Trique languages

Ethnologue lists three major varieties: • Triqui de Copala spoken by 15,000 people (1990 census) in San Juan Copala, Oaxaca (and recently due to migrations in the San Quintín valley, Baja California). • Triqui de San Andrés Chicahuaxtla spoken by 6,000 people in , Oaxaca. • Triqui de San Martín Itunyoso spoken by 2,000 people (1983 survey) in San Martín Itunyoso, Oaxaca. Mexico's federal agency for its indigenous languages, Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI), identifies four varieties of Trique in its Catálogo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales published in early 2008. The variants listed by INALI are: == Use ==

As of 2012, the Natividad Medical Center of Salinas, California, was training medical interpreters bilingual in one of the Oaxacan languages (including Trique, Mixteco, or Zapotec), as well as in Spanish. In March 2014, Natividad Medical Foundation launched Indigenous Interpreting+, "a community and medical interpreting business specializing in indigenous languages from Mexico and Central and South America," including Trique, Mixteco, Zapotec, and Chatino. A Trique-speaking community has also settled in Albany, New York, as well as in northwestern Washington. == Phonology ==

The following phonology is based on Hollenbach (1984) and DiCanio (2008): Vowels Consonants Itunyoso Triqui may tend to have ten geminated consonants; /mː, βː, tː, nː, lː, tːʃ, jː, ʈːʂ, kː, kːʷ/. Tones in Triqui languages are typically written with superscript numbers, The tone system of Chicahuaxtla Triqui has at least 10 tones but may have as many as 16. == Orthography ==

Triqui has been written in a number of different orthographies, depending on the intended audience. Linguists typically write the language with all tones fully marked and all phonemes represented. However, in works intended for native speakers of Triqui, a practical orthography is often used with a somewhat simpler representation. == Morphology ==

Triqui bound morphology is fairly limited. Verbs take a /k-/ prefix (spelled c- or qu-) to show completive aspect: Amiie³² izo¹. 'You are speaking'. C-amii³² zo¹. 'You spoke'. The same /k-/ prefix plus a tonal change shows the potential aspect: C-amii² zo¹. 'You will speak.' The tonal changes associated with the potential aspect are complex but always involve lowering the tone of the root (Hollenbach 1984). There are also complex phonological processes that are triggered by the presence of root-final clitic pronouns. These pronouns (especially the first- and the second-person singular) may change the shape of the stem or alter its tone. As a language subfamily, Triqui is interesting for having a large tonal inventory, complex morphophonology, and interesting syntactic phenomena, much of which has yet to be described. == Media ==

Triqui-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio stations XEQIN-AM, based in San Quintín, Baja California, and XETLA, based in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca. == Notes ==