Palantla Chinantec Explained

Palantla Chinantec, also known as Chinanteco de San Pedro Tlatepuzco, is a major Chinantecan language of Mexico, spoken in San Juan Palantla and a couple dozen neighboring towns in northern Oaxaca. The variety of San Mateo Yetla, known as Valle Nacional Chinantec, has marginal mutual intelligibility.

A grammar and a dictionary have been published.^{[1] [2]}

Phonology

Vowels

	Front		Back
Close	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Open		pronounced as /link/

Close vowels /i u/ typically are articulated as more open [ɪ ʊ] and are realized as more closed when represented by different tones. The close back vowel /ɯ/ tends to be articulated as [ə] when present in vowel clusters following /u/, or when preceding the /j/ consonant, and may also have a higher central sound. The mid back vowel /ɤ/ tends to be articulated as [ɜ] or [ɨ] when preceding a /w/ consonant. The low central vowel /a/ tends to be realized as [ɐ] following /i/ when one of the consonants /t l n/ occurs.

Each vowel can be nasalized as /ĩ ɯ̃ ũ ɛ̃ ɤ̃ õ ã/. The language is unusual in having, for some speakers, a three-way contrast between non-nasalized, lightly nasalized, and heavily nasalized vowels.^[3]

Stress tones may include either high or low /v́ v̀/ tones.^[4]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Plosive	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	voiced	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Affricate	voiceless		pronounced as /link/
	voiced		pronounced as /link/
Fricative		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
Approximant		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Rhotic			pronounced as /link/

Notes and References

1. Merrifield, William R. 1968. Palantla Chinantec grammar. Papeles de la Chinantla 5, Serie Científica 9.México: Museo Nacional de Antropología. https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/1298
2. Merrifield, William R. and Alfred E. Anderson. 2007. Diccionario Chinanteco de la diáspora del pueblo antiguo de San Pedro Tlatepuzco, Oaxaca. [2nd Edition]. Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves” 39. Mexico DF: Summer Linguistic Institute. https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/51369.
3. Book: Evolutionary Phonology: The Emergence of Sound Patterns. limited. Juliette Blevins. Juliette Blevins. Cambridge University Press. 2004. 203. 978-0-521-80428-8 .
4. Book: Merrifield, William R.. Palantla Chinantec Syllable Types. Anthropological Linguistics. 1963. Anthropological Linguistics Vol. 5, No. 5. 1–16.