1. Varieties

Ethnologue lists three major varieties:

• Triqui de Copala spoken by 15,000 people (1990 census) in San Juan Copala, Oaxaca (and recently due to migrations in the San Quintín valley, Baja California).
• Triqui de San Andrés Chicahuaxtla spoken by 6,000 people in San Andrés Chicahuaxtla, Oaxaca.
• Triqui de San Martín Itunyoso spoken by 2,000 people (1983 survey) in San Martín Itunyoso, Oaxaca.

Mexico's federal agency for its indigenous languages, Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI), identifies four varieties of Trique in its Catálogo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales published in early 2008.^[1] The variants listed by INALI are:

2. Phonology

All varieties of Triqui are tonal and have complex phonologies. The tone system of Copala Triqui is the best described and has eight tones.^[3]

Tones in Triqui languages are typically written with superscript numbers,^[3] so that chraa⁵ 'river' indicates the syllable chraa with the highest (5) tone, while cha³na¹ 'woman' has the middle (3) tone on the first syllable and the lowest (1) tone on the second syllable.

Of the Triqui languages, the Copala dialect has undergone the most vowel loss, with many non-final syllables losing their vowels. The result, as in many other Oto-Manguean languages, is a complex set of consonant clusters. So, for instance, the word si⁵kuj⁵ 'cow' in Itunyoso Triqui corresponds to skuj⁵ in Copala Triqui.

The tonal phonology of other Triqui languages is more complex than Copala Triqui. The tone system of Itunyoso Triqui has nine tones.^[4] The tone system of Chicahuaxtla Triqui has at least 10 tones ^[5] but may have as many as 16.^[6]

3. Orthography

Triqui has been written in a number of different orthographies, depending on the intended audience. Linguists typically write the language with all tones fully marked and all phonemes represented. However, in works intended for native speakers of Triqui, a practical orthography is often used with a somewhat simpler representation.

The following Copala Triqui example is written in both the linguistic and the practical orthographies:^[7]

'To whom are you speaking?' (¿Con quién estás hablando?)

4. Morphology

Triqui morphology is fairly limited. Verbs take a /k-/ prefix (spelled c- or qu-) to show completive aspect:

A'mii³² zo'¹. 'You are speaking'.

C-a'mii³² zo'¹. 'You spoke'.

The same /k-/ prefix plus a tonal change shows the potential aspect:

C-a'mii² zo'¹. 'You will speak.'

The tonal changes associated with the potential aspect are complex but always involve lowering the tone of the root (Hollenbach 1984).

There are also complex phonological processes that are triggered by the presence of root-final clitic pronouns. These pronouns (especially the first- and the second-person singular) may change the shape of the stem or alter its tone.

As a language subfamily, Triqui is interesting for having a large tonal inventory, complex morphophonology, and interesting syntactic phenomena, much of which has yet to be described.

5. Syntax

Copala Triqui has a verb-subject-object word order:

'Maria put the tortilla in the tenate.'

Copala Triqui has an accusative marker maa³ or man³, which is obligatory for animate pronominal objects but optional otherwise:

'Maria saw the tortilla.'

'Maria saw you.'

This use of the accusative before some objects and not others is what is called differential object marking.

The following example (repeated from above) shows a Copala Triqui question:

'To whom are you speaking?' (¿Con quién estas hablando?)

As this example shows, Copala Trique has wh-movement and pied-piping with inversion.

Copala Triqui syntax is described in Hollenbach (1992).

Triqui is interesting for having toggle processes as well. For negation, a completive aspect prefix signifies the negative potential. A potential aspect prefix in the same context signifies the negative completive.

6. Sample Text

The following is a sample of Copala Triqui taken from a legend about the sun and the moon.^[8] The first column is Copala Triqui, the second is a Spanish translation, and the third is an English translation.

7. Media

Triqui-language programming is carried by the CDI's radio stations XEQIN-AM, based in San Quintín, Baja California, and XETLA, based in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca.

8. Use

As of 2012, the Natividad Medical Center of Salinas, California was training medical interpreters bilingual in one of the Oaxacan languages (including Trique, Mixteco, or Zapotec), as well as in Spanish.^[9] In March 2014, Natividad Medical Foundation launched Indigenous Interpreting+, "a community and medical interpreting business specializing in indigenous languages from Mexico and Central and South America," including Trique, Mixteco, Zapotec, and Chatino.^[10]

A Trique-speaking community has also settled in Albany, New York,^[11][12] as well as in northwestern Washington.