Cora language
Encyclopedia
The Cora language is an indigenous language of Mexico
of the Uto-Aztecan
language family
. It is spoken by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Cora
but who refer to themselves as Naáyarite. The Cora inhabit the northern sierra of the Mexican state Nayarit
which is named after its indigenous inhabitants. Cora is a Mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
. Under the "Law of Linguistic Rights" it is recognized as a "national language" along with 62 other indigenous languages and Spanish
which have the same "validity" in Mexico http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/resources/LocalContent/62817/12/ley_gen_derechos_ling_indigenas_2.htm.
, called Cora del Nayar or Cora Meseño, with approximately 9,000 speakers (1993 census). The other variant is called Cora de Santa Teresa and is spoken by approximately 7,000 people (1993 census) in north-central Nayarit. Cora de Santa Teresa has such a low degree of mutual intelligibility
with other Cora speech communities that Ethnologue
considers it a separate variety. Due to recent migrations a small community of Coras exists in the United States in western Colorado.
. The Taracahitan group of languages containing among others the languages Tarahumara
, Yaqui
and Mayo
is also related to Cora.
with an harmonic accent taking high falling tone.
.
The forms of the prefix expressing first person singular is ne-, na-, or ni-, for second person singular it is a-, mwa'a-, a'a-. The third person singular is marked by the prefix ru-. A first person plural possessor is marked by the prefix ta-, second person plural by ha'amwa- and third person plural by wa'a-. Furthermore there are two suffixes. One, -ra'an is used to mark an obviative
or fourth person possessor. The other is -me'en used to mark a plural possessum of a singular possessor.
, Tepehuán
, and some dialects of Nahuatl
).
's radio station XEJMN-AM
, broadcasting from Jesús María, Nayarit
.
Languages of Mexico
The government of Mexico recognizes 68 distinct indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages in addition to Spanish. According to the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples and National Institute of Indigenous Languages [INALI], while 10-14% of the population identifies as...
of the Uto-Aztecan
Uto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family consisting of over 30 languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the Western United States , through western, central and southern Mexico Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family...
language family
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
. It is spoken by the ethnic group that is widely known as the Cora
Cora people
The Cora are an indigenous ethnic group of Western Central Mexico that live in the Sierra de Nayarit and in La Mesa de Nayar in the Mexican states of Jalisco and Nayarit. They call themselves náayarite , whence the name of the present day Mexican state of Nayarit...
but who refer to themselves as Naáyarite. The Cora inhabit the northern sierra of the Mexican state Nayarit
Nayarit
Nayarit officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Nayarit is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 20 municipalities and its capital city is Tepic.It is located in Western Mexico...
which is named after its indigenous inhabitants. Cora is a Mesoamerican language and shows many of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
Mesoamerican Linguistic Area
The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
. Under the "Law of Linguistic Rights" it is recognized as a "national language" along with 62 other indigenous languages and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
which have the same "validity" in Mexico http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/resources/LocalContent/62817/12/ley_gen_derechos_ling_indigenas_2.htm.
Geographic distribution
There are two main variants of Cora. One is that spoken in the Sierra de Nayarit ranges of JaliscoJalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...
, called Cora del Nayar or Cora Meseño, with approximately 9,000 speakers (1993 census). The other variant is called Cora de Santa Teresa and is spoken by approximately 7,000 people (1993 census) in north-central Nayarit. Cora de Santa Teresa has such a low degree of mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
with other Cora speech communities that Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
considers it a separate variety. Due to recent migrations a small community of Coras exists in the United States in western Colorado.
Genealogy
The closest relatives of the Cora language is the Huichol language together with which it forms the Coracholan subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan languagesUto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family consisting of over 30 languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the Western United States , through western, central and southern Mexico Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family...
. The Taracahitan group of languages containing among others the languages Tarahumara
Tarahumara language
The Tarahumara language is a Mexican indigenous language of the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken by around 70,000 Tarahumara people in the state of Chihuahua, according to an estimate by the government of Mexico.-Genetic affiliation:Tarahumara belongs to the Taracahitic group of the Uto-Aztecan...
, Yaqui
Yaqui language
Yaqui , locally known as Yoeme or Yoem Noki, is a Native American language of the Uto-Aztecan family. It is spoken by about 15,000 people, mostly of the border Yaqui people, in the region around the Mexican state of Sonora, and Arizona in the United States.-Phonology:The remarks below use the...
and Mayo
Mayo language
Mayo is an Uto-Aztecan language. It is spoken by about 40,000 people, the Mexican Mayo or Yoreme Indians, who live in the South of the Mexican state of Sonora and in the North of the neighboring state of Sinaloa...
is also related to Cora.
- General Uto-Aztecan
- Coracholan branch
- Huichol language
- Cora languages
- Cora (also called Cora of Nayar or Cora Meseño)
- Santa Teresa Cora
- Coracholan branch
Phonology
The phonology of Cora is typical of southern Uto-aztecan languages with five vowels and a relatively simple consonant inventory. However atypically of Uto-aztecan languages Cora has developed a simple tonal system or pitch accentPitch accent
Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words...
with an harmonic accent taking high falling tone.
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... / Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | p/b | pʷ | t | k | kʷ | ʔ | ||||
| Fricatives | s | ʂ | x | h | ||||||
| Affricates Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
ts | tʃ | ||||||||
| Liquids | l | ɽ | ||||||||
| Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | mʷ | n | |||||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... s |
w | j | ||||||||
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... (high) |
i | ʉ | u |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ɛ | ||
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... (low) |
ɑ |
Grammar
Cora is a verb-initial language; its grammar is agglutinative and polysynthetic, particularly inflecting verbs with many affixes and clitics. There are a number of adpositional clitics that can also be used as relational nouns.Nominal morphology
Nouns are marked for possession and exhibit several different plural patterns.Pluralization
Different classes of nouns mark the plural in different manners. The most common way is by means of suffixes - The suffixes used for pluralization are the following: -te, -mwa, -mwa'a, -tse, -tsi, -, -, -se, -si, -ri and -i. Other ways to form the plural is by reduplication of the final vowel of a noun stem or by shifting the accent from one syllable to the other. Another class of works form their plurals by suppletionSuppletion
In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even "highly irregular". The term "suppletion" implies...
.
Possession
Possessed nouns are marked with a prefix expressing the person and number of their possessor.The forms of the prefix expressing first person singular is ne-, na-, or ni-, for second person singular it is a-, mwa'a-, a'a-. The third person singular is marked by the prefix ru-. A first person plural possessor is marked by the prefix ta-, second person plural by ha'amwa- and third person plural by wa'a-. Furthermore there are two suffixes. One, -ra'an is used to mark an obviative
Obviative
Obviate third person person is a grammatical person marking that distinguishes a non-salient third person referent from a more salient third person referent in a given discourse context...
or fourth person possessor. The other is -me'en used to mark a plural possessum of a singular possessor.
| Number/person of Possessor | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1. person | nechi'i "my house" | tachi'i "our house" |
| 2. person | achi'i "your house" | há'amwachi'i "Your (pl.) house" |
| 3. person | ruchi'i "his/her own house" | wa'áchi'i "Their house" |
| 4. person | chí'ira'an "the house of the other" | |
| pl. possessum + 3.p.sg. possessor | chí'imeen "his/her houses" |
Verbal morphology
Verbs are inflected for person and number of subject and direct object and object prefixes for 3rd person inanimate objects also show the basic shape of the object. Verbs are also inflected for location and direction.Syntax
Typologically Cora is interesting because it is a VSO language but also has postpositions, a trait that is rare cross-linguistically but does occur in a few Uto-Aztecan languages (PapagoTohono O'odham
The Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
, Tepehuán
Tepehuán
The Tepehuán are a Native American ethnic group in northwest Mexico, whose villages at the time of Spanish conquest spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chihuahua and Durango in the north to Jalisco in the south...
, and some dialects of Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
).
Media
Cora-language programming is carried by the CDINational Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was founded in 2003 as a replacement for the National Indigenist Institute . It has its headquarters in Mexico City and, since 15 December 2006, has been...
's radio station XEJMN-AM
XEJMN-AM
XEJMN-AM is an indigenous community radio station that broadcasts in Spanish,Cora, Huichol, Tepehuano and Nahuatl from Jesús María, municipality of El Nayar, in the Mexican state of Nayarit....
, broadcasting from Jesús María, Nayarit
Jesús María, Nayarit
Jesús María is the municipal seat of the municipality of El Nayar in the Mexican state of Nayarit. The population was 1,783 in 2000.XEJMN-AM, a government-run indigenous community radio station that broadcasts in Cora, Huichol, Tepehuano and Nahuatl, is based in Jesús María.-References:...
.