Amuzgoan family

Amuzgo

The Amuzgoan languages form one of the smallest families of the Otomanguean stock. There are three main variants of Amuzgo, spoken in the Sierra Madre del Sur near the border between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. One variety is spoken by over 23,000 people in the southeastern part of the state of Guerrero in and around Xochistlahuaca. The other two variants are spoken in the southwestern part of the state of Oaxaca, by 4000 people in San Pedro Amuzgos and 1200 in Santa Maria Ipalapa. The Summer Institute of Linguistics has worked primarily in Xochistlahuaca and San Pedro Amuzgos.

The Amuzgos base their economy primarily on subsistence agriculture and cattle, combined with local cottage industries such as ceramics, sewing, and handcrafts. They are famous internationally for their wonderfully intricate weavings, which use designs based either on geometric figures or small stylized representations of animals.

The name "Amuzgo" comes from the Nahuatl expression "amoxco", which can be translated 'Place of Books'. If this explanation is correct, the word probably refers to Xochistlahuaca as the political and religious center of the region at the time of the Spanish conquest. However, this is not the Amuzgos' own name for their language. In Xochistlahuaca, people call it ñomndaa; in San Pedro Amuzgos the name is ñonndaa or jñon'ndaa.

Like the other Otomanguean languages, Amuzgo is tonal, which means that the pitch with which a word is pronounced is so important that a change in the pitch can change one word into an entirely different one. The sound system uses nasalization and a rare contrast between ballistic and controlled syllables. (A similar contrast is found in Chinantec languages.) There are a moderate number of prefixes and suffixes on some words (especially verbs). The word order in clauses is verb - subject - object and possessors follow the noun they possess.

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Publications by the Summer Institute of Linguistics and its members

Linguistics

dictionary (including a grammar)
analyzed texts (in preparation)
technical articles
master's thesis

Anthropology

Technical articles, including:

-Medicinal plant use among the Amuzgos of Guerrero, Mexico

Literacy and literature

Mexican national anthem in Amuzgo

primers

books of traditional stories and other native-authored literature

books to help with agriculture

technical articles

New Testaments

Old Testament summaries

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For more information

The Amuzgoan family is part of the Otomanguean stock

Population statistics by language family

Ethnologue listing

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