Sayula Popoluca

Sayula Popoluca, also called Sayultec, is a Mixean language spoken by around 5,000 indigenous people in and around the town of Sayula de Alemán in the southern part of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Almost all published research on the language has been the work of Lawrence E. Clark of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. More recent studies of Sayula Popoluca have been conducted by Dennis Holt and Richard A. Rhodes, but few of their findings have been published.

Etymology

Popoluca is the Castilian alteration of the Nahuatl word popoloca, meaning 'barbarians' or 'people speaking a foreign language'. In Mexico, the name Popoluca is a traditional name for various Mixe-Zoque languages, and the name Popoloca is a traditional name for a totally unrelated language belonging to the Oto-Manguean family.
Natively it is known as yamay ajw 'local language' or tʉcmay-ajw 'language of the home'.

Phonology

is only found in Spanish loans.

	Front	Central	Back
High	,,	,,	,,
Mid	,,		,,
Low		,,

Sayula vowels are short, long, and broken.
There are two systems of orthography in the published literature.

Clark uses some Spanish orthographic principles. /h/ is spelled. /j/ is spelled. /ʔ/ is spelled. /ʃ/ is spelled. /tʃ/ is spelled. /k/ is spelled before /i/ and /e/, and elsewhere. Similarly /g/ is spelled before /i/ and /e/, and elsewhere. Syllable final /w/ is spelled. /ɨ/ is spelled. Vowel length is indicated by an underline. Unassimilated Spanish loans are spelled as in Spanish.
Clark uses an orthography closer to IPA, but as in the other orthography /ɨ/ is spelled, and /ʔ/ is spelled. /s/ is. /ts/ is spelled. /tʃ/ is spelled. Length is spelled.

The orthography of Clark is used here.

Morphology

Sayula Popoluca verbs are inflected for person and number of subject and object, for aspect, and for the difference between independent and dependent.

'walk'	imperfective	perfective	future
yoꞌy	-p	-w	-áh
1sg tʉ-	tʉyóꞌyp	tʉyóꞌyw	tʉyòꞌyáh
2sg mi-	miyóꞌyp	miyóꞌyw	miyòꞌyáh
3rd Ø	yóꞌyp	yóꞌyw	yòꞌyáh
1 excl tʉ- -ga	tʉyóꞌygap	tʉyóꞌygaw	tʉyòꞌygáh
1 incl na- -ga	nayóꞌygap	nayóꞌygaw	nayòꞌygáh
2pl mi- -ga	miyóꞌygap	miyóꞌygaw	miyòꞌygáh
3pl -ga	yóꞌygap	yóꞌygaw	yòꞌygáh

Dependency is marked by the allomorphy of the aspect markers, as shown in the following paradigm.

'walk'	imperfective	perfective	future
yoꞌy	-Ø	-h	-wáꞌn
1sg tʉ-	tʉyóꞌy	tʉyóꞌhy	tʉyòꞌywáꞌn
2sg ꞌin-	ꞌinyóꞌy	ꞌinyóꞌhy	ꞌinyòꞌywáꞌn
3rd ꞌi-	ꞌiyóꞌy	ꞌiyóꞌhy	ꞌiyòꞌywáꞌn
1 excl tʉ- -ga	tʉyóꞌyga	tʉyóꞌygah	tʉyòꞌywáꞌn
1 incl na- -ga	nayóꞌyga	nayóꞌygah	nayòꞌygawáꞌn
2pl ꞌin- -ga	ꞌinyóꞌyga	ꞌinyóꞌygah	ꞌinyòꞌygawáꞌn
3pl ꞌi- -ga	ꞌiyóꞌyga	ꞌiyóꞌygah	ꞌiyòꞌygawáꞌn

Sayula Popoluca marks agreement in transitive clause in an inverse system. Speech Act Participants 1EXCL, 1INCL, and 2 outrank 3. There is a separate system in which a topical 3rd person outranks a non-topical 3rd person. The pattern of person marking is given in Table I.
Table I
The inverse system is also reflected in the form of the plural marker. In the case in which a higher ranking singular acts on a lower ranking plural, the plural marker is -kʉš-, elsewhere the plural is as in the singular, -ka-. An example paradigm is given below:
Inversion affects he allomorphy of both the person marking and the aspect marking with the result that the inverse forms have no distinct dependent form.