Román speaking Zapotec and San Juan Guelavía

This video was recorded by Daniel Bogre Udell in Cusco, Peru, where he and Román were visiting for the Tinkuy textiles festival, organized by the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco. Zapotec is spoken by as many as 450,000 people, primarily in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, as well as the neighboring states of Puebla, Veracruz, and Guerrero. It is also spoken by diaspora populations worldwide, especially in the United States. Although commonly described as a single language, Zapotec is rich in dialect diversity, with regional differences comparable to those between different Romance or Arabic languages. Researchers therefore often consider Zapotec to be more a linguistic family than a single mother tongue. Since 2003, it has been officially recognized by the federal government in Mexico as a national indigenous language.