The language spoken in Santa Catarina Xanaguía (Ethnologue code ztg), which is also spoken in San Francisco Ozolotepec and San José Ozolotepec, is a member of the Zapotecan language family. The language area is located south of Oaxaca City, in southern Oaxaca in southern Mexico (see map). (San Francisco Ozolotepec is located at 16°4'10" N, 96°12'31" W, Santa Catarina Xanaguía at 16°04'26" N, 96°13'35" W, and San José at 16°05'11" N, 96°12'54" W.) About 10 other towns with the Ozolotepec name, such as Santa Cruz, San Miguel, and Santa María Ozolotepec, speak a different Zapotecan language, which has been referred to as Ozolotepec Zapotec in the Ethnologue.

There are approximately 1600 speakers of this variant of Zapotec.

The town of San Francisco Ozolotepec is at about 2000 m. altitude, in a cloud forest which quite often is under heavy fog. About 4.5 hours by car from the nearest market town, it is quite remote and has very steep terrain.

Though the land is mostly used for subsistence farming, oregano and coffee are grown as cash crops to a minimal extent. San Francisco Ozolotepec has a high school which serves at least six towns in the region. Each year, San Francisco Ozolotepec hosts the celebration of the fourth Friday of Lent (Cuaresma). Visitors often come from other towns, and those from San Francisco Ozolotepec that have moved to the city of Oaxaca often return for the celebration.

Xanaguía Zapotec often uses certain nouns in full form, such as minn 'person' or nay 'woman', where many other languages would use third person pronouns, since Xanaguía Zapotec does not have the latter.

--Jennifer Lynn Heise

The photograph of the three women is used with their permission.

• Participant Reference and Tracking in San Francisco Ozolotepec Zapotec
• technical articles, including:
  • Narrative peak in Xanaguia Zapotec (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)
  • Speech verbs in Xanaguia Zapotec (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)

Heise, Jennifer Lynn. 2003. Participant reference and tracking in San Francisco Ozolotepec Zapotec, M.A. Thesis. Dallas, TX: Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics.

Hopkins, Mary L. 1995. Narrative peak in Xanaguía Zapotec. SIL Mexico Workpapers 11: 17-36.

Leander, Anita J.. 2008. Acoustic correlates of fortis/lenis in San Francisco Ozolotepec Zapotec, M.A. Thesis. Grand Forks, ND: University of North Dakota.

Olive, Julie N. 1995. Speech verbs in Xanaguía Zapotec narrative. SIL Mexico Workpapers 11: 47-52.