Usila Chinantec

Usila
Native to	Mexico
Region	Oaxaca, one town in Veracruz
Ethnicity	Chinantecs
Native speakers	(7,400 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Oto-Mangue Western Oto-Mangue Oto-Pame–Chinantecan Chinantec Usila
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cuc
Glottolog	usil1237
ELP	Upper West-Central Chinantec

Usila is a Chinantec language of Mexico. It is most similar to Tlacoatzintepec Chinantec, with which it has 50% intelligibility (intelligibility in the reverse direction is 85%, presumably due to greater familiarity in that direction).[2]

Phonology

the register-tone inventory of Usila Chinantec

Like other Chinantecan and Mazatec languages, Usila Chinantec is a tonal language noted for having whistled speech. Its tone system is unusually finely graded, however, with five register tones and four contour tones.[3]

References

1. Usila at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. "Chinantec, Usila | Ethnologue".
3. Edmondson, Jerold A. & Gregerson, Kenneth J. (1992). On Five-level Tone Systems. In Shin Ja J. Hwang & William R. Merrifield (Eds.), Language in Context: Essays for Robert E. Longacre (pp. 555-576). Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.