Tapachultec language

Tapachultec
Vebetlateca
Native to	Mexico
Region	Chiapas
Extinct	1930s
Language family	Mixe–Zoque Mixean Tapachultec
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	qcs
Glottolog	tapa1260
ELP

Tapachultec is a Mixean language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico, in the town of Tapachula. It is now extinct. Some of its vocabulary was suspected by Campbell to be loanwords from Nahuatl, Mam or Kʼicheʼ.

History

In the 16th century, according to the testimony of Spanish friar Alonso Ponce, it was allegedly spoken along much of the Chiapas coast, including Tonalá, Pijijiapan, Mapastepec, Huixtla, Huehuetán, and Ayutla. Ponce did not give a name for this language, but described it as similar to Zoque while possessing some Yucatec Maya vocabulary. This has been equated with Tapachultec by Lyle Campbell. At this time, Nahuatl was used by the speakers of said language to communicate with Spanish authorities. Tapachultec seems to have been termed Vebetlateca by Palacio in 1576, which probably refers to Huehuetán given that it was the chief town of the region in that era. By the 17th century, the Mam people had migrated to the area after the original population had declined due to epidemics, and the Mam language replaced Tapachultec in a few places, such as Ayutla.

Little is known about the language. According to Otto Shuman, a researcher of linguistics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the language was lost in the 1930s, during the reign of Chiapan Governor Victorico Grajales. Grajales banned the use of indigenous languages in order to attempt to create a stronger bond between Chiapas and the rest of Mexico.

The presence of Mixe-Zoque languages in Soconusco is speculated to go back to Izapa and the Mokaya culture. Tapachultec thus is possibly descended from languages spoken by those cultures, and may have been related to extinct varieties of the Pacific coast of Guatemala.

Phonology

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosives	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricatives			s	ʃ		h
Affricates			ts	tʃ
Nasals		m	n
Approximants		w		j

/b/, /d/, /g/ were in free variation with their unvoiced counterparts, and were perhaps not present at all, being mistakenly transcribed by non-native speakers. /s/ and /ʃ/ were also in free variation, while /ts/ and /tʃ/ were in conditional variation.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

It is unsure whether vowel length existed. Tapachultec /e/ and /a/ correspond to /a/ and /o/ respectively in other Mixe-Zoquean languages. However, Wichmann (1995) considers the data supporting this correspondance to be dubious.