Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan (or Aztecan) branch which was spoken in and around the town of Pochutla on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Most thought Pochutec was distinct from Nahuatl, and this was proven in 1978, when Campbell and Langacker gave new arguments[3] from Boas' data.
Bartholomew (1980) suggests that some of the divergent traits, for example last syllable stress, are due to influence from Chatino, an Oto-Manguean language.
Dakin (1983) argues that the key correspondence sets used by Campbell and Langacker as evidence for the existence of a separate fifth vowel *ï evolving from pUA *u, their main basis for separating Pochutec from their "General Aztec", were actually later developments within Pochutec by which proto-Aztec *i and *e > o in closed syllables, and that the supposed contrast in final position in imperatives originally had had a following clitic.
[9] In a later article, Canger and Dakin (1985) identify a different, very systematic isogloss for the development of pUA *u that shows a basic split between Eastern Nahuatl dialects and the Central and Western periphery, including Pochutec, as exemplified in at least eight different cognate sets.