Did you know that Mexico is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries? Never mind that 99% of the population speaks Spanish—there’s an entire world of languages hidden beneath the surface. Before Europeans arrived at their doorstep, the territory that we now know as Mexico was populated by hundreds of disparate, often unrelated ethnolinguistic groups, and many of their languages are still around today, spoken by communities of varying sizes. This is particularly true in southern Mexico, where we find Loxicha Zapotec.
Zapotec is often treated as a single language, but in truth, it’s a large cluster of 50-odd related languages that are often mutually unintelligible, meaning speakers of one language can’t understand speakers of another. Loxicha Zapotec (also called Western Pochutla Zapotec) is one of the largest varieties of Zapotec, boasting around 75,000 native speakers as of 2000, up from the 55,000 recorded in 1990. Loxicha Zapotec is in better standing than most varieties of Zapotec because many of its speakers are monolingual, but the ubiquity and prestige of Spanish across all of Mexico remains a threat for the language. Few translation services offer dedicated translation services for individual varieties of Zapotec, but we at TranslationServices.com are proud to offer our new Loxicha Zapotec translation services.
How about contacting us and requesting a free quote for our Loxicha Zapotec translation services?
What makes Loxicha Zapotec so special?
Zapotec varieties are mostly spoken in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where more than half of the entire country’s indigenous language speakers reside. Loxicha Zapotec is spoken in various cities and towns in the state, including San Andrés Paxtlán, San Miguel Suchixtepec, San Pedro el Alto, San Agustín Loxicha, San Bartolomé Loxicha, Candelaria Loxicha, San Pedro Pochutla, Santa María Colotepec, San Francisco Cozoaltepec, Santo Domingo de Morelos, and Santa María Tonameca. Note that not all towns with the name “Loxicha” speak Loxicha Zapotec and that San Baltázar Loxicha Zapotec is a separate (and considerably smaller) language.
The Zapotec languages form a major branch of the Oto–Manguean language family, which accounts for the majority of indigenous languages spoken in Oaxaca. Loxicha Zapotec, like its sister languages, is grammatically complex, with a complicated pronoun system that includes separate third-person pronouns for different classes of referents, such as humans, babies, animals, deities, inanimate objects, and more. It also distinguishes between inclusive “we,” which includes the listener, and exclusive “we,” which excludes the listener. Loxicha Zapotec is, naturally, difficult to translate to and from English, but that’s precisely why we hire native speakers.
Turn to us for the best, most flexible Loxicha Zapotec translation services.
We pride ourselves on providing the best Loxicha Zapotec translations possible, scouting our passionate translators from various cities and towns across Oaxaca. Our translators are native speakers of different dialects of the language, including San Agustín Loxicha, San Bartolomé Loxicha, San Andrés Paxtlán, and San Miguel Suchixtepec, so if you’re looking for a specific variety, just let us know. We’re happy to provide translation services both to and from Loxicha Zapotec, allowing clients on both sides of the language barrier to access the services they need.
Because the number of Loxicha Zapotec speakers is quite small and around one-third of them are monolinguals, the pool of potential Loxicha Zapotec translators is quite small—but despite that, we do our best to offer specialty translation services, such as academic translation, business translation, literary translation, and localization services. If you’re looking to disseminate a research survey in the area, we can translate it into Loxicha Zapotec, just as we can help organizations hoping to cater to the indigenous population. We’re always happy to help creatives and language activists translate literary or digital content into Loxicha Zapotec as well—and, of course, we can always translate any document in Loxicha Zapotec into English.
Ready for top-notch Loxicha Zapotec translation services? Send us a message so we can discuss your translation needs!
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