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 San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional, Valle Nacional Chinantec, has marginal mutual intelligibility. A grammar and a dictionary have been published.Merrifield, William R. 1968. Palantla Chinantec grammar. Papeles de la Chinantla 5, Serie Científica 9.México: Museo Nacional de Antropología

/ref>Merrifield, William R. and Alfred E. Anderson. 2007. Diccionario Chinanteco de la diáspora del pueblo antiguo de San Pedro Tlatepuzco, Oaxaca. [2nd Edition]. Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves” 39. Mexico DF: Summer Linguistic Institute

Phonology

Vowels

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 vowel, nasalized, lightly nasalized, and heavily nasalized vowels. Stress tones may include either high or low /v́ v̀/ tones.

Consonants

References

{{Oto-Manguean languages Chinantec languages