1995). The description is based on acoustic analysis and contemporary forms of phonological analysis. To give an overview of the phonological variety among Mazatecan languages, it is presented here and compared to the earlier description of Chiquihuitlán Mazatec published by the SIL linguist A. R. Jamieson, in 1977, which is not based on modern acoustic analysis and relies on a much more dated phonological theory and so it should be regarded as a tentative account. One fundamental distinction between the analyses is that Silverman et al. analyze distinctions between aspirated and nasalized consonants, but Jamieson analyzes them as sequences of two or more phonemes, arriving therefore at a much smaller number of consonants. Vowels There is considerable differences in the number of vowels in different Mazatec varieties. Huautla de Jíménez Mazatec has only four contrasting vowel qualities /i e a o/, and Chiquihuitlán has six. Jalapa Mazatec has a basic five vowel system contrasting back and front vowels and closed and open vowel height, with an additional mid high back vowel . Additional vowels distinguish oral, nasal, breathy and creaky phonation types. There is some evidence that there are also ballistic syllables contrasting with non-ballistic ones. Chiquihuitlán Mazatec on the other hand is described as having 6 vowels and a nasal distinction. Jamieson does not describe a creaky/breathy phonation distinction but instead describes vowels interrupted by glottal stop or aspiration corresponding to creakiness and breathiness respectively. Tone Tone systems differ markedly between varieties. Jalapa Mazatec has three level tones (high, mid, low) and at least 6 contour tones (high-mid, low-mid, mid-low, mid-high, low-high, high-low-high). Chiquihuitlán Mazatec has a more complex tone system with four level tones (high, midhigh, midlow, low) and 13 different contour tones (high-low, midhigh-low, midlow-low, high-high (longer than a single high), midhigh-high, midlow-high, low-high, high-high-low, midhigh-high-low, midlow-high-low, low-high-low, low-midhigh-low, low-midhigh). Mazatec of Huautla de Jiménez´ has distinctive tones on every syllable, and the same seems to be the case in Chiquihuitlán. Mazatec distinguishes tone only for certain syllables. Huautla Mazatec has no system of tonal sandhi, but the Chiquihuitlán variety has complex sandhi rules. Consonants Jalapa Mazatec has a three-way contrast between aspirated/voiceless, voiced, and nasalized articulation for all plosives, nasals and approximants. The lateral occurs only in loanwords, and the tap occurs in only one morpheme, the clitic a "probably". The bilabial aspirated and plain stops are also marginal phonemes. Huautla Mazatec Vowels Consonants // may