Tecticpac documents in the typology of Zapotec orthographies

In this previous post, I outlined two criteria that seem to distinguish different schools of Colonial Valley Zapotec orthography:
a.) spellings of /r/: in Mexicanist orthographies usually spelled , but in Oaxacanist orthographies usually spelled .
b.) use of doubled vowels : the Oaxacanist tradition uses them about twice as frequently as the Mexicanist tradition.

In this respect, a group of documents written in the town of Tecticpac between 1610-1626 are interesting.  The documents in question are

These documents seem like the earlier Mexicanist writing, in that use of doubled vowels is not common, but this group of documents is also fascinating since it shows variable use of .
(More details on t/r in Tecticpac in a following post.)

The Ticha project

Here is a video of me talking about the work that we are doing on the Ticha project

Ticha: A Digital Text Explorer for Colonial Zapotec


An overview of the project is at Ticha.

My talented collaborators on the project are Brook Lillehaugen, Michel Oudijk, Laurie Allen, and Enrique Valdivia.  And Haverford undergrad May Plumb has been doing a fabulous job as a student assistant.

Orthographic variants in Colonial Valley Zapotec

Continuing on the thread from yesterday, I'm working on identifying other words in Colonial Valley Zapotec whose spelling varies in some notable way from text to text.

One such word is bitoo ~ bitao 'God'.  In Feria (1567) and Cordova (1578), this is consistently spelled with a single in the first syllable.  In Aguero (1666) and Levanto (1732) the spelling has shifted to biitoo.

Different orthographic traditions in Colonial Valley Zapotec

I've been using our FLEx database recently to correlate an intuition I have had after looking at lots of Colonial Valley Zapotec texts -- that there are some patterns in the spelling that are indicative of at least two different orthographic traditions.

I've labeled the two traditions the Mexicanist and the Oaxacanist traditions.  Important texts in the Mexicanist tradition include Feria's (1567) Doctrina and Cordova's (1578) Vocabulario and Arte.  The oldest texts in Zapotec are in the Mexicanist orthography.

Important texts in the Oaxacanist tradition include Aguero's (1666) Miscelanea Espiritual and Levanto's (1736/1776) Cathecismo


I've found two main diagnostics so far:
  vs

1. The Mexicanist orthography imitates the spelling of Nahuatl and avoids use of the letters , even though Colonial Valley Zapotec almost certainly had phonemes /b, d, g, r, u/.   One very frequent morpheme in CVZ is the aspect marker /r(i) ~ r-u-/.  (The two allomorphs are correlated with different verb classes, and the verb classes are correlated with transitivity.)   Texts in the Mexicanist tradition spell this aspect prefix as or .
2. The Oaxacanist orthography has begun to depart from the Mexicanist orthography in the spelling of /r/, and regularly uses and .

doubled vowels

1. Modern Valley Zapotec vowels have distinctions of stress, phonation type, and tone. (Interrelated in somewhat intricate ways.)  Colonial Valley Zapotec must have had at least stress and tone distinctions, though they are not marked in a very regular way in the orthography.  The Mexicanist orthography occasionally marks vowels with a grave or acute accent, and occasionally doubles a vowel.   However use of doubled vowels is relative unusual.  
2. The Oaxacanist orthography uses doubled vowels much more liberally than the Mexicanist orthography.  (At approximately twice the rate.)

The following chart shows the rates of as a portion of all in the four documents surveyed.

St Dominic cures a demoniac: Tentative matching between Zapotec and Spanish

Much of Aguero (1666) is monolingual Zapotec, but most of it seems to be translated from Spanish originals.  Locating similar Spanish texts is key to working out the Zapotec.  The following Zapotec exemplum ("St Dominic cures a demoniac")  seems to me to a probable match for the miracle of the Rosary in Alonso Fernandez (here).

The likely correspondence in Alonso Fernandez is the following:

Pronominal diversity in Central Zapotec and the Animal pronoun =me in Colonial Valley Zapotec

One great puzzle of Colonial Valley Zapotec is the divergence between the pronominal systems of modern Valley Zapotec languages and that of the colonial texts.

To the best of my knowledge, all (or nearly all) of the modern Valley Zapotec languages distinguish 3rd person clitic pronouns for humans, animals, and inanimates.  The smallest system seems to have three such distinctions (e.g. Guevea de Humboldt Zapotec).  The largest system seems to be San Lucas Quiaviní.

The following chart summarizes my understanding of the typical range of clitic pronouns available.  I have used color as follows --

B1(front vowel), e.g. bi, be, ëb
B2(back vowel). e.g. bu, ba
ZH (ʒ), e.g. zha, zhi, azh
M(vowel), e.g. ma, mu, me, mi, emm
NI1 (low or non-glottal), e.g. ni, ing, yn
NI2 (high or glottal), e.g. ni', ní, ni'i

San Dionisio Ocotepec

San Lucas Quiavini

Teotitlan

San Juan Guelavia

Santa Ana del Valle

Chichi-capan

Ayoquesco

Zaachila

Coatecas

Mitla

Guevea

Albarradas

Isthmus (Juchitan)

Tehuantepec

my notes

Munro and Lopez

cited in MacLaury

Jones

cited in MacLaury

cited in MacLaury

cited in MacLaury

Briggs

Marks, p,.c. (updated since the publication)

Adam

Gramatica popular

cited in MacLaury

3 respect or honor

ba, ab

azh:

ny

bu

ba

xa'

bá

amán

3 ordinary

bi, eby

ang

bï, b

bi

bi

a'n

bé

ni

me

m

be

3 m --> m

zha

zhï, zh

zhí

zh

3 animal

ma, am

ëmm

m

mï, m

mu

ma

mă

mé

ma

ma'

b

me

me

3 saint or reverential

ni'

ni', iny

ni'i

ni

ní

ni

3 inanimate

ni

ing

ni

ni

(i)n

yn

ní

u

an

ni

ni

3 formal

ëb

3 child

ne'

ni'

3 male

mbe

ve

3 female

zha

ce

3 proximal

ëng

3 distal

ih

3 impersonal

nï

Some generalizations:

B1 and B2 pronouns are always used for humans.
If a lg has both B1 and B2, B2 represents a higher degree of respect.
If a lg has one of the B pronouns and NI1 (low or non-glottal), the B pronoun is almost always higher in honor than NI1.  (Guelavia is not an exception if the ny is a reflex of NI2.)
Nearly all lgs have M(vowel) as the animal pronoun.  
The Albarradas inversion of M and B pronouns is remarkable.  It is the only attested language with this system.
The use of M pronouns for people is unique to Albarradas and Guevea and may indicate an shared innovation.

In contrast to this situation, most Colonial Valley Zapotec uses only one pronoun =ni.

However, in the 1666 text by Cristobal Aguero Miscelanea espiritual, I have discovered two instances of what appears to be the animal pronoun, spelled mee in the text:

This is (I think) the earliest attested use of the animal pronoun in CVZ.

Feria (1567) Sacrament of confirmation in Colonial Valley Zapotec

Feria, Doctrina f104v 'Sacrament of confirmation'

1 

Analysis of Feria, Doctrina f104v 'Sacrament of confirmation' (This section of the text starts on the second paragraph of the page.)

Cetanalaga  cetanalaga  follows  cotopa  co-  PERF  topa  two  Sacramento  Sacramento  sacrament  . Here follows the second sacrament. Siguesse el segundo sacramento. Cotopala  co-  PERF  topa  two  la  la  loo  loo  aspect, kind  sacramento  sacramento  sacrament  nàca  n  STA  àca  be able; can  quela  quela=  NOM=  huecaapea  hue-  AGN  caapea  confirm  bixoce  bixoce  father  obispo  obispo  bishop  . The second is confirmation. El segundo es la confirmacion. Chi  chi  when  tocaa pea  to-  HAB:CAUS  caapea  confirm  bixoce  bixoce  father  coqui  coqui  lord  Obispo  Obispo  bishop  tòtila  tòti  some (animate)  =la  =indef  beni  beni  person  , chicani  chicani  then  topaloo  topa  two  loo  aspect, kind  taca  t-  HAB  aca  be(not-PERF/PRF)  : cotobiloo  co-  PERF  tobi  one  loo  face  tigabini  ti-  HAB  gabi  anoint  =ni  =3  benî  benî  give  cani  cani  this  tobi  tobi  one  nocuana  nocuana  herb, medicine  nachono  na-  STA  chono  be.valuable; be valuable  tete  tete  very  , ninocha  topa  topa  two  nocuana  nocuana  herb, medicine  tobilâ  tobi  one  =lâ  =and  azeyte  azeyte  oil  , cetobilâ  ce-  again  tobi  one  =lâ  =and  balsamo  , ticha  ticha  word  castilla  castilla  Castillian  , Cotopa  Co-  PERF  topa  two  loo  loo  aspect, kind  tocaa  to-  HAB:CAUS  caa  take  bixoce  bixoce  father  Obispo  Obispo  bishop  bennabi cruz  bennabi cruz  sign of the cross  X  loo  loo  aspect, kind  lo cuaa  lo cuaa  forehead  benicani  beni  person  cani  this  . When the bishop confirms someone, two things happen. One is that he anoints him with a very precious liquor, composed of two liquors, which are balsam and oil: the other is that he makes the sign of the cross on the forehead. Quando el obispo confirma a alguno, dos cosas se hazen. La una es, que le unge con un liquor muy preciado, compuesto de dos liquores, que son balsamo y azeyte: lo otro es que le haze la señal de la cruz X en la frente. Quitopa  qui-  IRR  topa  two  loo  loo  aspect, kind  nitij  nitij  this  tolohuini  to-  HAB:CAUS  lohui  =ni  =3  quela  quela=  NOM=  coego  christiano  christiano  Christian  , nicocañeni  ni  in.that  co-  PERF  cañe  =ni  =3  , ni  ni  REL  pigabañe  pi-  PERF  gabañe  pertain, go with  quitaalij  quitaalij  all(IRR-all-straight)  beni  beni  person  , chicoxijni  chi  when  co-  PERF  xij  receive(notIRR)  =ni  =3  quela cotobaniça  quela cotobaniça  baptism  , oalijca  oa  PRF  lij  straight, true  =ca  =EMPH  ticàpea  ti-  HAB  càpea  beni  beni  person  Christiano  Christiano  Christian  bennabi cruz  bennabi cruz  sign of the cross  X  locuaani  locuaa  forehead  =ni  =3  , niani  niani  for  quiyennini  quiy-  IRR  enni  understand  =ni  =3  , cacapeani  cacapea  know  =ni  =3  ticha  ticha  word  yanaquîñati  ya=  NEG=  na-  STA  quîña  be.necessary  =ti  =NEG  , cocachini  co  IRR  cachi  be.burried  =ni  =3  looquela  loo  face  quela  nom  Christiano  Christiano  Christian  xitenini  xi-  POSS  teni  possession  =ni  =3  , Both of these two things show the Christian army, to which all men who have received the holy baptism are obligated and subject. The Christian is shown on the forehead with the sign of the cross: X so that he understands and knows that he does not have to hide or cover the fact of being a Christian. Entrambas estas dos cosas significan la milicia christiana, a que esta obligado, y subjecto todo hombre, que ha rescebido el sancto baptismo. Es señalado el christiano en la frente con la señal de la cruz: X para que entienda, y cognozca, que no ha de esconder, ni encubrir el ser que tiene de christiano.

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References