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Tapachultec is a Mixean language spoken in Chiapas, Mexico, in the town of Tapachula. It is now extinct.

History

In the 16th century, according to the testimony of Spanish friar Alonso Ponce, it was allegedly spoken along much of the Chiapas coast, including Tonalá, Pijijiapan, Mapastepec, Huixtla, Huehuetán, and Ayutla. Ponce did not give a name for this language, but described it as similar to Zoque, but possessing some Yucatec Maya vocabulary. This has been equated with Tapachultec by Lyle Campbell. At this time, Nahuatl was used by the speakers of said language to communicate with Spanish authorities. Tapachultec seems to have been termed Vebetlateca by Palacio in 1576, which probably refers to Huehuetán given that it was the chief town of the region in that era. By the 17th century, the Mam people had migrated to the area after the original population had declined due to epidemics, and the Mam language replaced Tapachultec in a few places.

Little is known about the language. However according to Otto Shuman, a researcher of linguistics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the language was lost in the 1930s, during the reign of Chiapan Governor Victorico Grajales. Grajales banned the use of indigenous languages in order to attempt to create a stronger bond between Chiapas and the rest of Mexico.

The presence of Mixe-Zoque languages in Soconusco is speculated to go back to Izapa and the Mokaya culture. Tapachultec thus is possibly descended from languages spoken by those cultures, and may have been related to extinct varieties of the Pacific coast of Guatemala.

References

• Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, no. 4. William Bright (series general ed.) (OUP paperback  ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1. OCLC 32923907.
• Orellana, Sandra Lee (1995). Ethnohistory of the Pacific Coast. illus. by Fred Folger. Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos. ISBN 0-911437-33-9. OCLC 33487059.
• Sapper, Karl (1897). Das nördliche Mittel-Amerika nebst einem Ausflug nach dem Hochland von Anahuac (in German). Braunschweig, Germany: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn. ISBN 9780520248120. OCLC 70337620.
• Thomas, Cyrus (1911). Indian Languages of Mexico and Central America and their Geographical Distribution (digitized facsimile at Internet Archive). Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 44. Assisted by John R. Swanton. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-7812-4044-1. OCLC 850983.

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1. Campbell, Lyle, et al. The linguistics of Southeast Chiapas, Mexico. United States, New World Archaeological Foundation, Brigham Young University, 1988.

• Mixean languages
• Mesoamerican languages
• Extinct languages of North America
• Languages extinct in the 1930s
• Chiapas
• Indigenous languages of the Americas stubs