Highland Popoluca

Highland Popoluca is a Mixe-Zoque language spoken in Mexico, by about 36 thousand people. Glottolog rates it threatened.

See it on the globe Open in the family tree

Highland Popoluca · 18.2°N 94.9°W

Sierra Popoluca, also known as Soteapanec, Soteapan Zoque, or Highland Popoluca, is a developing Mixe-Zoquean language of the Zoquean branch. It has 35,050 speakers (INALI, 2009) who live in the southern part of Veracruz, Mexico. Sierra Popoluca has two sister languages, Texistepec and Ayapanec, both of which are severely endangered.

The word popoluca means "gibberish” in Nahuatl, and the name Sierra Popoluca comes from the language being labelled as such at the time of conquest. To avoid the derogatory connotations of popoluca, some researchers have adopted the name Soteapanec for the language instead (named after the largest municipality it is spoken in). However, modern speakers do not seem to be concerned with the history of the word and simply see it as the name of their language.

From Wikipedia · Sierra Popoluca · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Highland Popoluca

Meaning	Word	Romanization
name	n3yi*
eye	iSkuy*
ear	tacek*
nose	ki5i*
tooth	t3c*
tongue	toc*
hand	k3*
blood	n373pi5*
bone	pak*
skin	naka*
knee	koso*
breast	nunu*
liver	cogoy*
water	nɨʔ
fire	hukt3*
sun	hama*
star	maca*
stone	ca*
mountain	koc3k*
tree	kuy*
leaf	ay*
night	cu7u*
dog	Cimpa*
fish	t373p3*
louse	a7awat*
one	tum*
two	w3sten*
I	3C*
you	miC*
drink	uk*