Chinantec

the language of the Chinantec, spoken in the northeastern part of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Chinantec is an Otomian-Mixtecan-Zapotecan language.

Chinantec has a rich vowel system. Its dialects have eight short vowels and long and nasalized vowels, and its relatively sophisticated system of consonants includes a glottal h and a glottal stop. Chinantec has a complex system of phonological tones: depending on the dialect, there may be three or four simple tones and a sequence of two or three of these tones may occur in a single syllable. The complicated syllabic structure permits initial and final clusters made up of a glottal and a consonant and allows of initial clusters composed of a consonant followed by a glide (w or j): hņĩαn^{2 + 3} (“he kills”) and ry²kwəhn¹ (“I will give”), with tones indicated by numerals. Grammatical meaning is expressed through affixes (syllabic and nonsyllabic) and alterations in tone, as in ry²kwəhn¹ (“I will give”) and ry^{2 + 3}kwəh^{2 + 3} (“he will give”). Grammatical meaning may also be expressed by auxiliary words and through word order.