Linguistic Vitality and Tonal Variation in San Juan Tepeuxila Cuicatec

Abstract

The current study focuses on tonal variation and its link with linguistic vitality from a variationist perspective, in the Cuicatec community of San Juan Tepeuxila, Mexico. Given the high level of endangerment of this language, just as all minority languages in the world, I propose linguistic vitality as a key factor in the study of variation. Elicited data from a representative sample of speakers was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to obtain a global perspective of the phenomenon. The results of multivariate analysis in RBRUL show that one of the most significant variables is the speaker as a social factor. At a qualitative level, these results suggest that the high degree of structural and interpersonal tonal variation is due to the low level of linguistic vitality of Cuicatec. Thus, the socio-cultural context of the language and its level of vitality directly influence the type of tonal variation observed. This is also supported by previous studies where results are compared between different Cuicatec communities, revealing again, the powerful link between the language and its speakers.