Huehuetla Tepehua

Huehuetla Tepehua is a moribund Tepehua language spoken in Huehuetla, northeastern Hidalgo, Mexico. There are fewer than 1,500 speakers left according to Susan Smythe Kung (2007).

Syntax
Word order tends to be VSO, although it can be SVO at times (Kung 2007).

Consonants
Huehuelta Tepehua has 26 consonant phonemes.The following table lists these phonemes and uses Kung's practical orthography in angled brackets.

The voiced stops, , and , as well as the flap and the trill , appear only in loanwords and ideophones.

In younger speakers, the uvular /q/ has merged with the glottal stop /ʔ/. Based on fieldwork from previous linguists and interviews with modern speakers, Kung theorizes that merged into  between 1945 and 1984. When Kung began her fieldwork in 1999, was only consistently found in speakers over 65.

Vowels
Hueheutla Tepehua has ten phonemic vowels. Earlier stages of the language only had six, with, , , and in complimentary distribution.

Morphology
Huehuetla Tepehua has a large variety of affixes.


 * Valency-changing affixes
 * Reflexive -kan
 * Reciprocal laa-
 * Dative -ni
 * Causative maa-
 * Instrumental puu-
 * Comitative t'aa-
 * Applicative lhii-


 * Aspectual derivational affixes
 * Inchoative ta-
 * Imminent ti-
 * Roundtrip kii-
 * Ambulative -t'ajun
 * Begin -tzuku
 * Desiderative -putun
 * Repetitive -pala
 * Again -choqo
 * All -qoju
 * Distal -chaa
 * Proximal -chii


 * Derivative affixes
 * Agent nominalizer –nV7
 * Non-agentive nominalizers –ti and -nti
 * Deverbalizer -n
 * Instrumental paa- and lhaa-
 * Locative puu-
 * Applicative lhii-
 * Comitative t'aa-