John Kingston writes:
Emiliana Cruz, our colleague in Anthropology, Etna Pascacio, a visitor from Mexico to the department since January, Jeremy Pasquereau, and I just returned from a very stimulating workshop "Sound Systems of Mexico and Central America" organized by Ryan Bennett at Yale (http://pantheon.yale.edu/~rtb27/ssmca.html). Emiliana spoke about the 15 tones in the Chatino of San Juan Quiahije (the 15th only just discovered the day before her talk!), Etna gave a poster about her analysis of the synchrony and diachrony of alveolar fricatives and affricates in Matlazinca, and I gave the second of a two-part talk describing and explaining the development of vowel register distinctions and nasal grades in the Chatino of San Miguel Panixtlahuaca -- the first part was given by Tony Woodbury of the University of Texas, Austin. The meeting was also a chance to hear talks from various instructors and participants at the Talleres de Tonos organized by Emiliana in Oaxaca the last two summers. The purpose of the Talleres is to train native speakers of Otomanguean languages in the linguistic analysis of their languages. The third Taller will be held this June 17-27.
