NSF REU Linguistics Field School: Zapotec Resources

Professor Lillehaugen's (and collaborators') online talking dictionary, which captures the pronunciations of indigenous Zapotec speakers in variant dialects. Currently contains 830 entries.

Provides a grammatical description of San Bartolome Zoogocho Zapotec.

See also Diccionario zapoteco de San Bartolomé Zoogocho, Oaxaca

"San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec shows a range of syntactic and morphological phenomena incompatible with standard Minimalist accounts of verb movement. This work proposes a VP-remnant raising account for these phenomena, motivated by Kayne's (1992) antisymmetry program. The book also examines the consequences of phrasal remnant movement for negation constructions, and the interpretation of tense, aspect, and mood." [publisher's description]

A syntactic analysis of Quiegolani Zapotec Syntax, presented descriptively and with a theoretical analysis.

"esbozo gramatical acompanado de cuatro cuentos tradicionales con analisis morfologico y traduccion"

"Contains more than 5,000 entries—with etymological notes given when entry words derive from Spanish— the dictionary contains detailed yet concise sections covering spelling and pronunciation, as well as the major points of Isthmus Zapotec grammar" [publisher's description]

See also: The Grammatical Hierarchy of Isthmus Zapotec

"Cook draws on thirty-five years of fieldwork in the region to present a masterful ethnographic historical account of how nine communities in the Oaxaca Valley have striven to maintain land, livelihood, and civility in the face of transformational and cumulative change across five centuries." [publisher's description]

Translated into English, these texts were written from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries by Nahuas from central Mexico, Mixtecs from Oaxaca, Maya from Yucatan, and other groups from Mexico and Guatemala. Addresses a variety of topics, including: conquest, government, land, household, society, gender, religion, writing, law, crime, and morality. [adapted from the publisher's description]

Presents a small sampling of the oral literature of the Zapotec people (Mexico) in Spanish and English. El Folklore de San Lorenzo.

Analyzes how and why Yalálag Zapotec identity and culture have been reconfigured in the United States, using such cultural practices as music, dance, and religious rituals as a lens to bring this dynamic process into focus. By illustrating the sociocultural, economic, and political practices that link immigrants in Los Angeles to those left behind, the book documents how transnational migration has reflected, shaped, and transformed these practices in both their place of origin and immigration.

Chronicles the indigenous resistance to the Mexican government in Oaxaca beginning with the emergence of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) in June 2006. A coalition of more than 300 organizations, APPO disrupted the functions of Oaxaca's government for six months. It began to develop an inclusive and participatory political vision for the state. The movement was met with violent repression. Participants were imprisoned, tortured, and even killed.

Kristin Norget explores the practice and meanings of death rituals in poor urban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Oaxaca City, Norget provides vivid descriptions of the Day of the Dead and other popular religious practices, analyzing how the rites and beliefs associated with death shape and reflect poor Oaxacans' values and social identity.

"The Zapotecs created one of the world's autochthonous civilizations, to set beside that of the Aztecs and the Maya in its achievements. At its peak 1,500 years ago, the Zapotec capital of Monte Alban dominated a society of over 100,000 people, with farflung territorial outposts. Yet a millennium earlier Monte Alban had been uninhabited. What caused this cultural florescence? Marcus and Flannery go back to the very beginnings of settlement in Oaxaca, 10,000 years ago, to provide the answers."