Tataltepec Chatino in Investigaciones sobre el idioma chatino * J. Ryan Sullivant jryansullivant@utexas.edu July 28, 2015 Abstract Belmar (1902) is the earliest extant description of the Chatino languages, and contains transcriptions of words and phrases in a number of Chatino topolects. While the provenance of three relatively short lists is given, the bulk of the data comes from an unidentified topolect distinct from the three identified topolects. I will show that this unidentified topolect is Tataltepec Chatino (ISO 639-3 cta, henceforth TAT) based on the criteria used by Campbell (2013) to subgroup the modern Chatino languages and by other features identified from descriptions of Chatino topolects (Campbell 2014; Villard 2015; Sullivant 2015b) and my own field notes. 1 Introduction At the turn of the last century Francisco Belmar published Investigaciones sobre el idioma chatino, (1902) a document in which he provides the first known description of the grammar of the Chatino languages (which he understood to be a single language with a number of distinct dialects), and some of the earliest known transcriptions of Chatino data. 1 As one of his goals in writing the report was to motivate Chatino’s closer genetic affinity to Zapotec than to Mixtec (Orozco y Berra 1864; Pimentel 1874), he presents relatively short lists of vocabulary (∼ 225 phrases and words) in three Chatino topolects, the Mixtec of Tututepec and the Zapotec of San Gabriel Mixtepec to show Chatino’s greater resemblance to Zapotec. The bulk of the document presents a larger vocabulary (∼ 2600 words, though with many duplicates) of a Chatino language distinct from the three identified topolects in the comparative section. This paper will determine the provenance of this larger unlabeled vocabulary and determine that it repre- sents Tataltepec Chatino. The following § 2 will provide some relevant information on the internal structure of the Chatino languages, § 3 will describe Belmar (1902) in greater detail, and will briefly consider the three topolects identified in Belmar (1902). § 4 will demonstrate that Belmar’s unidentified Chatino (BCh) is Tatal- tepec Chatino on the basis of existing isoglosses (Campbell 2013) and new criteria distinguishing Tataltepec Chatino from other topolects based on published descriptions (Campbell 2014; Villard 2015; Campbell and Carleton In press; Sullivant 2015b) and my own field notes on Tataltepec Chatino. § 5 will discuss some unidentified Chatino data which is not Tataltepec Chatino, and finally § 6 will conclude the paper. This work builds on other attempts to analyze the transcriptions in Investigaciones sobre el idioma chatino (Sullivant To appear, 2015a,c), and the methods for arriving at interpretations of transcription are discussed at greater length in those papers. Discussion of problems in transcriptions interpretation will be kept to a minimum here, and Belmar’s Chatino data will be presented in phonological slashes (//) unless special attention is being paid to his symbol choice. * This is a work in progress, and should only be cited with caution. Drop me a line at jryansullivant@utexas.edu, and I’ll be happy to send you the latest version. 1 The only earlier Chatino transcriptions mentioned in the record are Peñafiel’s late 19th century questionnaires collected in five Chatinophone locales (Mechling 1912); however, these appear to have been lost. 1