Zacatepec Chatino

Zacatepec Chatino is an indigenous Mesoamerican language, a dialect of Eastern Chatino of the Oto-Manguean language family. It is often referred to as Chaqꟳ tinyaᴶ Kichenᴬ tziꟲ, Chatino de San Marcos Zacatepec, or Chatino de Zacatepec as it is distinct from other Eastern Chatino dialects in the region. Zacatepec Chatino is spoken in the town of San Marcos Zacatepec, a town of approximately 1,000 people and inhabited by the Chatino people. The language was once spoken in the village of Juquila, but is now virtually extinct there with only two surviving speakers in the area (Villard 2015).

Zacatepec Chatino is a highly endangered language as it is spoken by about 300 Chatinos whom are all above 50 years of age.

Chatino refers to three closely related modern languages; the three being Eastern Chatino, Tataltepec Chatino, and Zenzontepec Chatino of the Zapotecan branch. Zacatepec Chatino falls under the Eastern Chatino branch.

Zacatepec Chatino, being part of Chatino language family, has shallow orthography. It is more conservative than many other varieties of Eastern Chatino as it conserves many non-final unstressed vowels which have been lost in other varieties.

Little is known about the history of Zacatepec Chatino but according to Stéphanie Villard who studied and presented her thesis on the language, it has been on a decline for the past 40 years as natives continue to expand their ties with non-Chatino communities. With the help of the Zacatepec Chatino Documentation Project, Villard has uncovered some of the remnants of the language with the help of many natives from the area. The project includes visits in 2005 and 2006 by Hilaria Cruz, Emiliana Cruz, Megan Crowhurst as well as preliminary analysis of tones in H. Cruz y Woodbury in 2006. It also includes intensive work since 2006 by Stéphanie Villard, including 150 hours of audio, a sketch, papers on sandhi and inflection and grammar as well as short visits concentrating on textual documentation, tone, & morphology

Although Spanish is the official language in San Marcos Zacatepec, Oaxaca, many government officials communicate in Zacatepec Chatino. A study conducted by Villard revealed that majority of the younger population are monolingual Spanish speakers.

Zacatepec Chatino is only spoken in San Marcos Zacatepec, Oaxaca in the Sierra Madre region of Mexico.

Since Zacatepec Chatino is unintelligible with other Chatino varieties, it does not have any other dialects or varieties associated with it.