Documentation and description of Tù'un Na Ñuu Sá Matxí Ntxè'è (San Martín Duraznos Mixtec)
The village of San Martín Duraznos and its surroundings. (Photo by Sandra Auderset, January 2020)
Since 2018 I’ve been working on the documentation and description of the Mixtec variety spoken in San Martín Duraznos and surrounding towns and rancherías (including: Rio de Hielo, Santo Niño Yucuyi, San Marcos Xinicuesta, Guadalupe Nundaca), as well as in diaspora communities in northern Mexico and the United States. In collaboration with Carmen Hernández Martínez, language activist and interpreter living in Oxnard, California, we started out working with the diaspora community there. In 2019, I received a Small Grant from ELDP that allowed us to take our work to San Martín Duraznos (Oaxaca, Mexico). This ongoing collaboration with the community of origin has resulted in a audio-visual corpus of naturalistic speech of 27h, of which about half are transcribed and translated. Based on this corpus, we created various community materials for learning and maintaining the language and bridging the gap between speakers in the diaspora and in the village of origin.
Resources on the web:
- ELAR deposit (audio-video corpus of naturalistic speech)
- Let’s learn Mixteco website - a community-oriented bilingual website with language learning materials, games and exercises for learning and practicing San Martín Duraznos Mixtec
- Let’s learn Mixteco facebook page (managed by Carmen Hernández Martínez) - follow us for memes, videos, word of the day, and more in San Martín Duraznos Mixtec
- online talking dictionary (Mixtec-Spanish-English) - link coming soon!
Resources for download:
- reading and writing booklet (in Spanish) explaining the practical orthography -
- overview of tone and its uses in the lexicon and grammar (in Spanish) -
- preliminary analysis of verbal inflection (in Spanish) -
Timeline:
- Fall 2017 - Spring 2018: field methods class at UCSB
- 2019-2022: ELDP Small Grant
- Dec 2019/Jan 2020: Trip #1 to San Martín Duraznos
- Oct-Dec 2021: Trip #2 to San Martín Duraznos
- 2022: ELAR deposit online
- April 2023: Trip #3 to San Martín Duraznos
- Summer 2018 - ongoing: documentation in and with the diaspora community in Oxnard, CA
