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The vowel system of Santiago Mexquititlán Otomi (Hñäñho)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2021

Stanislav Mulík Open the ORCID record for Stanislav Mulík [Opens in a new window] ,
Mark Amengual Open the ORCID record for Mark Amengual [Opens in a new window] ,
Gloria Avecilla-Ramírez Open the ORCID record for Gloria Avecilla-Ramírez [Opens in a new window]  and
Haydée Carrasco-Ortíz Open the ORCID record for Haydée Carrasco-Ortíz [Opens in a new window]
Stanislav Mulík
Affiliation:
Facultad de Lenguas y Letras Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Mexico stanmulik@gmail.com
Mark Amengual
Affiliation:
Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics University of California, Santa Cruz, USA amengual@ucsc.edu
Gloria Avecilla-Ramírez
Affiliation:
Facultad de Psicología Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Mexico gloria.avecilla@uaq.mx
Haydée Carrasco-Ortíz
Affiliation:
Facultad de Lenguas y Letras Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Mexico haydee.carrasco@uaq.edu.mx
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Abstract

The present study provides an acoustic description of the vowel system of Santiago Mexquititlán Otomi (Hñäñho), an endangered and understudied Oto-Manguean language variety spoken in central Mexico. The goal of this production study was to determine whether the phonemic contrasts between Hñäñho vowels, as previously described impressionistically, are maintained in the acoustic realizations of a group of relatively balanced bilingual native speakers of Hñäñho or if Hñäñho phonemic categories are merging due to the extensive influence of Spanish. To this end, each Hñäñho speaker recorded a carefully designed list of 90 Hñäñho words and the resulting dataset of a total of 1507 tokens was subjected to analysis. Linear mixed-effects models were constructed to predict Bark scale correlates of vowel height (B1 – b0) and vowel frontness/backness (B2 – B1) and the Pillai scores were calculated in order to determine the degree of overlap for adjacent Hñäñho vowel pairs. The speakers’ Hñäñho vowels were also compared to their Spanish vowels. A list of five Spanish words was used and a total of 90 tokens of the Spanish vowels were recorded. The results confirm that the vowel system of Hñäñho, produced by older Hñäñho speakers, consists of 10 distinct phonemes. Hñäñho-specific phonetic details are discussed, including the fronted realization of the vowel /u/ as [u̟] and the lowering of the vowel /ɔ/ to [ɒ], which might lead to a future /a – ɔ/ merger. These findings underline the importance of early and sustained exposure to indigenous bilinguals’ native language for the maintenance of phonetic features of Hñäñho despite extensive contact with Spanish.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , August 2023 , pp. 383 - 403
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Phonetic Association

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