Abstract
We present a contemporary story entitled Teria written by Víctor Cata in diidxazá, a Zapotec language spoken on the southeastern coast of Oaxaca. Teria is evocative of ritual burial practices among the Isthmus Zapotecs and is illustrative of their longing to tell their stories in their language both in written and oral form. Through the lens of modern prose, we discuss some of the challenges that the local standard orthography (Alfabeto Popular para la escritura del Zapoteco del Istmo) continues to present to both writers and teachers of the language, despite a long tradition of use since 1956. These challenges are related to the definition of what constitutes a word in diidxazá. We consider a number of criteria for the standardization of the orthographic word in diidxazá in order to contribute to the production of literary texts such as Teria. For this purpose, we define the concept of orthographic word on the basis of the phonological and grammatical word in diidxazá.