Background

Language Family: Mayan / Cholan-Tzeltalan / Tzeltalan

Tzotzil is spoken in the State of Chiapas located in southern Mexico.

Phonology

Consonants

/d f ɡ β/ appear in some recent loanwords (Laughlin 1975, 22).
Cowan (1969) describes the affricates as sequences of two distinct phones, but she ultimately opts to “reserve judgment as to their phonemic status,” so I have opted to follow Laughlin’s more recent and decisive analysis (p. 4).
Cowan (1969) argues for /x/ rather than /h/.

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p pʼ b	t tʼ			k kʼ	ʔ
Affricates		ts tsʼ	tʃ tʃʼ
Fricatives	v	s	ʃ			h
Nasals	m	n
Flaps		ɾ
Approximants		l		j
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are plain and those on the right are ejective. The labial stops are ordered voiceless, ejective, and voiced.

Vowels

Some speakers realize all of their vowels without rounding (Laughlin 1975, 22).
The claim has been made that tone is developing in Tzotzil, but as of 2010 there is no evidence for any tones in Tzotzil being contrastive (Avelino, Shin, and Tilsen 2011, 1–2).

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Alphabet

Some orthographies just use ⟨k⟩ and ⟨k’⟩ rather than ⟨c⟩, ⟨qu⟩, ⟨c’⟩, and ⟨q’u⟩ for representing velar stops, but I have chosen to represent all variations below.

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/a/
b	/b/
c	/k/
c’	/kʼ/
e	/e/
i	/i/
j	/h/
k	/k/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
o	/o/
p	/p/
p’	/pʼ/
r	/ɾ/
s	/s/
t	/t/
t’	/tʼ/
u	/u/
v	/v/
x	/ʃ/
y	/j/
’	/ʔ/
Digraph
ch	/tʃ/
ch’	/tʃʼ/
qu	/k/
q’u	/kʼ/
ts	/ts/
ts’	/tsʼ/

Lenition Rules

/h/ is weakly realized when followed by [ʔ] (Laughlin 1975, 22).
/j/ deletes after /ʃ/ or before sibilant fricatives (Cowan 1969, 111).
Before stressed syllables that begin with consonants (other than /ʔ/), /k/ spirantizes to [x] and /v/ deletes entirely (ibid.).
/ʔ/ deletes after the following consonants: /k v j/ (Cowan 1969, 112).
/ʔ/ and /ʃ/ delete when followed by two consecutive non-/ʔ/ consonants (Cowan 1969, 112–13).
/h/ deletes before consonant clusters, or when preceded by an unstressed vowel and followed by a stressed vowel (ibid.).
Sequences of like-consonants (e.g. identical root-final and suffix-initial consonants) are realized identically to their single counterparts, except for /b/ (Cowan 1969, 111).

Misc. Rules

Epenthesis of [ʔ] occurs before intervocalic /b/ (Laughlin 1975, 22).
Preconsonantal or word-final /b/ is realized as [ʔm], and the vowel preceding that /b/ is nasalized and glottalized (ibid.).
/b/ is generally realized as [ɓ] word-initially and intervocalically (ibid.).
Word-final /ɾ/ is trilled to [r] (ibid.).
Word-medial /v/ moves to [β] before /a/ (ibid.).
Before stressed syllables that begin with consonants (other than /ʔ/), /j/ de-approximantizes to /s/ (Cowan 1969, 111).
/ʃ/ moves to [s] before affricates (Cowan 1969, 112).
In the sequence /tʃkC/, where C is any consonant other than /ʔ/, /tʃ/ vocalizes to [ti] (ibid.).
Mid vowels delete before non-front vowels (Cowan 1969, 114).
Unstressed /i/ deletes before /a/ or /u/ (ibid.).
/t/ spirantizes to [ʃ] before the /-uk/ suffix (Cowan 1969, 115).
/n/ assimilates to the place of following /b/ (ibid).
/m/ moves to [n] after /VmV/ sequences (Cowan 1969, 116).

References

Avelino, Heriberto, Shin Eurie, and Sam Tilsen. 2011. “The Phonetics of Laryngealization in Yucatec Maya.” In New Perspectives in Mayan Linguistics, edited by Heriberto Avelino, 1–20. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Cowan, Marion M. 1969. Tzotzil Grammar. Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Laughlin, Robert M. 1975. Great Tzotzil Dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantán. Smithsonian Insitution Press.

Tzotzil

Bill Mizgerd