Sayula Popoluca (yamay ajw / tʉcmay-ajw)

Sayula Popoluca is a member of the Mixe branch of the Mixe-Zoque language family. It is spoken by about 4,800 people in and around Sayula de Alemán, a municipality in the south of Veracruz state in the southeast of Mexico.

Sayula Popoluca is also known Sayultec, sayulteco or populuca. The name Popoluca comes from the Nahuatl word popoloca (barbarians, people speaking a foreign language), which is a traditional name for Mixe-Zoquean languages. Speakers of Sayula Popoluca call their language yamay ajw (local language) or tʉcmay-ajw (language of the home).

Researchers working on documenting the language have developed several ways to write Sayula Popoluca with the Latin alphabet.

Sayula Popoluca alphabet

Notes

When a [k] sound comes before i or e, it is written qu. Elsewhere it is written c.
When a [ɡ] sound comes before i or e, it is written gu. Elsewhere it is written g.
Stress can be indicated with an acute accent (á)
Long vowels are indicated either with a colon (a:) or with a an underline (a).

Download an alphabet chart for Sayula Popoluca (Excel)

Sample text in Sayula Popoluca

primeru Sayula según iguinʉ́mga antivu naꞌwaywájat tsúnau prowijóꞌc. mʉt iga-is̈cápcawu nijʉ́may calse de máquina jéme en ayʉ́ época actual jayunáꞌjat i-is̈cápcapay solamente jéꞌjat i-is̈cápcau.

Translation

According to what the old people say, the people who first lived in Sayula were very poor. And they were not acquainted with any kind of machine that people in this present age are acquainted with.

Source: Sayula Popoluca Texts, with Grammatical Outline, by Lawrence E. Clark

Sample video in Sayula Popoluca

Information about Sayula Popoluca | Numbers

Links

Information about Sayula Popoluca
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayula_Popoluca
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popoluca_de_Sayula
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pos
https://www.sil.org/resources/search/language/pos
http://www.language-archives.org/language/pos

Mixe languages

Isthmus Mixe, Midland Mixe, Oluta Popoluca, Sayula Popoluca, Tlahuitoltepec Mixe, Totontepec Mixe

Languages written with the Latin alphabet

Page created: 04.07.22. Last modified: 02.01.24

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