Chinantec
Tsa Jujmi
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca
Ethnicity	Chinantecs
Native speakers	140,000 (2020 census)[1]
Language family	Oto-Manguean Western Oto-Pame–Chinantecan Chinantec
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: cco – Comaltepec Chinantec chj – Ojitlán Chinantec chq – Quiotepec Chinantec chz – Ozumacín Chinantec cle – Lealao Chinantec cnl – Lalana Chinantec cnt – Tepetotutla Chinantec cpa – Palantla Chinantec csa – Chiltepec Chinantec cso – Sochiapan Chinantec cte – Tepinapa Chinantec ctl – Tlacoatzintepec Chinantec cuc – Usila Chinantec cvn – Valle Nacional Chinantec
Glottolog	chin1484
ELP	Central Chinantec
The Chinantecan languages, number 9 (chartreuse), east.

TheChinantec orChinantecan languages constitute a branch of theOto-Manguean family. Though traditionally considered a single language,Ethnologue lists 14 partiallymutually unintelligible varieties of Chinantec.^[2] The languages are spoken by the indigenous Chinantec people who live inOaxaca andVeracruz,Mexico, especially in the districts of Cuicatlán,Ixtlán de Juárez, Tuxtepec and Choapan, and inStaten Island, New York.^[3]

Egland and Bartholomew (1978)^[4] established fourteen Chinantec languages on the basis of 80% mutual intelligibility.Ethnologue found that one that had not been adequately compared (Tlaltepusco) was not distinct, but split another (Lalana from Tepinapa). At a looser criterion of 70% intelligibility,Lalana–Tepinapa, Quiotepec–Comaltepec, Palantla–Valle Nacional, and geographically distantChiltepec–Tlacoatzintepec would be languages, reducing the count to ten.Lealao Chinantec (Latani) is the most divergent.

Chinantecan languages haveballistic syllables, apparently a kind ofphonation.^[5][6][7]

All Chinantec languages aretonal. Some, such asUsila Chinantec andOjitlán Chinantec, have five register tones (in addition to contour tones), with the extreme tones deriving historically from ballistic syllables.^[8]

Grammars are published for Sochiapam Chinantec,^[9] and a grammar and a dictionary of Palantla (Tlatepuzco) Chinantec.^[10][11]

Example phrase:

ca¹-dsén¹=jni chi³ chieh³

‘I pulled out the hen (from the box).^[11]

The parts of this sentence are:ca¹ aprefix which marks thepast tense,dsén¹ which is theverb stem meaning "to pull out an animate object", thesuffix -jni referring to thefirst person, thenoun classifierchi³ and thenounchieh³ meaning chicken.

The Chinantec people have practicedwhistled speech since thepre-Columbian era. The rhythm and pitch of normal Chinantec speech allow speakers of the language to have entire conversations only by whistling. The sound of whistling carries better than shouting across the canyons of mountainous Oaxaca. It enables messages to be exchanged over a distance of up to one kilometre (0.62 mi). Whistled speech is typically only used by Chinantec men, although women also understand it. Use of the whistled language is declining, as modern technology such aswalkie-talkies andloudspeakers have made long-distance communication easier.^[12]

Chinantec-language programming is carried by theCDI's radio stationsXEOJN, broadcasting fromSan Lucas Ojitlán,Oaxaca, andXEGLO, broadcasting fromGuelatao de Juárez,Oaxaca.

• 
  Example of Chinantec in written form from theBiblioteca Cervantina
• 
  Example of Chinantec in written form from theBiblioteca Cervantina

Wikimedia Commons has media related toChinatecan languages.

Wiktionary has a list of reconstructed forms atAppendix:Proto-Chinantec reconstructions

• The Chinantec language family(SIL-Mexico)
• Feist, Timothy & Enrique L. Palancar. (2015).Oto-Manguean Inflectional Class Database: Tlatepuzco Chinantec. University of Surrey.doi:10.15126/SMG.28/1.01

• Indigenous peoples of Mexico
• Chinantec languages

• CS1: long volume value
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing multiple-language text
• ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Commons category link is on Wikidata