01
The Sierra del Nayar
The Corachol languages are spoken in the rugged canyon country of the Sierra Madre Occidental, where the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Durango and Zacatecas meet. Cora, whose speakers call themselves Náayeri, is spoken mainly in Nayarit, around Jesús María, Mesa del Nayar and Santa Teresa. Huichol, whose speakers call themselves Wixáritari and their language Wixárika, is spoken to the south and east, chiefly in northern Jalisco and Nayarit. Both peoples farm maize in the mountains, and both have kept a distinctive religious life. The Huichol pilgrimage to Wirikuta in the desert of San Luis Potosí is the best known of its ceremonies.
The two languages are clearly related but not mutually intelligible. Campbell and Langacker set out the sound changes they share in 1978, and Corachol is one of the best-supported subgroups of Southern Uto-Aztecan. Its relation to Aztecan is less certain: some scholars see a common ancestor, others centuries of contact.
The mountains long protected both peoples. The Cora of the Mesa del Nayar held out against Spanish rule until 1722, two centuries after the fall of Tenochtitlan, and the Huichol communities, though later brought under missions, kept much of their autonomy.
02
Space in the Grammar, and the Languages Today
Cora is known in linguistics for how much of its grammar is about space. Verbs carry prefixes that locate an action relative to the slope of the land, to the speaker and to boundaries, and the same prefixes extend from physical senses such as 'inside' and 'outside' to meanings such as being within view. Eugene Casad and Ronald Langacker made this system a classic study in cognitive grammar in the 1980s, arguing that the meanings follow from how Cora speakers picture the mountainous terrain around them. Huichol has a similarly rich set of verbal prefixes, and both languages build long words out of many small parts.
Both are still learned by children in many communities. Mexico's 2020 census counted about 60,000 speakers of Huichol and about 33,000 of Cora aged three and over, and since 2003 both have been national languages of Mexico. Huichol in particular has a growing written use in schools, religious texts and the captions of Huichol artists, whose yarn paintings and beadwork have made the Wixárika name widely known. Spanish is nonetheless spreading, especially among families who move to the towns and cities of the lowlands.
Where it’s spoken
- Mexico
Turning points
- SplitContested
Cora and Huichol diverge
The common ancestor of Cora and Huichol splits into the two languages in the Sierra Madre Occidental. The date is a rough estimate, and whether Corachol first shared a period of common development with Aztecan is disputed.
Sources (2)
- Contact
The conquest of the Nayar
Spanish forces take the Mesa del Nayar, the last independent Cora stronghold, and Jesuit missions are founded among the Cora. The Huichol, further from the missions, keep much of their autonomy.
Sources (1)
- Writing
Ortega's Cora vocabulary
The Jesuit missionary José de Ortega publishes a Spanish–Cora vocabulary in Mexico City, the first printed work in a Corachol language, written in the Latin alphabet.
Sources (1)
Contested classifications
- Minority position
Corachol-Aztecan
Evidence for
Campbell and Langacker (1978) proposed shared sound changes, among them a change in one of the Proto-Uto-Aztecan vowels and the weakening of word-initial *p to h, which later disappeared entirely in Nahuatl.
Evidence against
Terrence Kaufman and Karen Dakin argue that the shared features are better explained by long contact between neighbouring peoples in western Mexico, and the proposed shared sound changes are few and open to other interpretations. Many classifications list Corachol and Aztecan as separate branches of Southern Uto-Aztecan.
Sources (2)