb
}}
Cuitlatec, or Cuitlateco, is an extinct language of Mexico, formerly spoken by an indigenous people known as Cuitlatec.
Classification
Cuitlatec has not been convincingly classified as belonging to any language family. It is believed to be a language isolate. In their controversial classification of the indigenous languages of the Americas, Greenberg and Ruhlen include Cuitlatec in an expanded Chibchan language family (Macro-Chibchan), along with a variety of other Mesoamerican and South American languages.{{Cite journal
|last1=Greenberg
|first1=Joseph
|author-link1=Joseph Greenberg
|last2=Ruhlen
|first2=Merritt
|author2-link=Merritt Ruhlen
|title=An Amerind Etymological Dictionary
|url=http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/AED5.pdf
|access-date=2008-06-27
|edition=12
|date=2007-09-04
|publisher=Dept. of Anthropological Sciences Stanford University
|location=Stanford
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225141018/http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/AED5.pdf
|archive-date=2010-12-25
|url-status=dead
}} Escalante Hernández suggests a possible relation to the Uto-Aztecan languages.{{cite book
| last = Escalante Hernández
| first = Robert
| title = El Cuitlateco
| publisher = Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia
| year = 1962
| location = México, D.F.}}
Geographic distribution
Cuitlatec was spoken in the state of Guerrero. By the 1930s, Cuitlatec was spoken only in San Miguel Totolapan. The last speaker of the language, Juana Can, is believed to have died in the 1960s. In 1979, only two elderly women, Florentina Celso and Apolonia Robles, were able to remember about fifty words of the language.{{Cite journal|last1=Valiñas Coalla|first1=Leopoldo|last2=Cortina Borja|first2=Mario|last3=Mireles Padilla|first3=Miguel|date=2010-03-11|title=Notas sobre el cuitlateco|url=http://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/antropologia/article/view/15915|journal=Anales de Antropología|language=es|volume=21|issue=1|doi=10.22201/iia.24486221e.1984.1.15915|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |issn=2448-6221}}
Phonology
=Consonants=
| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+Cuitlatec consonant phonemes ! ! Labial ! Dental ! Palatal ! Velar ! Glottal |
| Plosive
|{{IPA link|p}} {{IPA link|b}} |{{IPA link|t}} {{IPA link|d}} |{{IPA link|tʃ}} |{{IPA link|k}} {{IPA link|ɡ}} |{{IPA link|kʷ}} |{{IPA link|ʔ}} |
|---|
| Fricative
| |{{IPA link|ɬ}} |{{IPA link|ʃ}} | | |{{IPA link|h}} |
| Approximant
| |{{IPA link|l}} |{{IPA link|j}} | |{{IPA link|w}} | |
| Nasal
|{{IPA link|m}} |{{IPA link|n}} | | | | |
=Vowels=
Grammar
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- Susana Drucker, Roberto Escalante, & Roberto J. Weitlaner. 1969. The Cuitlatec. In Evon Z. Vogt, ed., Handbook of Middle American Indians, Ethnology: Vol 7, Chapter 30. University of Texas Press, Austin: 565–575
- McQuown, Norman A. 1945. Fonémica del Cuitlateco. El México Antiguo 5: 239–254.
- Weitlaner, Roberto J. 1939. Notes on the Cuitlatec language. El México Antiguo 4: 363–373.
External links
{{Wiktionary|Appendix:Cuitlatec word list}}
- [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Cuitlatec_word_list Cuitlatec word list on Wiktionary]
{{Mesoamerican families}}
{{Language families}}
{{North American languages}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuitlatec Language}}
Category:Mesoamerican languages
Category:Extinct languages of North America
Category:Indigenous languages of Mexico
Category:Subject–object–verb languages