Soyaltepec Mazatec

Soyaltepec Mazatec is a Mazatecan language spoken in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, notably in the towns of Santa María Jacatepec and San Miguel Soyaltepec, and on Soyaltepec Island.

Soyaltepec Mazatec
(San Miguel Soyaltepec) Temascal Mazatec
Native to	Oaxaca, Mexico
Region	San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz
Native speakers	(28,000 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Oto-Manguean Popolocan Mazatecan Lowland Valley Northern Soyaltepec Mazatec
Language codes
ISO 639-3	vmp
Glottolog	soya1237

Due to flooding from the construction of a dam, the Soyaltepec-speaking area has had an influx of speakers of other Mazatecan languages. Perhaps only 900 people, mostly monolingual, still speak the original variety of Soyaltepec.^[1]

See Mazatecan languages for a detailed description of these languages.

Phonology

Vowels

The Soyaltepec Mazatec dialect contains five vowel sounds and nasals:

	Front	Back
Close	i, ĩ	u, ũ
Mid	ɛ, ɛ̃	o, õ
Open	a, ã

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	(p)	t̪			k	ʔ
Affricate			t͡s	t͡ʃ
Fricative	f		s	ʃ		h
Nasal	m		n	ɲ
Rhotic			ɾ
Approximant	w		l	j

Glottal-sonorant consonants: /hm, hn, hɲ, ʔm, ʔn, ʔɲ, ʔw, ʔj/

Nasal-obstruent consonants: /nt, ŋk, nt͡s, nt͡ʃ/

• [p] occurs only in borrowed words.
• /w/ in word-initial positions may also be heard as a voiced fricative [β].
• /ʃ, t͡ʃ/ may be optionally heard as retroflex [ʂ, t͡ʂ] before a back vowel.
• Glottal-sonorant consonants /hm, hn, hɲ/ are articulated as voiceless nasal sounds [m̥, n̥, ɲ̊] when in surface form.
• Nasal-obstruent articulated consonants may also be heard as voiced [nd, ŋɡ, nd͡z, nd͡ʒ].^[2]