Di'csyonaary X:tee'n Dii'zh Sah Sann Lu'uc--San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec Dictionary (review)

San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec is spoken in southern Mexico and by Mexican immigrants to Los Angeles. Until recently, the language has been relegated to the sidelines of linguistic research. Other than a couple of wordlists, scholars will be at a loss to find more comprehensive records of its vocabulary; neither are any surveys of its grammatical peculiarities available. The book under review meets both demands. It is thus in some ways a pioneering work which fills an aching gap in the documentation of indigenous languages of the Americas.

Without a doubt, exploring such unfamiliar terrain is a challenging task. What can prospective users expect from the work? They certainly cannot expect an altogether flawless, let alone comprehensive, account of the language. Some of the translations of Zapotec expressions may well be erroneous; in some cases the spellings specified may be wrong. Similarly, not all irregular forms of lexemes have been listed. The editors readily concede that certain deficiencies on this score are all but inevitable.

What the specialist or learner of San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec can expect, however, is a carefully compiled work which, despite minor errors or inconsistencies, represents a valuable addition to the extant literature in the field. To ensure the highest possible level of descriptive accuracy, numerous native informants have been consulted. In fact, two of the editors themselves are native speakers of the language.

The book comprises two volumes. Vol. 1 is a trilingual dictionary (Zapotec-English-Spanish). The range of entries is comparatively large, encompassing some 9000 Zapotec words and expressions. In addition, the authors provide an outline of the principal structural characteristics of the language. Topics discussed include orthography, phonology, and grammar.A separate section is devoted to similarities and differences between San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec and neighboring varieties. The dictionary proper is complemented by the English-Zapotec and Spanish- Zapotec indices in Vol. 2.

Linguists working with the dictionary will be happy to note that the individual entries feature not only definitions in English and Spanish but also offer actual examples of how the respective Zapotec words are used in everyday language. Linguistic explanations are complemented by cultural information. Presumably, the variant pronunciations given for many entries will be chiefly of interest for specialists.

Quite a number of Zapotec words can be traced to Spanish. Consonantal changes accompanying such borrowings are described in the introduction. While the authors indicate the etymology of these words, it will be left to a future edition to provide in-depth etymological information for most words of Zapotec origin.

A future version of the book might also correct the one typo I noted (p. 6 ‘supoort’). Otherwise, and discounting the above-mentioned minor problems, the dictionary presents an authoritative overview of the vocabulary of San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec as well as a rich source of information for anyone interested in Zapotec culture in general.