Palantla Chinantec

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.

Palantla Chinantec
Tlatepuzco Chinantec
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Ethnicity	Chinantecs
Native speakers	25,000 (2007)[1]
Language family	Oto-Mangue Western Oto-Mangue Oto-Pame–Chinantecan Chinantec Palantla Chinantec
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: cpa – Palantla Chinantec cvn – Valle Nacional Chinantec
Glottolog	pala1351  Palantla vall1253  Valle Nacional
ELP	Lower Central Chinantec

A grammar and a dictionary have been published.^[2][3]

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
			unrounded	rounded
Close	i		ɯ	u
Mid	ɛ		ɤ	o
Open		a

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.^[4]

Stress tones may include either high or low /v́ v̀/ tones.^[5][2]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s
	voiced		d͡z
Fricative		ɸ	s			h
Approximant		w	l	j
Rhotic			r