Sierra Popoluca Speech 
By Mary L. Foster and Greorcr M. Foster 
INTRODUCTION 
In the southeastern part of the State of Vera- 
cruz, at the north end of the Isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepec, are four small groups of Indians who speak 
languages known to themselves and their neigh- 
bors as Popoluca. The name is from the Aztec 
“popoloca,” applied in a deprecating sense to a 
number of backward Mexican groups. Four 
different languages exist. Texistepec Popoluca, 
Oluta Popoluca, and Sayula Popoluca are limited 
to the villages of the same name. Sierra Popoluca 
is spoken in about 25 villages and settlements in 
the mountainous area between Lake Catemaco and 
the Tehuantepec railway, by perhaps 10,000 per- 
sons.! All four languages are correctly classified 
in the Mixe-Zoque family, and because of the col- 
lective term ‘Popoluca”’ it usually has been as- 
sumed that they form a third basic division of this 
stock and that differences within this division are 
less pronounced than between these languages and 
Mixe and Zoque. Actually, the name “‘ Popoluca”’ 
has given a false impression of linguistic relation- 
ships within the Mixe-Zoque family. In a strictly 
analytical sense there are but two basic divisions, 
Mixe and Zoque, each composed of a number of 
distinct, not mutually intelligible languages. Two 
of the Popoluca languages, Oluta and Sayula, fall 
in the Mixe division, along with the Western Mixe 
and the Guichigovi Mixe, both in Oaxaca. The 
other two, Sierra and Texistepec, must be classed 
with the Copainala and San Andres Tuxtla Zoque, 
in Chiapas, and with the dialects spoken in Santa 
Maria Chimalapa and San Miguel Chimalapa, 
Oaxaca, in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Data are 
as yet too limited to prevent more than this rough 
classification. Although the Sierra Popoluca com- 
monly refer to themselves as Popoluca, in their own 
1 For more detailed information on the location of the Popoluca, see: 
GEORGE M. Foster. The geographical, linguistic and cultural position of 
the Popoluca of Veracruz, Amer. Anthrop., vol. 45, pp. 531-546. 1943, 
language they use the expression ?anmati (the) 
word to denote their linguistic group. 
The data which form the basis of this study were 
gathered in the spring of 1941, when we lived for 
10 weeks in Soteapan, cabecera of the municipio of 
the same name, which includes more than half of 
the Sierra Popoluca and which is the only munici- 
pio entirely composed of Popoluca-speaking in- 
habitants. The principal objective of the field trip 
was ethnographic research, and the linguistie work 
was carried on as a more or less accidental and un- 
planned side line. When we discovered that one 
of our principal informants, Leandro Pérez, at that 
time about 35 years of age, knew a great many 
stories, we decided to record as many as time per- 
mitted, in spite of our lack of formal linguistic 
field training. Eventually we found ourselves with 
about 300 pages of textual material. These data, 
in addition to phonetic and grammatical material 
which we gathered simultaneously, form the basis 
for this study. Although the speech here analyzed 
is that of Pérez, we made enough use of other 
linguistic informants to know that his manner of 
speaking is typical of Soteapan. 
In the initial stages of the organization of our 
material Dr. Harry Hoijer aided us with many 
valuable suggestions. In December 1944, we 
returned to Soteapan for 10 days to recheck our 
data. During this period we had a number of 
stimulating conversations with Mr. Ben Elson, 
who at that time lived in nearby Ocotal Chico 
and who also was studying the language. Mr. 
Elson recently has published an excellent article 
entitled ‘Sierra Popoluca Syllable Structure,” to 
which reference occasionally is made in this paper.? 
Dr. Stanley S. Newman has given generously of 
? ELson, BEN. Sierra Popoluca syllable structure, Internat. Jour. Amer 
Linguistics, vol. 13, pp. 18-17. 1947. 
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