Studies in the Mixe-Zoque languages

3

1.3 Studies in the Mixe-Zoque languages

A historical and comparative study of the Mixe-Zoque languages by Wichmann 1995, provides a brief sketch of the phonology of every language in the Mixe-Zoque language family. He also proposes proto- Mixe-Zoque forms and devotes a large part of his book listing proto-forms with examples from many of the present day languages. His classification of the Mixe-Zoque languages is discussed in section 1.4.1. A number of Mixe-Zoque languages have been analyzed and described by linguists with the Summer Institute of Linguistics currently known as SIL International, and a few other authors, resulting in published linguistic articles, collections of texts, popular dictionaries usually with a section on grammar, reading materials, and New Testament translations. Works of the various individual Zoque languages have been published by Elson 1961, 2 Engel and Engel 1987, Foster and Foster 1948, Harrison and Harrison 1984, Knudson 1975, Lind 1964, and Wonderly 1951. Publications about the various individual Mixe languages include those by Clark 1959, Clark and Clark 1960, Crawford 1963, Hoogshagen 1959, Hoogshagen and Hoogshagen 1993, D. Lyon 1980, S. Lyon 1967, Miller 1937, Morgan 1980, Schoenhals and Schoenhals 1982, Van Haitsma [Dieterman] and Van Haitsma 1976. However, none of the authors listed has worked specifically on Isthmus Mixe except for the present work of Dieterman, meaning that little of substance has been published about this variant of the language. Although Norman Nordell was instrumental in completing a translation of the Guichicovi New Testament El Nuevo Testamento en Mixe de Guichicovi, 1988, his untimely death in 1990 prevented him from completing the linguistic analysis of his materials. In 1993, some data from Nordell’s files were made available to the author of this study, which stimulated interest in visiting the Isthmus and analyzing the language. One very preliminary account of fortislenis consonants in Isthmus Mixe by Bickford 1985 was written with Nordell’s assistance in collecting data. The field work that ultimately led to the writing of this study was first started by collecting Isthmus Mixe data during the years 1994–1999. Four published or in press studies by Dieterman are based on these data: “Participant Reference in Isthmus Mixe Narrative Discourse” 1998, “Secondary Palatalization and Changes in Vowel Formants in Isthmus Mixe” 2001, “Word Order Variation in Isthmus Mixe: Voice and Discourse Considerations” 2002a, and “Word Order and Inverse Voice in Isthmus Mixe” 2002b. In addition, several unpublished manuscripts have been written, including a master’s thesis on participant reference in Isthmus Mixe narrative discourse at The University of Texas at Arlington Dieterman 1995. Beyond these works, no other linguistic studies of Isthmus Mixe have been published. Moreover, this study and Dieterman 2001 are the first in any Mixe-Zoque language to include acoustic analyses, thereby representing a significant step forward in our understanding of this language family.

1.4 General surveys of Mesoamerican languages