Santa María Ixcatlán y la lengua xjuani

Xula or Ixcatlán is located in the Cañada region and it is a municipality of Teotitlán de Flores Magón, in the state of Oaxaca. There is not much information about this village's origin; however, there is evidence that shows that it was settled before the arrival of the Spaniards. Ixcatlán is an indigenous village with a population of approximately 573 people. In this village there are 6 elders that continue to use the Ixcatec language, but the rest of the townsfolk speak only Spanish; for them the Ixcatec language is no longer a language of communication. The decrease of Ixcatec language speakers has three main causes: the decline of inhabitants during the sixteenth century, the migration away from the village in different decades of the twentieth century, and imposition of the Spanish language by the Mexican rural schools since the 40's. The Ixcatec language is one of four languages of the Popolocan linguistic family of the Otomanguean stock. Ixcatec share certain linguistic characteristics with other Otomanguean languages, for example, it has tones, nasalized vowels and glottalized vowels, and the canonical word order is: verb + subject + object. Due to its endangered status and its linguistic characteristics, this language holds a great interest to government agencies, academic institutions and independent linguistic activists, which, aiming to strengthen the Ixcatec language, have implemented various documentation, teaching and linguistic awareness projects.