Mazatec (Popolocan, Eastern Otomanguean) as a Multiplex Sociolinguistic « Small World »

Jean-Léo Léonard (1) , Vittorio Dell'Aquila (2)

1 UP4 - Université Paris-Sorbonne
2 LPP - LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018

The Popolocan languages are part of a vast linguistic stock spread all over Meso-America, from Central-Northern Mexico to the South of the state of Oaxaca, México – the Otomanguean linguistic stock. Before the “Conquest”, Otomanguean languages were spoken in the Mexican state of Northern Chiapas (Chiapanec), and a long way south of the Meso-american isthmus, so far as Nicaragua, where Mangue was still in use. The Popolocan languages (Popoloca proper, Chocho or Ngigua, Ixcatec and Mazatec) are part of the Eastern Otomangean network of sub-phyla within the Otomanguean stock. In this paper, we endeavoured to approach the sociolinguistic situation of Mazatec, an Eastern Popolocan language, which stands as a multiplex sociolinguistic « Small World » or microcosm: a Leibnizian monade in itself. Though, our approach is by no means monadic, as it takes into account the outer coordinates of this “Open Small World” – especially the network of major urban centres for migration, in Oaxaca, Puebla, the D.F. or abroad. We suggests two types of interpretation – quantitative and qualitative. We constantly argue that official figures (statistics) should not be taken as granted. They tell more through the discrepancies and contradictions they hint at than by mere statements or enumeration of variables and figures. Linguistic or anthropological fieldwork anchors social science in more than mere facts and figures: it provides “counterfacts” and “counterfigures”. It has the powerful causticity of criticism based on observation and the revisiting of illusions. In spite of its apparent vitality, we claim Mazatec is actually to a certain extent an endangered language in the long term, and that one of the efficient ways to reverse this trend might have to do with investing more on knowledge and formal practice of the language among teachers and youngsters – not only at school. A strong commitment to democracy, sociocultural and political pluralism, and a different policy for local economic development should also prevail, in a region where the system of complementarities between the Highlands and the Lowlands have been dramatically smashed into pieces, by the building up of the Miguel Alemán dam, and the rise and fall of the coffee economy in the highlands.

Mots clés: dialectology; Agrarian crisis; Human geography; Statistics; Oaxaca; Mazatec; Fieldwork; Criticism

Domaines: Linguistique

Jean-Léo Léonard, Vittorio Dell'Aquila. Mazatec (Popolocan, Eastern Otomanguean) as a Multiplex Sociolinguistic « Small World ». Languages of Smaller Populations : Risks and Possibilities, Mar 2012, Tallin, Estonia. ⟨hal-01137372⟩