9 The Popolocan languages

Language namesThe established names for the Popolocan languages are all exonyms and have fluctuated over the centuries, with a single language name covering two or more Popolocan and sometimes even non-Popolocan languages.The names for Mazatec and Ixcatec bear the suffix -teco based on the Nahuatl-origin 2 suffixes -teca/-tecatl 'inhabitant of a place (whose name ends in -tlan or -lan)'.The name Mazatec also comes from Nahuatl, where mazatl has the basic meaning 'deer'.The language name Chocho (or Chocholtec) probably comes from the Spanish verb chochear, which literally means 'to become senile', through extension to 'talk like a senile person'.In the earliest colonial documents, Ixcatec is also referred to under the name chochon; the first occurrences of the term ixcateco go back to the eighteenth century (Swanton 2008).The name Ixcatec is based on Nahuatl ichcatl 'cotton' to which is added the suffix -teco.Finally, Popoloc is based on a Nahuatl verb, popoloca 'to speak unintelligibly', a term which is also generally used for people of another ethnicity and language.As commonly observed across the languages of the world, self-denominations for the Popolocan languages are based upon the expression 'our language', namely ngigua in Chocho, ngiga in Popoloc, and x'uani in Ixcatec.Similar self-denominations are reported for the Mazatecs, who refer to themselves as the 'people who speak our language', variably ha xutta enima, chjot nna, cha ndaxind (source http://www.sic.gob.mx/). Existing research and language documentationMazatec has been the object of studies in a comparative perspective by Gudschinsky (1959a) and Kirk (1966).Studies of specific Mazatec varieties include Gudschinsky (1959b), with data from Huautla de Jimenez, Jamieson (1982, 1988) for Chiquihuitlan, Bull (1984) for San Jeronimo Tecoatl, Black and Schram (2014) for Jalapa de Diaz, and Guzmn Carrera (2011) for Mazatlan.A special focus on phonetics and phonology is found in a number of studies, such as K. Pike and E. Pike (1947), E. Pike (1956), Kirk et al. (1993), Steriade (1994), Silverman et al. (1995), Golston and Kehrein (1998), Garellek and Keating (2011), and Beal (2011).More recently, research has been carried out on morphology and dialectology by Lonard and Kihm (2012) and Lonard et al. (2012), drawing on the published data of the 1940s and 1960s.Popoloc is relatively under-described, with the notable exception of a grammar of the Metzontla variety by Veerman-Leichsenring (1984, 1991) and a dictionary of the variety of San Juan Atzingo by Austin Krumholz et al. (1995).Studies on phonetics and phonology include Kalstrom and E. Pike (1968), Stark and Machin (1977), and more recently preliminary work by Nakamoto (2014).Research on Chocho starts with Belmar's pioneering work (Belmar 1899), where Ixcatec, however, is also considered a Chocho variety.During the twentieth century one notes several studies on the Chocho variety of Santa Catarina Ocotlan, namely the publication of the questionnaire Archivo de lenguas indgenas de Mexico (ALIM) filled in for this language by Mock (1977), an article on verb morphology (Mock 1982), and a grammar (Veerman-Leichsenring 2000a).Linguistic research on Ixcatec started in the first half of the twentieth century with the anthropologist Roberto Weitlaner, whose field notes remain unpublished.At the same time a Summer Institute of Linguistics member wrote a preliminary analysis of Ixcatec phonology (unpublished, Black 1948).The published work on Ixcatec consists of a phonological study and a dictionary by Fernndez de Miranda (1959Miranda ( , 1961) ) as well as her work on possessives (Fernndez de Miranda 1953).Moreover, there is the work by Veerman-Leichsenring on Ixcatec nominal phrases (Veerman-Leichsenring 2001a), and this author also discusses Ixcatec in papers on the Popolocan languages (e.g., Veerman-Leichsenring 2000b).More recently,