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Kids try to save the Zapotec language by trying to appeal to popular culture

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Kids try to save the Zapotec language by trying to appeal to popular culture

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Students in Mexico save an indigenous language with rap

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They are a band in Mexico whose goal is to save an indigenous language with their music. They call themselves "Juchirap" and they sing lyrics written in the language's native tongue that are catching on with others. This week's Game Changer on Americas Now is the founder of the rap group, Antonio Sanchez.

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The Zapotec languages originated in southern Mexico.  There are about 450,000 speakers living in mostly Mexico in states like Oaxaca and Veracruz.

1. Young Zapotec speakers are trying to appeal to more people by rapping in Zapotec. Rap, being a very influential part of popular culture, is being changed to fit their culture. This is an example of what?

2. What percentage of the language dies every year?

3.The Zapotec is an example of what culture? What attributes does it have that make it that type of culture?

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There is not just one language spoken, it is a conglomerate of many languages

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There is not just one language spoken, it is a conglomerate of many languages

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Zapotec is the name not of a single language, but of a group of 58 languages that, together with related Chatino group, belongs to the Otomanguean linguistic stock. Zapotec is one of the largest families in the Oto-Manguean stock in terms of the number of speakers since the Zapotecs are the third largest indigenous ethnic group in Mexico, after the Nahua and the Mayan peoples. Zapotec has more varieties than any other member of the Otomanguean linguistic stock ( Ethnologue) with almost as many varieties as there are pueblos in which it is spoken..

There are approximately 450,000 speakers of Zapotec most of whom live in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. While most are proficient in Spanish, there are also many who speak only one or more varieties of their native Zapotec. In some areas, Zapotec is used in local administration, commerce, literature, and religious services. In other areas, the language is on the brink of extinction, e.g., Zapotec Asunción Mixtepec.

Of the 58 varieties of Zapotech listed by Ethnologue, 49 have fewer than 10,000 speakers. Most have only from several hundred to several thousand speakers. Several are on the brink of extinction. The most populous varieties of Zapotec are listed below.

Dialects

The classification of Zapotec varieties is made difficult by the fact that most of them have several names and many have not been well studied. The 58 varieties of Zapotec fall into several broad groups:

Northern Zapotec (Zapoteco de la Sierra Norte) spoken in the northern mountainous region of Oaxaca

Valley Zapotec spoken in the Valley of Oaxaca

Southern Zapotec (Zapoteco de la Sierra Sur) spoken in the Southern Sierra Madres mountain ranges of Oaxaca,

Isthmus Zapotec spoken in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Although all varieties of Zapotec share some basic phonological and structural similarities, there are so many differences between/among them, that 40 of them are considered to be mutually unintelligible.

Structure

For the most part, the sound systems of Zapotec languages are fairly complicated, with some variation from one variety to another.

Vowels
Many Zapotec varieties have five vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that can differentiate word meaning. They also have a variety of diphthongs, e.g., /ai/, /au/, /ei/, /eu/, /ia/, /ie/, /iu/, /ua/, /ue/, /ei/.

Depending on the variety, vowels can appear in four different shapes: plain, creaky, breathy, or checked. Not all varieties of Zapotec have all four types.

Creaky
In creaky voice, the vocal folds are so tight, that they vibrate irregularly with individual irregular flaps that are further apart than in normal voicing.

Breathy
When a whisper is combined with voicing, it is called breathy voice or murmur. It is achieved by bringing the vocal folds together along part of their length (producing voicing) and spreading them for the rest (producing the whisper).

Checked vowels are followed by a glottal stop (indicated in writing by an apostrophe, e.g., a')
Theglottal stop is the sound made when the vocal cords are pressed together to stop the flow of air and then released; e.g., the break between the syllables in uh-oh.

Zapotec languages tend to have a large inventory of consonants.

Most consonants exhibit a contrast between fortis (tense) and lenis (lax) articulations. In general, fortis consonants are longer than their lenis counterparts, and they tend not to be voiced. Fortis stops are usually slightly aspirated, and may be heavily aspirated in final position. Fortis consonants are represented by double letters in writing, e.g., nn represents a fortis /n/.

Some consonants, such as /f/ and /j/ occur mostly in loanwords.

All Zapotec varieties have retroflex consonants, such as /ʂ/ and /ʐ/. Retroflex consonants are produced with the tip of the tongue curled so that its underside touches the area behind the alveolar ridge.

Tone
Zapotec languages are tonal, which is typical of all Otomanguean languages. The number of contrasting tones differs from one variety to another. One example is Texmelucan Zapotec which has one level tone and three contour tones (one rising and two falling). Tones are not marked in writing.

Zapotecan languages are agglutinative, i.e., they add prefixes and suffixes to roots to mark grammatical functions.
Nouns and pronouns

Nouns and pronouns vary in accordance with the relationship of speaker to interlocutor or object. For instance, they can indicate whether one is speaking about or with a human, animal, inanimate object, or a supernatural being.

One can also indicate an intimate or formal, and inclusive or exclusive relationship with the object by choice of nouns and pronouns.

In some cases, gender-specific forms of speech exist as well.

Zapotec languages distinguish between inalienable (cannot be removed or gotten rid of) and alienable (can be removed or gotten rid of) possession.

Verbs
Prefixes and suffixes are added to verbs to indicate person, voice, tense and mood. Some varieties of Zapotec use tones to mark aspect.

Prepositions
Zapotec languages do not have true prepositions. Instead, they use nouns denoting body parts to express spatial relations. Below are a few examples from Zapotec Mitla.

Word order
As in many other Otomanguean languages, the normal word order in Zapotec varieties is Verb-Subject-Object. Numerals precede nouns, but adjectives follow them. Possessors follow possessed nouns, e.g., làb 'sandal,' làb lè 'your sandal.'

There are significant differences in vocabulary among different varieties of Zapotec, making most of them mutually unintelligible. All of them have borrowed a substantial number of words from Spanish, e.g., syudaa 'city' from Spanish ciudad.

The first of its kind dictionary of Zapotec Zapotec Dictionary of San Lucas Quiavini (Di'csyonaary X:tee'n Dii'zh Sah Sann Luu'c) by Pamela Munro and Felipe Lopez was published in 1999. It includes 9,000 words translated into English and Spanish. It was designed for the 50,000 Oaxaca Indians living in California. The dictionary bears the name of the hometown of the dictionary's main author, Felipe Lopez, a Oaxaca Indian who arrived in California as an undocumented immigrant 25 years ago. He worked in agriculture and then moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a dishwasher until he became a legal resident. Lopez was inspired to compile the two-volume dictionary because his language had never been written and because it was becoming endangered.

Below are a few common words from Zapotec Teotitlan

Below are the numerals 1-10 in Zapotec Mitla.

Writing

The Zapotec script is one of the earliest writing systems in Central America. Zapotec inscriptions were found on stone monuments dating back to between 400 and 200 BC. Most of them were found in Monte Albán, a large archaeological site in the state of Oaxaca. The script used a separate symbol to represent each syllable of the language. The script is not well understood because it is not known what language it was based on and because there are only very few brief samples of it. The script fell into disuse and was replaced by another form of writing by the 10th century AD. Nevertheless, it was influential inasmuch as it served as a basis for the scripts developed by the Mayas, Mixtecs, and Aztecs.

Today, Zapotecan languages are written in the Latin alphabet adapted to represent the sounds of the languages. It must be kept in mind that the orthographies were originally designed by Spanish friars who imposed Spanish orthographic traditions on the Zapotec languages that have many sounds which do not exist in Spanish. The Mexican branch of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) has attempted to design an orthography for the Zapotec languages, following general linguistic and orthographic principles. However, linguists encountered difficulties in trying to represent the wide range of sounds found in these languages with one single orthography. Thus, the issue remains unresolved, and there are several competing orthographies that are currently in use.

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Zapotec Güilá.

Te'ihby (1)
Ra'ta ra bu:unny ra:aaly liebr cëhnn te'bloh deree'ch cëhnn dignidaa. Ra:alyne:erih gahll ri:e:eny cëhnn saalyb, chiru' na:a pahr ga:annza'crih loh sa'rih.

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Did You Know?

Do you know some English words that were borrowed from Zapotec? Let us know and we'll add them here!

Difficulty

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Zapotec is the name not of a single language, but of a group of 58 languages that, together with related Chatino group, belongs to the Otomanguean linguistic stock. Zapotec is one of the largest families in the Oto-Manguean stock in terms of the number of speakers since the Zapotecs are the third largest indigenous ethnic group in Mexico, after the Nahua and the Mayan peoples.

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A poem written about the Zapotec language 

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A poem written about the Zapotec language 

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Sylvia Sasson Shorris is the author of Talking Pictures: With the People Who Made Them and co-editor of While Someone Else Is Eating: Poets and Novelists on Reaganism and In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature Pre-Columbian to the Present. She has published articles in The Nation, Chicago Tribune, Fork Roads, and Review (a publication of the Center for Inter-American Relations), and has been a translator in Mexico for Luis Montes Film Distribution, and in New York for 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation.

Earl Shorris was a prominent social critic and author. His works include Ofay; The Boots of the Virgin; A Novel of Pancho Villa; The Death of the Great Spirit; The Oppressed Middle: Scenes From Corporate Life; Latinos: A Biography of the People; and New American Blues: A Journey Through Poverty to Democracy among others. He was the coeditor of In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present; The Life and Times of Mexico; and While Someone Else Is Eating: Poets and Novelists on Reaganism. He was a contributing editor to Harper's, and his essays and articles appeared in the Nation, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, American Educator, the Antioch Review, and many more publications. He founded and chaired the advisory board of The Clemente Course in the Humanities; and cofounded-with Howard Meredith and members of the Kiowa, Cherokee, Chickashaw, Maya, Nahua, Lakota, CYup'ik, and other tribes and nations-the Pan-American Indian Humanities Center at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He died in May of 2012.

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Sylvia Sasson Shorris is the author of Talking Pictures: With the People Who Made Them and co-editor of While Someone Else Is Eating: Poets and Novelists on Reaganism and In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature Pre-Columbian to the Present.

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The Zapotec Languages are some of the many languages in Mexico going extinct

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The Zapotec Languages are some of the many languages in Mexico going extinct

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Of the 143 native languages in Mexico, 60 are at risk of being silenced forever, linguists say.

One language, Ayapenaco, is spoken fluently by just two elderly men who aren't even on speaking terms. Another indigenous language, Kiliwa, is spoken by only 36 people.

While 60 of Mexico's native tongues are at risk, 21 are critically endangered, with only a few elderly speakers left, according to a statement released recently by Mexico's Centre of Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS). ( Read about vanishing languages in National Geographic magazine.)

The languages most at risk in Mexico-including the Zapotec, the Chatino, and the Seri tongues-are undergoing "rapid change" for a number of reasons, says Lourdes de León Pasquel, a linguist at CIESAS. Among them are "migration, social instability, [and] economic and ideological factors that push speakers to adopt Spanish."

Mexico isn't the only country losing its voices: If nothing is done, about half of the 6,000-plus languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century, according to UNESCO's Endangered Languages Programme website.

It's vital to save languages because they "are the primary conduit for human culture," says K. David Harrison, a linguist and co-leader of National Geographic's Enduring Voices project.

Mexico is a good example of that, Harrison said in an email interview: "Each of the Mexican indigenous languages contains millennia of human experience, wisdom, and practical knowledge about the natural environment."

León Pasquel argues that to preserve Mexico's threatened languages, "there should be an integrated policy to keep them alive: bilingual education [and] design of school curricula and bilingual materials. But more importantly, teacher training is basic to achieve this goal and that is what we lack."

Because Spanish is the dominant language in the workplace and Mexicans are typically taught Spanish in school, many Mexicans may have less interest in their region's native tongue, she said. But in her view, "Everybody should learn an indigenous language apart from Spanish."

Losing languages is "neither inevitable nor irreversible," according to UNESCO's Endangered Languages website. There are many efforts under way worldwide to boost learning and speaking of languages in decline, especially for younger generations.

"Mexico is indeed home to many endangered languages, but also to many language-revitalization efforts-for example, among the Zapotec and Chatino communities in Oaxaca, and the Seri," Harrison said.

For instance, Harrison has been working with a team of linguists, partially sponsored by National Geographic, to build a talking dictionary for Zapotec speakers in the Tlacolula Valley.

"The Tlacolula Zapotec are a rural, agrarian community, but they are quickly crossing the digital divide, and eager to create digital tools and resources for their language," Harrison said. (See "' English Goes in One Ear and Out Another': An Endangered Language Perspective.")

Harrison said he considers the Zapotec speakers "a great example of how endangered language communities are leveraging new technologies-especially smartphones-to maintain their heritage languages."

León Pasquel agreed that new communication technology can help keep languages going. For instance, adding language-specific buttons to keypads on cell phones and computers would be a "great support" to people who speak these endangered tongues, she said.

Linguistic anthropologist Susan D. Penfield works with the Endangered Languages Project, an online resource for vanishing languages. Because the world is interconnected like never before, she says, more people are exposed to and speaking the globe's dominant languages: Mandarin Chinese, English, and Spanish.

"Of the 2,000 or so African languages, most are endangered," she said in an email interview. "Mexico is no more susceptible than anywhere else impacted by globalization."

Penfield is convinced that "in most communities, there is a desire to slow the process of loss, and revitalize" threatened native languages. "There has been some remarkable success with this," she said. "But it is an uphill battle."
Follow Christine Dell'Amore on Twitter and Google+.

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Sixty Languages at Risk of Extinction in Mexico-Can They Be Kept Alive?

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Of the 143 native languages in Mexico, 60 are at risk of being silenced forever, linguists say. One language, Ayapenaco, is spoken fluently by just two elderly men who aren't even on speaking terms. Another indigenous language, Kiliwa, is spoken by only 36 people.