2011/07/01 by Cecil H. Brown, David Beck, Grzegorz Kondrak +2 · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Historical Linguistics and Language Studies #Cognate #Mesoamerica #Linguistics #Vocabulary #Historical linguistics #Phonology #Identification (biology) #Computer science #History #Philosophy #Biology #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1086/660972
openalex publication_date 2011/07/01 · openalex created_date 2022/05/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This paper uses the comparative method of historical linguistics to investigate the hypothesis that languages of two well-established families of Mesoamerica, Totonacan and Mixe-Zoquean, are related in a larger genetic grouping dubbed Totozoquean. Proposed cognate sets comparing words reconstructed for Proto-Totonacan (PTn) and Proto-Mixe-Zoquean (PMZ) show regular sound correspondences attesting to the descent of these two languages from Proto-Totozoquean (PTz). Identification of sound correspondences facilitates reconstruction of PTz’s phonological inventory and vocabulary. The PMZ words used in the comparison are from Wichmann (1995). The PTn words are reconstructed by the authors, who provide the Totonacan cognate sets on which these reconstructions are based, as well as discussion of the classification and phonological history of Totonacan languages. Evidence is cited indicating that Totozoquean is comparable to Indo-European in chronological depth.