Mixe–Zoque languages

TheMixe–Zoque/ˌmiːheɪˈsoʊkeɪ/(alsoMixe–Zoquean,Mije–Soke,Mije–Sokean) languages are alanguage familywhose living members are spoken in and around theIsthmus of Tehuantepec,Mexico. The Mexican government recognizes three distinct Mixe–Zoquean languages as official:Mixeorayookwith 188,000 speakers,Zoqueoro'de pütwith 88,000 speakers, and thePopolucalanguages of which some are Mixean and some Zoquean with 69,000 speakers. However, the internal diversity in each of these groups is great.Glottologcounts 19 different languages, whereas the current classification of Mixe–Zoquean languages byWichmann(1995) counts 12 languages and 11 dialects.Extinct languagesclassified as Mixe–Zoquean includeTapachultec, formerly spoken inTapachula, along the southeast coast ofChiapas.
Historically the Mixe–Zoquean family may have been much more widespread, reaching into theSoconuscoregion and the Guatemalan Pacific coast.It has been hypothesized that Mixean speakers were present, and perhaps represented ruling classes, at the preclassic sites ofKaminaljuyu,Takalik Abaj, andIzapa.
Terrence KaufmanandLyle Campbellhave argued, based on a number of widespread loanwords in otherMesoamerican languages, that it is likely that theOlmecpeople, generally seen as the earliest dominating culture ofMesoamerica, spoke a Mixe–Zoquean language.Kaufman and John Justeson also claim to have deciphered a substantial part of the text written inIsthmian script(called also by them and some others 'Epi-Olmec') which appears onLa Mojarra Stela 1, based upon their deciphering of the text as representing an archaic Mixe–Zoquean language.
Both of these claims have been criticized:Michael D. CoeandDavid Stuartargue that the surviving corpus of the few known examples of Isthmian inscriptions is insufficient to securely ground any proposed decipherment. Their attempt to apply Kaufman's and Justeson's decipherments to other extant Isthmian material failed to produce any meaningful results. Wichmann (1995) criticizes certain proposed Mixe–Zoquean loans into other Mesoamerican languages as being only Zoquean, not Mixean, which would put the period of borrowing much later than theProto-Mixe–Zoqueantime-frame in which the Olmec culture was at its height. The date of the Mixe–Zoque split has however since been pushed back, and the argument is therefore much weaker than it once was thought to be.
Later, Kaufman (2001), again on the basis of putative loans from Mixe–Zoque into other Mesoamerican languages, argued a Mixe–Zoquean presence atTeotihuacan, and he ascribed to Mixe–Zoquean an important role in spreading a number of the linguistic features that later became some of the principal commonalities used in defining theMesoamerican Linguistic Area.
The so-called "language of Zuyua[es]", which was used by some of the nobility and priesthood of the postclassic Yucatan region, may have been a Mixean language.
The Mixe–Zoque languages have been included in several long-range classification proposals, e.g. inEdward Sapir's "Mexican Penutian" branch of his proposedPenutianlinguistic superfamily,or as part of theMacro-Mayanproposal by Norman McQuown which groups together the Mixe–Zoque languages with theMayan languagesand theTotonacan languages.At the end of the last century,Lyle Campbelldismissed most earlier comparisons as methodologically flawed, but considered the Macro-Mayan proposal the most promising, but yet unproven hypothesis.In two more recently published articles, evidence is presented for linking the Mixe–Zoque languages either with theTotonacan languages("Totozoquean"),or with theMayan languages.
The following internal classification of the Mixe–Zoquean languages is bySøren Wichmann(1995).
The following internal classification of the Mixe–Zoquean languages is by Kaufman & Justeson (2000), cited in Zavala (2000).Individual languages are marked byitalics.
Justeson and Kaufman also classify the language represented in theEpi-Olmec scriptas an earlyZoquean language.
The phoneme inventory ofProto-Mixe–Zoqueanasreconstructedby Wichmann (1995) can be seen to be relatively simple, but many of the modern languages have been innovative; some have become quite vowel rich, and some also have introduced afortis–leniscontrast in the stop series. Although the lateral phoneme/l/is found in a few words in some of the languages, these are probably ofonomatopoeicorigin.
*ɨ*ɨːhas also been reconstructed*ə*əː.
Mixe–Zoquean languages are characterized by complex syllabic nuclei made up of combinations of vowels together with theglottal stopand/h/in the proto-language. Complex syllable-final consonant clusters are also typical in the daughter languages and can be reconstructed for the proto-language.
Proto-Mixe–Zoquean syllable nuclei could be either:
The Mixe–Zoquean languages arehead-markingandpolysynthetic, with morphologically complex verbs and simple nouns. Grammatical subjects as well as objects are marked in the verb.Ergativealignmentis used, as well asdirect–inverse systemstriggered byanimacyandtopicality. In Mixe–Zoquean verbs, a morphological distinction is made between two basicclause-types, independent and dependent; verbs take different aspectual and personal affixes, depending on the type of clause in which they appear. There are two different sets ofaspect-markers, one used in dependent clauses and another used in independent clauses. Three aspects are distinguished within each clause-type: incompletive, completive, and irrealis.
Ethnologuestill uses the earlier pre-Wichmann classification, based on surveys ofmutual intelligibilityand comparative work by William Wonderly, as a basis for their work. This classification is not used by historical linguists, andLyle Campbell's authoritative 1997 presentation uses Wichmann's classification.