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Contents • Introduction • Chiquihuitlan • Eloxochitlan • Numbers

The Chiquihuitlan dialect is a divergent dialect of the Mazatec language, such that it may constitute a separate language. With 2,500 speakers, it is largely unintelligible to the majority of people in the area who speak the prestige Huautla Mazatec dialect to the west. The intention behind these notes is to give a general impression of the language for those interested in Mazatec culture and to enrich their knowledge of the lives of the people who discovered and propagated the entheogens for which they are justly famous.

= PRONUNCIATION =

The following pronunciation notes were simplified from linguist Allan R. Jamieson’s academic paper Chiquihuitlan Mazatec Phonology, published in 1970. However, I have used Carole Jamieson Capen's orthography and I have not been able to correctly analyse the laryngeal vowels in Jamieson’s paper and as such they have not been marked. This oversight is hopefully to be rectified soon as they are extremely important to Mazatec pronunciation.

Chiquihuitlan Mazatec Pronunciation

Chiquihuitlan Mazatec pronunciation is, for a speaker of a European language, an extremely daunting challenge. The basic foundations of the language’s sounds are fundamentally different in every way to a language like English. English sounds are largely based on a contrast between voiced consonants (like b, v, d and g, where the voice box activates) and unvoiced consonants (like p, f, t and k where the voice box doesn’t activate), as well as nasal sounds (like m, n and ng, which go through the nose). These simple distinctions are fairly basic to most languages in Europe, but with Mazatec, there are further, much more complex distinctions to consider. Therefore before we look at how the language is pronounced, we need to learn the fundamental ideas behind Mazatec sounds.

Consonants

In Chiquihuitlan Mazatec, consonants don’t come in voiced and unvoiced varieties like English. Instead they come in normal and aspirated varieties. Aspirated refers to the expulsion of a large amount of breath as you say a sound, roughly the same as making a ‘hhhuh’ sound. So, for example, an aspirated ‘t’ sound would be like ‘t-hhh’ and an aspirated ‘k’ sound would be like ‘k-hhh’.

Vowels

Vowels are fairly complex in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec. They come in three varieties: normal, breathy, and nasal. As I haven’t been able to analyse laryngeal vowels, I'm not sure if they are present in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec and so they’re not going to be covered here.

A normal vowel is like one pronounced in English ‘ah’ ‘eh’ ‘oh’ etc

A breathy vowel is a normal vowel accompanied by a puff of breath, such that the vowel becomes kind of whispered: ‘ahhh’ ‘ehhh’ ‘ohhh’ etc. This is a voiceless vowel. You whisper the vowel heavily with breath. In Chiquihuitlan Mazatec, a breathy vowel is marked by following it with the letter ‘h’ – ah, eh, oh.

A nasal vowel is a vowel spoken not through the mouth but through the nose, as in French words lapin(‘a’ sound through the nose) or bon (‘o’ sound through the nose). Nasal vowels in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec are marked with a cedilla under the letter: ę ą o˛ etc. Nasal vowels can also be breathy – that is to say, pronounced through the nose, but voiceless and with heavy whispered breath. They are marked with both the cedilla and the following h: ęh ąh o˛h etc.

t ‘t’ without aspiration tj ‘t’ with a little aspiration (t-hhh) ts ‘ts’ without aspiration tsj ‘ts’ with a little aspiration (ts-hhh) ty ‘ty’ ~ ‘tchy’ ~’ky’ tyj ‘ty’~’ky’ with a little aspiration (tchy-hhh) ch ‘ch’ without aspiration chj ‘ch’ with a little aspiration c/qu ‘k’ without aspiration cj ‘k’ with a little aspiration s ‘s’ without aspiration, retroflex x ‘sh’ without aspiration, slightly retroflex m ‘m’ hm aspirated ‘m’ n ‘n’ hn aspirated ‘m’ nd semi nasal ‘t’ tending to ‘d’ hnd aspirated 'nd’ nts semi nasal ‘ts’ tending to ‘dz’ hnts aspirated 'nts' ndy semi nasal ‘tchy’ tending to ‘djy’ hndy aspirated 'ndy’ nch semi nasal ‘ch’ tending to ‘j’ hnch aspirated 'nch' ng semi nasal ‘k’ tending to ‘g’ hng aspirated 'ng' ň ‘ny’ hň aspirated ‘ny’ v ‘b’ softened and fricative hv aspirated 'b' f ‘p’ softened and fricative hf aspirated 'p' y ‘y’ ~ ‘γ’ ~ ‘dž’ hy / š/ a fully retroflex ‘sh’ with slightly open lips l ‘r’ as /l/ or as a flap /ŗ/ lc ‘r’ is voiceless + ‘k’ j glottal stop (like the sound in ‘uh-oh’)

i a very tight, fronted ‘ee’ in nasal ‘i' hi voiceless, breathy ‘ee’ (also ihi) e a little like French ‘é’ en nasal ‘uh’ sound he voiceless, breathy ‘é’ (also ehe) ë a little like German ö ën nasal ‘ö’ hë voiceless, breathy ‘ö’ (also ëhë) a ‘ah’ sound an nasal ‘ah’ sound ha voiceless, breathy ‘ah’ (also aha) o ‘o’ in ‘pot’, strongly rounded on nasal ‘o’ ho voiceless, breathy ‘o’ (also oho) u deep back ‘oo’ sound un nasal ‘oo’ hu voiceless, breathy ‘u’ (also uhu) It may be the case in Capen's orthography that laryngeal vowels are expressed as a j between two like vowels. Thus aja would be a laryngeal a and uju a laryngeal u and so on. Combinations ahan, ehen and so on denote voiceless breathy nasal vowels, and combinations ajan, ehen and so on may denote laryngeal nasal vowels.

Tones and Contours

But that’s not all. Each syllable in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec – whether a single vowel or a combination of consonants and vowels – has a tone or contour as well. A tone is a pitch of the voice spoken across the whole syllable, and in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec, like in Chinese, a different pitch or tone in certain words (but not all) can change the meaning:

xi (mid-tone) 'be dried, dry out' xì (low-tone) 'that, that which is' xi (very-low tone) 'crumbs, splinters'

There are four tones in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec:

á high tone (marked with acute accent) ā mid tone (marked with a flat line) à low-mid tone (marked with grave accent) a low tone (underlined)

However, there is still yet more. Some syllables don’t take tones, but contours. A contour is not a static pitch-tone, but a moving one. It can be falling to rising or rising to falling and so on. There are six main contours in Chiquihuitlan Mazatec:

á  high to low contour – falling pitch-tone ā́   mid to high contour – slightly rising tone à  low-mid to low contour – slightly falling tone ă  low-mid to high contour – three quarter rising tone ā  mid to low contour – slightly falling tone â  rising-falling contour

After seeing all this, it may appear that Chiquihuitlan Mazatec is something of a minefield with its nasal falling-rising toned breathy vowels and aspirated consonants, but with practice any sound can be correctly pronounced. It must also be remembered that these features mentioned above are the phonetic reality for every Chiquihuitlan Mazatec speaker. There is a story that many of the local Spanish speakers don’t rate Mazatec because ‘every word sounds the same’. Obviously they aren’t able to hear the subtle tones and aspirations of Mazatec pronunciation.

To counter this slur on the language, some anthropologists have given Mazatec speakers books with similar words and accompanying pictures to show the Spanish speakers that they are missing something. As they go through the book, they learn to have a new respect for the subtleties of the Mazatec language.

= GRAMMAR NOTES =

The following grammar notes were analysed from a single text, recorded in early 1970. The text was spoken by Ernesto Tejeda Salvador, a Mazatec resident of the town of Chiquihuitlan and spoken in the dialect of that town. It was recorded by linguist Allan R. Jamieson during his fieldwork, and originally published in his work Chiquihuitlan Mazatec Phonology.

The intention behind these notes is to give a general impression of the language for those interested in Mazatec culture and to enrich their knowledge of the lives of the people who discovered and propagated the entheogens for which they are justly famous.

1. The verb takes a prefix of time and a suffix of person:

cà- ‘past’ tì- ‘progressive’ cú- ‘future’

mà- ‘become’ tsì- ‘negative’

+ VERB +

(-tjù, -chù…) ‘I, me’ -0 ‘he, she’ mè ‘they’

2. Subject follows verb and object precedes verb according to the text I am analysing:

né càmúsún mè	‘they cleared the earth’	(earth cleared they)
cuìchjá xihin	‘the man will say’	(will-say man)
xì naxintyà	‘there are boulders’	(exist boulders)
xcun càhvë̀nŭh	‘you all finished ploughing’	(plough you-all-finished)

Chiquihuitlan Mazatec is therefore generally an OSV language, which is very rare, and thus its word order is pretty much the opposite of English.

3. Past time ‘did, done’ is marked by cà-:

càmá	'became'
càxi	'planted'
càvá	'occurred'

4. Progressive time ‘is doing’ is marked by tì-:

tìmá	'be becoming'
tìxi	'being planted'
tìvá	'be occurring'

5. Future time ‘will do’ is marked by cu- or cú-:

cuìchjá	'I will say'
cúmàchìj mè	'they will become drunk'
cúìj mè	'they will drink'

6. Become ‘mà’ can be used as a prefix to verbs to give an inceptive sense:

cúmàchìj mè	'they will become drunk'
càmàtīñā níxtin	'day approached (became near)'

7. Negative ‘not’ also occupies the ‘become’ position and is marked by ts(ì)-:

càtsehēndaī́j mè	'they did not tire out'
càtsìvéchù	'I did not reach'

8. First person ‘I, me’ varies from verb to verb. You can just use ngahan as a stand alone after the verb, or the short form han. This does however vary a lot dependent on the verb:

càvátjù han	'I passed'
càvétjù han	'I left'
càvéchù han	'I reached'
tìhvăjcuéndà han	'I am already noticing'
càvéchèjen	'I began'

9. Second person ‘you all, you plural’ seems to be marked by suffix –nŭhu (second singular 'you' isn't known yet):

càvénŭhu

'you all left'

10. Third person ‘he, she, it’ isn’t marked in the verb. The verb root itself with no suffix means ‘he, she, it did etc’:

càvá	'he passed'
càvé	'she left'
vá	'he passes'
vé	'she leaves'

11. Third person ‘they’ is marked the same as for ‘he, she, it’ in the verb and adds the word mè ‘they’ at the end:

càvá mè	'they passed'
càvé mè	'they left'
vá mè	'they pass'
vé mè	'they leave'

12. Subject follows the verb in all cases:

kàbá mè	'they passed'
kàmàtīñā níštį	'day approached'

13. With is marked by ‘kòh’:

cuìchjá còhnŭhu	'I will say with you all'
hvë còho xūtāchānā	'I go with my parents'

14. And is also marked by 'còho':

Sàbàdù còho Dòmìncùn

'Saturday and Sunday'

15. To, towards seems not to be marked. You just put the destination after the verb and the subject:

hvë còho xūtāchānā ngìjñā

'I go (to the) field with my parents' (I-go with my-parents field)

16. Existence is marked by xì ‘there exists’:

xì ndáhyíji nū	‘it is a good year’ (exists good-look year)
xì naxindyà	'there are boulders'

17. Nonexistence is marked by tsajĭn ‘there exists not’:

ngèje tsajĭn xihin	'there is no man here'
tsajĭn xūtāchānā	‘I don’t have parents’ (not-exist my-parents)

18. Already ‘a precedes the verb to give a sense of completeness:

‘a tìhvăjacuéndà	'I am already noticing'
‘a càvé mè	'they already left'

19. When, at the time when is also marked by ‘a for actions in the past:

‘a xkun càhavë ̀ càvé mè	‘when the ploughing was finished, they left’
	(already ploughing was-finished, left they)

20. Conditionals are marked by sà ‘if’ or often peru sà ‘but if’:

sà xihin xī ñdáha	'if the man is good'
peru sà xì ndáhyí’ji nū	'if it is a good year'

21. Dependent clause is marked by xī ‘which, that which’:

xihin xī ñdáha	'a man who is good'
nū xī càvétjù	'they year that I left'

22. First is marked by tjún and then is marked by sèje:

tjún né càmúsún mè sèje tjë càxi mè

‘first they cleared the earth, then they planted seeds’

23. Sequences can also be marked with càvë̀ ‘it was finished, after that’:

tjún né càmúsún mè càvë tjë càxi mè

‘first they cleared the earth, after that they planted seeds’

= A SHORT POEM IN CHIQUIHUITLAN MAZATEC =

Here then is a very short poem that I have written, which shows how all the tones, contours, aspirations and vowels of Chiquihuitlan Mazatec fit together:

ngèje cuìchjá hyà mātīñā níxtin xì xi tjë hémú ñdáha báhtjù

Here I will say When the day comes to plant seeds Things will be good for me

ngèje	a semi-nasal 'g' sound then a low-mid to low contoured laryngeal ‘e’
cuìchjá	‘k’ followed by ‘wi’ with a low-mid tone, then an aspirated ‘ch’ followed by high to low contoured ‘a’
hyà	retroflex aspirated 'sh' sound then a low-mid toned ‘a’
mātīñā	‘m’ then mid-toned ‘a’, then ‘t’, mid-toned ‘i’, followed by ‘ny’ and another mid-toned ‘a’
níxtin	‘n’ then high to low toned ‘i' followed by ‘sht’ and finally a mid toned nasal ‘i' sound
xì	sh’ followed by low-mid toned ‘i'
xi	‘sh’ followed by low toned ‘i'
tjë	aspirated ‘t’ followed by high-toned ‘ö ( ur )’ sound
hémú	whispered breathy ‘e’ with high to low contour, followed by ‘m’ then a high to low contoured ‘u’
ñdáha	‘ny’ sound, followed by ‘t’ then high to low toned ‘a’ which is long, whispered and breathy
báhtjù	‘b’ sound followed by high to low contoured breath ‘a’ sound, then aspirated ‘t’ and finally a low-mid toned ‘u’ sound

= WORDLIST =

The following wordlist was analysed from a single text, recorded in early 1970. The text was spoken by Ernesto Tejeda Salvador, a Mazatec resident of the town of Chiquihuitlan and spoken in the dialect of that town. It was recorded by linguist Allan R. Jamieson during his fieldwork, and originally published in his work Chiquihuitlan Mazatec Phonology. As the text concerns a man's retelling of the story of his teenage years working clearing fields, the list of words generally belongs to a rather specialised set. Thus we have a word for boulder in the list, but no word for woman, as that word doesnt appear in the text. As I get hold of more texts, this wordlist will be able to be expanded.

The intention behind these notes is to give a general impression of the language for those interested in Mazatec culture and to enrich their knowledge of the lives of the people who discovered and propagated the entheogens for which they are justly famous.

‘a	‘already, when’
vá	‘pass, occur, happen’
vàcjān	‘break, break up’
vë	‘finish, end’
vé	‘leave, reach, begin’
chā	‘mature, grow older’
tsajĭn	‘there is not’
tsī	‘rain’
chìji	‘get drunk’
tsì-	‘negative prefix’
chū	‘animal’
Dòmìncùn	‘Sunday’
ēmínā	'humble, belonging to custom, of tradition'
hàn	'person, people, Mazatec people'
hàn xùtà ēmínā	‘the humble people; the Mazatec people’
hvăjacué	‘notice, realise, take notice’
hvë	‘I go’
hémú	‘very’
hēndaīj	‘get tired, tire out’
hèjendù	‘rotten’
hīngūhyë	‘everywhere’
hnū	‘corn, corn plant’
hó	‘two’
tjún	‘first, at first’
tyjūn jngū	‘sixteen’
hyíji	‘seem, appear’
ì	‘say, speak’
ìji	‘drink’
jìscà	‘until’ p;
cà-	‘past prefix’
càhvë	‘after that; it finished’
cjuá	‘word’
cjuatàcún	‘mind, frame of mind’
còho	‘with, and’
cōmpānērū, mba	‘companion, helper’
c ú-	‘future prefix’
cuìchjá	‘I will say’
le’bá	‘hoe, rake’
lìjindí	‘little, small’
má	‘become, happen’
màjíh	‘cannot, unable to’
mātīñā	‘come close, approach’
mè	‘they’
músún	‘clear (earth)’
nàhñù	‘turkey’
nàngì	‘ground’
naxindyà	‘boulder’
níxtin	‘day’
ngàhan	‘I, me’
ngèje	‘here’
ngìhñā	‘field’
ngìšun	‘night’
ngū	‘one’
ndyā	‘house’
ndyáha	‘cattle’
ñdáh	‘good’
ndāhñā	‘mole sauce’
ntoho	'soap'
nū	‘say, speak’
nū	‘year’
-nŭhu	‘you all, all of you’
peru (hveru)	‘but, however’
sà	‘if’
sa	‘find’
xā	‘work’
Sàbàdù	‘Saturday’
sájmé	‘do’
sèje	‘then, next’
xī	‘that which is’
xì	‘there is, there are’
xi	‘plant’
xihin	‘man’
xcà	‘leaf’
xcà màrīà pàstūrà	‘salvia divinorum’
xcun	‘ploughing’
scuèlà	‘school’
xcusún	‘custom, tradition’
xtá	‘smooth’
sūbà	‘alone, only’
xùtà	‘person’
xūtāchānā’	‘my parents’
tà	‘for, because’
tjë	‘seed’
tì-	‘progressive prefix’
tīñā	‘near, close’
hyà	‘when’

 

Introduction

Eloxochitlan Mazatec

 

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