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The Mixe–Zoque languages are a language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The Mexican government recognizes three distinct Mixe–Zoquean languages as official: Mixe or ''ayook'' with 188,000 speakers, Zoque or ''o'de püt'' with 88,000 speakers, and the Popoluca languages of which some are Mixean and some Zoquean with 69,000 speakers. However the internal diversity in each of these groups is great and the Ethnologue counts 17 different languages, and the current classification of Mixe–Zoquean languages by Wichmann (1995) counts 12 languages and 11 dialects. Extinct languages classified as Mixe–Zoquean include Tapachultec, formerly spoken along the southeast coast of Chiapas. ==History== Historically the Mixe–Zoquean family may have been much more widespread, reaching into the Guatemalan Pacific coast (i.e. the Soconusco region). Terrence Kaufman and Lyle Campbell have argued, based on a number of widespread loanwords in other Mesoamerican languages, that it is likely that the Olmec people, generally seen as the earliest dominating culture of Mesoamerica, spoke a Mixe–Zoquean language.〔Campbell and Kaufman (1976).〕 Kaufman and John Justeson also claim to have deciphered a substantial part of the text written in Isthmian script (called also by them and some others 'Epi-Olmec') which appears on La Mojarra Stela 1, based upon their deciphering of the text as representing an archaic Mixe–Zoquean language. Both of these claims have been criticized: Michael D. Coe and David Stuart argue that the surviving corpus of the few known examples of Isthmian inscriptions is insufficient to securely ground any proposed decipherment. Their attempt to apply Kaufman's and Justeson's decipherments to other extant Isthmian material failed to produce any meaningful results. Wichmann (1995) criticizes certain proposed Mixe–Zoquean loans into other Mesoamerican languages as being only Zoquean, not Mixean, which would put the period of borrowing much later than the Proto-Mixe Zoquean time-frame in which the Olmec culture was at its height. The date of the Mixe–Zoque split has however since been pushed back, and the argument is therefore much weaker than it once was thought to be.〔Wichmann, Beliaev & Davletshin, in press (Sept 2008).〕 Later, Kaufman (2001), again on the basis of loans from Mixe–Zoque into other Mesoamerican languages, argues a Mixe–Zoquean presence at Teotihuacan, and he ascribes to Mixe–Zoquean an important role in spreading a number of the linguistic features that later became some of the principal commonalities used in defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Mixe–Zoque is not thought to be related to any other language-group, though in the early 20th century Edward Sapir included it as a member of his proposed Penutian linguistic superfamily, and it has recently been included with the Totonacan languages in a Toto-Zoquean proposal. The branches of the Mixe–Zoque language family are as follows: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mixe–Zoque languages」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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