Classification of Mixtec languages

Josserand (1983:106) lists 5 major geographic (not linguistic) divisions of Mixtec, which together cover a total of about 25,000 square kilometers.

Enclaves of Amuzgo, Trique, Cuicatec, Ixcatec, and Chocho speakers are scattered nearby.

To these, his contemporaries added the dialects of Guerrero:[1] Josserand found that native mundane writing of the colonial era corresponded well to de los Reyes; based on phonological and orthographic consistencies, she divides the dialects into five groups, as follows: The following classification is given by William R. Holland (1959), as cited in Josserand (1983:134-135).

However, Josserand (1983) states that these groupings are based on flawed methodologies, including a faulty conception of the geographical layout of the Mixteca.

Cornelia Mak and Robert Longacre (1960) is the first reconstruction of Proto-Mixtec, which is the ancestor of Mixtec proper as opposed to Mixtecan.

The following classification, based on "archaeological, ethnohistorical and modern information in his delimitation of interaction spheres within the Mixteca",[5] is given by Richard Spores in The Mixtec Kings and Their People (1967), as cited in Josserand (1983:128).