User:Manny.Rod1029/Chiquihuitlán Mazatec

Chiquihuitlán is the most divergent variety of Mazatec, less than 50% intelligible with Huautla, the prestige variety, and even less intelligible with other Mazatecan languages. The Chiquihuitlán Mazatec is part of the Oto-Manguean languages, a family of languages native to the Americas. This language is native to the Northern part of Oaxaca, Mexico. The Mazatecatl name was give to them which means "Deer People" and this is because it is believed that there was an abundance of deer in their area and that they also worshipped some type of deer. It is an endangered, yet, diverse language with only 1,500 native speakers around and requires an elegant tone due to its shorter syllable structure. Chiquihuitlán Mazatec being one of the smallest languages in the Oto-Manguean language family is at high risk of going extinct but continues to be spoken by its main tribes. Like most Mazatecan languages Chiquihuitlán Mazatec also has different dialects based off of the location of their speakers whether it be lowlands or highlands. More recent efforts have been continued to attempt and revitalize Chiquihuitlán Mazatec and keep it from becoming an extinct language.

History
Mazatec used to be the main language spoke by many people in the Oaxaca region of Mexico. Over time the language diverged and changed based off of the different paths followed by different groups of people. That is why there are a lot of different Mazatec languages spread through Mexico, from each group creating their own dialects. These groups would split into Northern, Southern, Lower, Jalapan etc. dialects of which one of the smallest languages with the fewest amount of current speakers is Chiquihuitlán Mazatec.

Geographic Distribution
The Language family, Oto Manguen, is spread throughout Mexico with other language groups within this family being grouped into different areas of Mexico. Mazatec is mainly found in the Oaxaca and Veracruz, which are in the northern region of Mexico. Like most Mazatec languages, Chiquihuitlán Mazatec itself has different dialects based off of which area the speakers are from, creating a more diverse language profile. Furthermore, the lowlands and highlands of this area are one of the boundaries used by phonologists to aid in differentiating each dialect and finding points of divergence.

Phonology
The Chiquihuitlán Mazatecan is slightly different from the a lot of other Mazatec languages because it has 6 vowels instead of 4. It also includes 15 consonants that are broken into 4 categories (Plosives, Fricatives, Sonorants, and Laryngeals). Along with this the language follows a rythym that makes the spoken word seem similar to songs at times. Also the syllables are comprised of clusters that follow specific rule about how to form a word and how to make the words makes sense in Chiquihuitlán Mazatec.

Pitch
Due to the nature of this language and how breathy it can be the basis of how words are formed is very reliant on pitch. When writing the words out as text to know which word is being written there are numbers written at the end of the groups of letters. This differentiates which words are which when writing since pitch can't be otherwise denoted as text. This makes the languages in the Mazatec group more complex than initially thought. Also the patterns when speaking this language come from the first cluster of consonants will set the way in which the word will be spoken whether it is nasal or more breathy followed by the vowels which will further the rest of the word.

Whistle
Mazatec and its other dialects have another way of communication because of how deeply rooted into their languages the pitch is. The speakers of Chiquihuitlán Mazatecan can communicate with each other by whistling and it is very similar to their usual speech. The speakers go through the same patterns but instead of speaking they whistle instead and they use this when they don't wish to speak verbally and it is a slightly quicker and easier way for them to communicate. The whistles are also not just a simplified version of their language but rather just another means of speaking for them with no loss of language.

Whistle Culture
It is customary in the Mazatecan villages that only men speak through the whistle language and women should refrain from using it at all. But women should still be able to understand it in its entirety to be able to understand a man who is speaking to them through the whistles.

Language revitalization
There has been an undergoing effort to gather as much information about the language as possible. Usually the group of people that speak this language is relatively small, and are forced to leave their native language and adopt the language with the greatest possibility of communication. An effort to help people keep their native language while learning Spanish are those undergone by teacher Gloria Ruiz de Bravo Abuja that created the institution Instituto de Investigación e Integración Social del Estado de Oaxaca en 1969. Another program is Archivo de lenguas indígenas del estate de Oaxaca which publishes promising findings in a series of linguistic schemes.