Learning a Second Language First

1. Chontal has been classified as a Hokan language; it has no close relatives. It is spoken by some 8000 or 9000 Indians living in the mountains and coastal plain of southern Oaxaca, Mexico. This paper is concerned only with the dialect spoken on the coast;1 I have no data on the Sierra dialect. Chontal is a linguistic island, surrounded on three sides by Zapoteco speakers and bounded on the fourth side by the Pacific. The nearest sizable towns of Mexicans and Zapotecos are two or three days away over rough horseback trails. In spite of this isolation, at present and apparently for at least a generation past the first language taught to the children is Spanish; Chontal appears to be a part of the adult culture and is learned when the adolescent enters into the cultural activities of the adult community. Although the last census lists about 2000 monolinguals, I have yet to find one. They may well be speakers of the Sierra dialect, however.