Totonac languages

The family is traditionally divided into two small groups of languages ​​that are not always mutually understandable:

• Totonac languages ​​(Totonac, dialectal continuum , or the entire language group)
• Tepeuan languages (Tepehua; Tepehua)

Totonac languages ​​are common in the Mexican states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo. The number of carriers is about 250 thousand people.

Tepeaan languages ​​are common among the Tepehua people in a number of central states of Mexico. They should not be confused with the Tepeuan languages belonging to the Yuto-Aztec family .

There are several dialects in Totonac:

• Upper Nenakha (Upper Necaxa)
• Mountain (Highland)
• Yekuatlansky (Yecuatla)
• Coyutla
• Osumatlan (Ozumatlán)
• Papantlan (Papantla)
• Tekpatlán (Tecpatlán)
• Filomena Mata-Coahitlan (Filomena Mata-Coahuitlan)
• Shicotepec de Juárez (Xicotepec de Juárez)

Like many other Amerindian languages, Totonac is characterized by a high degree of polysynthetism.

For the Totonak languages, two features are characteristic: comitative constructions and the incorporation of body parts.

Comitative construction

Family languages ​​are characterized by a comitative construction, in which both the doer and the co-doer of the verb are indicated. For example, a verb such as “to go” can take a comtative prefix that forms a verb with the meaning “to go with someone,” that is, implying at least one more participant in the action. In some languages ​​(dialects), these constructions consider the second participant as an object:

An example from the language of the Upper Nekaha:

ikta: a'na: n

ik-ta: -a'n-a: -n

1st person unit-subject-COM-go-imperfect-2nd person object

"I am going with you"

In other languages ​​(dialects), the co-actor inclines as a second subject. For example, the verb “to run” can accept simultaneous affixes of a subject of both 1 and 2 persons to form the sentence “you and I run”, “you run with me”, or “I run with you”.

Iklaatsaa'layaa'n.

Ik-laa-tsaa'la-yaa -'- na

1 person unit-COM-run-imperfect-2-nd person unit-COM

"You and I run."

Incorporation of body parts

In Totonacian languages ​​there is an incorporation of nouns, however, not all nouns can be incorporated, but only the roots of the names of body parts in the form of prefixes. When incorporating these roots, they serve to determine the locus of impact of the verb, that is, they indicate whether the subject or object is acting.

Ikintsuu'ksaan.

Ik-kin-tsuu'ks-yaa-na

1st l.ed.ch.-nose-kiss-imperf.-2object

"I kiss your nose. (The letter" I nose-you kiss ")

Tuuxqatka'n.

tuu-xqat-kan- '

foot (foot) -wash-refl.-2subject

"You wash your feet" (lit. "You foot-wash yourself.")

The root, derived from the name of the part of the body and acting as a non-agent subject, can also be incroporated.

Ikaa'ka'tsan.

Ik-kaa'k-ka'tsan

1st l. unit-head-hurt

“My head hurts” (lit. “I am head-sick”.)

It should be noted that the incorporation of nouns in Totonac languages ​​never reduces the valences of the verb, which makes Totonac languages ​​typologically unusual. The absence of the phenomenon of reducing the valence of verbs with a nominal incorporation — a phenomenon quite common among the languages ​​of the world — could be due to very strict semantic restrictions for incorporated nouns. This, in turn, could be due to the fact that independent words for body parts in many Totonacian languages ​​consist of the prefix of a body part attached to the proper name (Beck 2004), which casts doubt on the very classification of this phenomenon as a nominal incorporation, at least in the usual sense of the term.

Phonetic symbolism

Another characteristic feature of the Totonacian languages ​​is phonetic symbolism: the meaning of a word can be slightly changed by replacing one consonant with another, for example, to intensify or indicate large size (the phonetic difference between 1 and 2 Arabic verb is an analog of this phenomenon).

• Upper Necaxa Totonac Project

• Anonymous. Arte Totonaca. Facsimile edited by Norman McQuown. - UNAM, Mexico.
• Arana Osnaya, Evangelina (1953). Reconstruccion del protototonaco. Revista Mexicana de estudios Antropologicos 13: 1-10
• Aschman, HP (1946). Totonaco phonemes. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 12.1: 34-43
• Beck, David (2004). Upper Necaxa Totonac . Munich: Lincom GmbH
• de Léon, Lourdes & Levinson, Stephen C. (1992). Spatial Description in Mesoamerican Languages ​​(Introduction). Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 45.6: 527-29
• Lam, Yvonne (to appear). The language shift in the Necaxa Valley of Mexico. International Journal of the Sociology of Language
• Levy, Paulette (1987). Fonologia del Totonaco de Papantla . Mexico: UNAM
• Levy, Paulette (1992). "Body Part Prefixes in Papantla Totonac" in Léon, de Lourdes and Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.) Spatial Description in Mesoamerican Languages (pp. 530-542)
• MacKay, Carolyn (1999). A Grammar of Misantla Totonac . Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press
• McQuown, Norman (1983 (1940)). Gramatica lengua totonaca (coatepec, sierra norte de puebla) . Mexico: UNAM
• Reid, AA & Bishop, Ruth G. (1974). Diccionario de Totonaco de Xicotepec de Juarez, Puebla . Mexico DF : Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (ILV)