The ALMaz (Atlas Lingüístico Mazateco): from geolinguistic data processing to typological traits

Abstract

Mazatec (Popolocan, Eastern Otomanguean) became world-renowned following an article by Pike & Pike (1947) and the famous chapter VIII in Pike (1948) on the Huautla variety, which inspired several other seminal studies by on this extremely relevant language as far as phonological typology is concerned. However the early monographs and sketches, which have had a major impact on modern linguistics (laying the premises for the syllabic constituency theory, the theory of tones and tone sandhi as well as their functions in inflectional systems), only take into account a minute proportion of this language's inner diversity. The ALMaz project is an attempt to both revisit second-hand data on Mazatec varieties all over the area where it is densely spoken (especially using Kirk 1966 lists of over 700 cognates as a data base), and to gather and process new data on Mazatec diatopic and diastratic variation, using computational geolinguistics.

Fonotáctica consonántica y rasgos laríngeos de las lenguas mazatecas

“…Las principales fuentes para los ejemplos presentados son el Proyecto Nanginá (Chávez Peón 2018) y la Xu̠ ju̠ n Kju̠ a̠ téxumare̠ Énná (Norma de escritura del mazateco). Estos resultados responden a muchos años de investigación del mazateco, no solo de los trabajos citados, sino también de valiosas investigaciones previas a nivel dialectal, incluyendo Gudchinsky (1958), Kirk (1966Kirk ( , 1970, Léonard, dell'Aquila, & Gaillard-Corvaglia (2012) y Léonard, Patriarca, Sharma & Chakraborti (2017, entre otros.…”

Otomanguean historical linguistics: Exploring the subgroups

“…Kirk (1985) later adds a short discussion about proto-Mazatec numerals. Léonard, Dell'Aquila, and Gaillard-Corvaglia (2012) propose a quite different subgrouping from Gudschinsky's (1958), based on 31 phonological traits examined in a geolinguistic database created from Kirk's (1966) reconstructions and cognate sets, but the linguistic argumentation for their classification is not provided. Swanton, Barber, and White (2013) have presented an intriguing study of the distributions of Mazatec innovations and their correlation with current and historical footpath networks that connect(ed) Mazatec communities.…”

Multilingual policies put into practice: co-participative educational workshops in Mexico

“…The work reported in this section as an illustration of the NLGW and accomplished in the Mazatec region is associated with the ALMaz project (Atlas Lingüístico Mazateco, a part of Institut Universitaire de France's [IUF] MamP): revisiting both Kirk's and Gudschinsky's data (Gudschinsky, 1958;Kirk, 1966), eliciting cognate sets and lists of paradigms from verbal inflection (see Léonard, dell'Aquila, & Gaillard-Corvaglia, 2012), depositing databases and digital recordings of Mazatec dialects, and organizing voluntary sessions of literacy and grammar workshops for the schoolteachers, in coordination with government and nongovernment organizations. NLGW produces on average a booklet of 30-60 pages of texts, lexical and grammatical data and didactic proposals, gathered within two or three days of participation.…”