HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the
Uto-Aztecan language family Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...
. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about
Nahua peoples The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, ...
, most of whom live mainly in Central
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and have smaller populations in the United States. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE. It was the language of the
Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...
/ Mexica, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. During the centuries preceding the Spanish and Tlaxcalan conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico. Their influence caused the variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of
Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
to become a
prestige language Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
in Mesoamerica. After the conquest, when Spanish colonists and missionaries introduced the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
, Nahuatl also became a
literary language A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken langua ...
. Many chronicles,
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
s, works of
poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
, administrative
document A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" o ...
s and
codices The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
were written in it during the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl. It is among the most studied and best-documented languages of the Americas. Today,
Nahuan languages The Nahuan or Aztecan languages are those languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family that have undergone a sound change, known as Whorf's law, that changed an original *t to before *a. Subsequently, some Nahuan languages have changed this to ...
are spoken in scattered communities, mostly in rural areas throughout central Mexico and along the coastline. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are not mutually intelligible.
Huasteca Nahuatl Huasteca Nahuatl is a Nahuan language spoken by over a million people in the region of La Huasteca in Mexico, centered in the states of Hidalgo (Eastern) and San Luis Potosí (Western). ''Ethnologue'' divides Huasteca Nahuatl into three langu ...
, with over one million speakers, is the most-spoken variety. All varieties have been subject to varying degrees of
influence Influence or influencer may refer to: *Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships ** Minority influence, when the minority affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority *Influencer marketing, through individ ...
from Spanish. No modern Nahuan languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the
Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico w ...
are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Under Mexico's '' General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples'', promulgated in 2003, Nahuatl and the other 63 indigenous languages of Mexico are recognized as ('national languages') in the regions where they are spoken. They are given the same status as Spanish within their respective regions.By the provisions of Article IV: ''Las lenguas indígenas...y el español son lenguas nacionales...y tienen la misma validez en su territorio, localización y contexto en que se hablen.'' ("The indigenous languages ... and Spanish are national languages ... and have the same validity in their territory, location and context in which they are spoken.") Nahuan languages exhibit a complex
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
, or system of word formation, characterized by
polysynthesis In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
and
agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
. This means that morphemes – words or fragments of words that each contain their own separate meaning – are often strung together to make longer complex words. Through a very long period of development alongside other indigenous Mesoamerican languages, they have absorbed many influences, coming to form part of the
Mesoamerican language area The Mesoamerican language area is a ''sprachbund'' containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethn ...
. Many words from Nahuatl were absorbed into Spanish and, from there, were diffused into hundreds of other languages in the region. Most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico, which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English has also absorbed words of Nahuatl origin, including ''
avocado The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family ( Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for ...
'', ''
chayote Chayote (''Sechium edule''), also known as mirliton and choko, is an edible plant belonging to the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. This fruit was first cultivated in Mesoamerica between southern Mexico and Honduras, with the most genetic diversity ...
'', ''chili'', ''
chipotle A chipotle (, ; ), or ''chilpotle'', is a smoke-dried ripe jalapeño chili pepper used for seasoning. It is a chili used primarily in Mexican and Mexican-inspired cuisines, such as Tex-Mex and Southwestern United States dishes. It comes in dif ...
'', ''
chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
'', ''atlatl'', '' coyote'', '' peyote'', ''
axolotl The axolotl (; from nci, āxōlōtl ), ''Ambystoma mexicanum'', is a paedomorphic salamander closely related to the tiger salamander. Axolotls are unusual among amphibians in that they reach adulthood without undergoing metamorphosis. I ...
'' and ''
tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
''.


Classification

As a language label, the term ''Nahuatl'' encompasses a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects within the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The Mexican
Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (National Indigenous Languages Institute, better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos d ...
(National Institute of Indigenous Languages) recognizes 30 individual varieties within the "language group" labeled Nahuatl. The Ethnologue recognizes 28 varieties with separate ISO codes. Sometimes Nahuatl is also applied to the
Pipil language Nawat (academically Pipil, also known as Nicarao) is a Nahuan language native to Central America. It is the southernmost extant member of the Uto-Aztecan family. It was spoken in several parts of present-day Central America before the Spanish c ...
(''Nawat'') of El Salvador and
Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
. Regardless of whether ''Nahuatl'' is considered to refer to a dialect continuum or a group of separate languages, the varieties form a single branch within the Uto-Aztecan family, descended from a single Proto-Nahuan language. Within Mexico, the question of whether to consider individual varieties to be languages or dialects of a single language is highly political. In the past, the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs has been called ''Aztecan''. From the 1990s onward, the alternative designation ''Nahuan'' has been frequently used instead, especially in Spanish-language publications. The Nahuan (Aztecan) branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions: General Aztec and Pochutec. General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages."General Aztec is a generally accepted term referring to the most shallow common stage, reconstructed for all present-day Nahuatl varieties; it does not include the Pochutec dialect ."
Pochutec 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. In 1917 it was documented in a monograph by Franz Boas, who considered the ...
is a scantily attested language, which became extinct in the 20th century, and which Campbell and Langacker classify as being outside general Aztec. Other researchers have argued that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery. ''Nahuatl'' denotes at least Classical Nahuatl, together with related modern languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil in this group is debated among linguists. Lyle classified Pipil as separate from the Nahuatl branch within general Aztecan, whereas dialectologists such as
Una Canger Una Canger (''née'' Una Rasmussen; born May 14, 1938) is a Danish linguist specializing in languages of Mesoamerica. She has published mostly about the Nahuatl language with a particular focus on the dialectology of Modern Nahuatl, and is consid ...
, Karen Dakin,
Yolanda Lastra Yolanda Lastra de Suárez (born 1932) is a Mexican linguist specializing in the descriptive linguistics of the indigenous languages of Mexico. She obtained her PhD degree in 1963 from Cornell University, her dissertation written under the guidance ...
, and Terrence Kaufman have preferred to include Pipil within the General Aztecan branch, citing close historical ties with the eastern peripheral dialects of General Aztec. Current subclassification of Nahuatl rests on research by , and . Canger introduced the scheme of a Central grouping and two Peripheral groups, and Lastra confirmed this notion, differing in some details. demonstrated a basic split between Eastern and Western branches of Nahuan, considered to reflect the oldest division of the proto-Nahuan speech community. Canger originally considered the central dialect area to be an innovative subarea within the Western branch, but in 2011, she suggested that it arose as an urban
koiné language In linguistics, a koiné language, koiné dialect, or simply koiné (Ancient Greek κοινή, "common anguage) is a standard or common language or dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two or ...
with features from both Western and Eastern dialect areas. tentatively included dialects of
La Huasteca La Huasteca is a geographical and cultural region located partially along the Gulf of Mexico and including parts of the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Guanajuato. It is roughly defined as the area ...
in the Central group, while places them in the Eastern Periphery, which was followed by .


Terminology

The terminology used to describe varieties of spoken Nahuatl is inconsistently applied. Many terms are used with multiple denotations, or a single dialect grouping goes under several names. Sometimes, older terms are substituted with newer ones or with the speakers' own name for their specific variety. The word ''Nahuatl'' is itself a Nahuatl word, probably derived from the word ('clear language'). The language was formerly called Aztec because it was spoken by the Central Mexican peoples known as
Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...
s (). During the period of the Aztec empire centered in Mexico-
Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
the language came to be identified with the politically dominant ethnic group, and consequently the Nahuatl language was often described as (literally 'in the manner of Mexicas') or ''mēxihcatlahtolli'' 'Mexica language'. Now, the term ''Aztec'' is rarely used for modern Nahuan languages, but linguists' traditional name of ''Aztecan'' for the branch of Uto-Aztecan that comprises Nahuatl, Pipil, and Pochutec is still in use (although some linguists prefer ''Nahuan''). Since 1978, the term ''General Aztec'' has been adopted by linguists to refer to the languages of the Aztecan branch excluding the
Pochutec language 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. In 1917 it was documented in a monograph by Franz Boas, who considered t ...
. The speakers of Nahuatl themselves often refer to their language as either ''Mexicano'' or some word derived from '' mācēhualli'', the Nahuatl word for 'commoner'. One example of the latter is the Nahuatl spoken in
Tetelcingo Tetelcingo is a town in Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico. Located about 6 kilometers north of the city of Cuautla, Tetelcingo and the neighborhoods Colonia Cuauhtémoc and Colonia Lázaro Cárdenas are practically swallowed up in the urban area. Tetelcingo ...
, Morelos, whose speakers call their language . The
Pipil people The Nahua people, also academically referred to as ''Pipil'', are an indigenous group of Mesoamerican people inhabiting the western and central areas of present-day El Salvador. Although very few speakers are now left, they speak the Nawat lan ...
of El Salvador do not call their own language Pipil, as most linguists do, but rather . The Nahuas of Durango call their language ''Mexicanero''. Speakers of Nahuatl of the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the T ...
call their language ('the straight language'). Some speech communities use ''Nahuatl'' as the name for their language, although it seems to be a recent innovation. Linguists commonly identify localized dialects of Nahuatl by adding as a qualifier the name of the village or area where that variety is spoken.


History


Pre-Columbian period

On the issue of geographic origin, the consensus of linguists during the 20th century was that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in the southwestern United States. Evidence from archaeology and ethnohistory supports the thesis of a southward diffusion across the North American continent, specifically that speakers of early Nahuan languages migrated from
Aridoamerica Aridoamerica denotes an ecological region spanning Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, defined by the presence of the culturally significant staple foodstuff ''Phaseolus acutifolius'', a drought-resistant bean.Pratt and Nabhan ...
into central Mexico in several waves. But recently, the traditional assessment has been challenged by Jane H. Hill, who proposes instead that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in central Mexico and spread northwards at a very early date. This hypothesis and the analyses of data that it rests upon have received serious criticism. The proposed migration of speakers of the Proto-Nahuan language into the
Mesoamerican region The Mesoamerican region (often abbreviated MAR) is a trans-national economic region in the Americas that is recognized by the OECD and other economic and developmental organizations, comprising the united economies of the seven countries in Centr ...
has been placed at sometime around AD 500, towards the end of the Early Classic period in
Mesoamerican chronology Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE –&nb ...
. Before reaching the
Mexican Plateau The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano ( es, Altiplanicie Mexicana), is a large arid-to-semiarid plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico. Averaging above sea level, it extends from the United States b ...
, pre-Nahuan groups probably spent a period of time in contact with the
Corachol languages Corachol (alternatively Coracholan, Cora-Huichol or Coran) is a grouping of languages within the Uto-Aztecan language family. The living members of Coracholan are the Huichol and Cora languages, spoken by communities in Jalisco and Nayarit, state ...
Cora and
Huichol The Huichol or Wixárika are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California ...
of northwestern Mexico (which are also Uto-Aztecan). The major political and cultural center of Mesoamerica in the Early Classic period was
Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is known today as t ...
. The identity of the language(s) spoken by Teotihuacan's founders has long been debated, with the relationship of Nahuatl to Teotihuacan being prominent in that enquiry. While in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was presumed that Teotihuacan had been founded by speakers of Nahuatl, later linguistic and archaeological research tended to disconfirm this view. Instead, the timing of the Nahuatl influx was seen to coincide more closely with Teotihuacan's fall than its rise, and other candidates such as Totonacan identified as more likely. But recently, evidence from Mayan epigraphy of possible Nahuatl loanwords in Mayan languages has been interpreted as demonstrating that other Mesoamerican languages may have been borrowing words from Proto-Nahuan (or its early descendants) significantly earlier than previously thought, bolstering the possibility of a significant Nahuatl presence at Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerica the
Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...
,
Oto-Manguean The Oto-Manguean or Otomanguean languages are a large family comprising several subfamilies of indigenous languages of the Americas. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but the Manguean branch of the ...
and
Mixe–Zoque languages The Mixe–Zoque (also: Mixe–Zoquean, Mije–Soke, Mije–Sokean) languages are a language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The Mexican government recognizes three distinct Mixe–Zoquean ...
had coexisted for millennia. This had given rise to the
Mesoamerican language area The Mesoamerican language area is a ''sprachbund'' containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethn ...
(''language area'' refers to a set of language traits have become common among the area's languages by diffusion and not by evolution within a set of languages belonging to a common genetic subgrouping). After the Nahuas migrated into the Mesoamerican cultural zone, their language too adopted some of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Examples of such adopted traits are the use of
relational noun Relational nouns or relator nouns are a class of words used in many languages. They are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions (i.e. prepositions and postposi ...
s, the appearance of
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
s, or loan translations, and a form of possessive construction typical of Mesoamerican languages. A language which was the ancestor of Pochutec split from Proto-Nahuan (or Proto-Aztecan) possibly as early as AD 400, arriving in Mesoamerica a few centuries earlier than the bulk of speakers of Nahuan languages. Some Nahuan groups migrated south along the
Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
n isthmus, reaching as far as
Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
. The critically endangered Pipil language of El Salvador is the only living descendant of the variety of Nahuatl once spoken south of present-day Mexico. Beginning in the 7th century, Nahuan speakers rose to power in central Mexico. The people of the
Toltec The Toltec culture () was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. T ...
culture of Tula, which was active in central Mexico around the 10th century, are thought to have been Nahuatl speakers. By the 11th century, Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the
Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico w ...
and far beyond, with settlements including
Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( nci, Āzcapōtzalco , , from '' āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + '' -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. Azcapotzalco is in the northwestern p ...
, Colhuacan and Cholula rising to prominence. Nahua migrations into the region from the north continued into the
Postclassic period Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE –  ...
. One of the last of these migrations to arrive in the Valley of Mexico settled on an island in the
Lake Texcoco Lake Texcoco ( es, Lago de Texcoco) was a natural lake within the "Anahuac" or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is best known as where the Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan, which was located on an island within the lake. After the Spanish con ...
and proceeded to subjugate the surrounding tribes. This group was the Mexica, who over the course of the next three centuries founded an empire named
Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
. Their political and linguistic influence came to extend into Central America and Nahuatl became a lingua franca among merchants and elites in Mesoamerica, e.g., among the Maya
K'iche' people K'iche', K'ichee', or Quiché may refer to: * K'iche' people of Guatemala, a subgroup of the Maya * K'iche' language, a Maya language spoken by the K'iche' people ** Classical K'iche' language, the 16th century form of the K'iche' language * Kʼich ...
. As Tenochtitlan grew to become the largest urban center in Central America and one of the largest in the world at the time, it attracted speakers of Nahuatl from diverse areas giving birth to an urban form of Nahuatl with traits from many dialects. This urbanized variety of Tenochtitlan is what came to be known as Classical Nahuatl as documented in colonial times.


Colonial period

With the arrival of the
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
in 1519, Nahuatl was displaced as the dominant regional language, but remained important in Nahua communities under Spanish rule. There is extensive colonial-era documentation in Nahuatl for
Tlaxcala Tlaxcala (; , ; from nah, Tlaxcallān ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipaliti ...
, Cuernavaca, Culhuacan, Coyoacan, Toluca and other locations in the Valley of Mexico and beyond. Starting in the 1970s, scholars of
Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
n
ethnohistory Ethnohistory is the study of cultures and indigenous peoples customs by examining historical records as well as other sources of information on their lives and history. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may n ...
have analyzed local-level texts in Nahuatl and other indigenous languages to gain insight into cultural change in the colonial era via linguistic changes, known at present as the
New Philology New Philology generally refers to a branch of Mexican ethnohistory and philology that uses colonial-era native language texts written by Indians to construct history from the indigenous point of view. The name New Philology was coined by James Loc ...
. A number of these texts have been translated and published in part or in their entirety. The types of documentation include censuses, especially a very early set from the Cuernavaca region, town council records from Tlaxcala, and testaments of individual Nahuas. Since the Spanish made alliances with first the Nahuatl speakers from
Tlaxcala Tlaxcala (; , ; from nah, Tlaxcallān ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipaliti ...
and later with the conquered Mexica of Tenochtitlan (Aztecs), the Nahuatl continued spreading throughout Mesoamerica in the decades after the conquest. Spanish expeditions with thousands of Nahua soldiers marched north and south to conquer new territories.
Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...
missions in northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States often included a '' barrio'' of Tlaxcaltec soldiers who remained to guard the mission. For example, some fourteen years after the northeastern city of
Saltillo Saltillo () is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila and is also the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. Mexico City, Monterrey, and Saltillo are all connected by a major railroad and highwa ...
was founded in 1577, a Tlaxcaltec community was resettled in a separate nearby village,
San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala was a Tlaxcalan municipality in what is now the Mexican state of Coahuila. San Esteban was the northernmost of the six Tlaxcalan colonies established in 1591 at the behest of the Viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velas ...
, to cultivate the land and aid colonization efforts that had stalled in the face of local hostility to the Spanish settlement. As for the conquest of modern-day Central America, Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala with the help of tens of thousands of Tlaxcaltec allies, who then settled outside of modern-day Antigua Guatemala. As a part of their missionary efforts, members of various religious orders (principally
Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...
and Dominican friars and Jesuits) introduced the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
to the Nahuas. Within the first twenty years after the Spanish arrival, texts were being prepared in the Nahuatl language written in Latin characters. Simultaneously, schools were founded, such as the
Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco The Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, is the first and oldest European school of higher learning in the Americas and the first major school of interpreters and translators in the New World. It was established by the Franciscans ...
in 1536, which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Native Americans and
priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
s. Missionary grammarians undertook the writing of
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
s, also called ''artes'', of indigenous languages for use by priests. The first Nahuatl grammar, written by
Andrés de Olmos Andrés de Olmos (c.1485 – 8 October 1571) was a Spanish Franciscan priest and grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's indigenous languages and peoples. He was born in Oña, Burgos, Spain and died in Tampico in New Spain (modern-day Ta ...
, was published in 1547 – three years before the first French grammar. By 1645, four more had been published, authored respectively by
Alonso de Molina Alonso de Molina (1513. or 1514.. – 1579 or 1585) was a Franciscan priest and grammarian, who wrote a well-known dictionary of the Nahuatl language published in 1571 and still used by scholars working on Nahuatl texts in the tradition of th ...
(1571), Antonio del Rincón (1595), Diego de Galdo Guzmán (1642), and
Horacio Carochi Horacio Carochi (1586–1666) was a Jesuit priest and grammarian who was born in Florence and died in New Spain. He is known for his grammar of the Classical Nahuatl language. Life Carochi was born in Florence. He went to Rome where he entered ...
(1645). Carochi's is today considered the most important of the colonial-era grammars of Nahuatl. Carochi has been particularly important for scholars working in the New Philology, such that there is a 2001 English translation of Carochi's 1645 grammar by James Lockhart. Through contact with Spanish the Nahuatl language adopted many loan words, and as bilingualism intensified, changes in the grammatical structure of Nahuatl followed. In 1570, King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain in order to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies. This led to Spanish missionaries teaching Nahuatl to Amerindians living as far south as Honduras and El Salvador. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language, and a large corpus of texts from that period exists today. They include histories, chronicles, poetry, theatrical works, Christian canonical works, ethnographic descriptions, and administrative documents. The Spanish permitted a great deal of autonomy in the local administration of indigenous towns during this period, and in many Nahuatl-speaking towns the language was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. A large body of
Nahuatl literature Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smalle ...
was composed during this period, including the ''
Florentine Codex The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''Th ...
'', a twelve-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan
Bernardino de Sahagún Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, ...
; ''
Crónica Mexicayotl The ''Crónica Mexicayotl'' is a chronicle of the history of the Aztec Empire from the early Nahua migrations to the colonial period, which was written in the Nahuatl language around the 16th century. Its authorship is debated because the earliest ...
'', a chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by
Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc Hernando (de) Alvarado Tezozómoc was a colonial Nahua noble. He was a son of Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin (governor of Tenochtitlan) and Francisca de Moctezuma (a daughter of Moctezuma II). Tezozómoc worked as an interpreter for the Real Au ...
; '' Cantares Mexicanos'', a collection of songs in Nahuatl; a Nahuatl-Spanish/Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by
Alonso de Molina Alonso de Molina (1513. or 1514.. – 1579 or 1585) was a Franciscan priest and grammarian, who wrote a well-known dictionary of the Nahuatl language published in 1571 and still used by scholars working on Nahuatl texts in the tradition of th ...
; and the ''
Huei tlamahuiçoltica ("''The Great Event''") is a tract in Nahuatl comprising 36 pages and was published in Mexico City, Mexico in 1649 by Luis Laso de la Vega, the vicar of the chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac outside the same city. In the preface Lui ...
'', a description in Nahuatl of the apparition of
Our Lady of Guadalupe Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...
. Grammars and dictionaries of indigenous languages were composed throughout the colonial period, but their quality was highest in the initial period. The friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible in practice, so they concentrated on Nahuatl. For a time, the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained relatively stable, but in 1696,
Charles II of Spain Charles II of Spain (''Spanish: Carlos II,'' 6 November 1661 – 1 November 1700), known as the Bewitched (''Spanish: El Hechizado''), was the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire. Best remembered for his physical disabilities and the War ...
issued a
decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used ...
banning the use of any language other than Spanish throughout the
Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
. In 1770, another decree, calling for the elimination of the indigenous languages, did away with Classical Nahuatl as a literary language. Until
Mexican Independence The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...
in 1821, the Spanish courts admitted Nahuatl testimony and documentation as evidence in lawsuits, with court translators rendering it in Spanish.


Modern period

Throughout the modern period the situation of indigenous languages has grown increasingly precarious in Mexico, and the numbers of speakers of virtually all indigenous languages have dwindled. Although the absolute number of Nahuatl speakers has actually risen over the past century, indigenous populations have become increasingly marginalized in Mexican society. In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. By 2000, this proportion had fallen to 1.49%. Given the process of marginalization combined with the trend of migration to urban areas and to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, some linguists are warning of impending
language death In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the de ...
. At present Nahuatl is mostly spoken in rural areas by an impoverished class of indigenous subsistence agriculturists. According to the Mexican national statistics institute,
INEGI The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI by its name in es, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática) is an autonomous agency of the Mexican Government dedicated to coordinate the National System of Sta ...
, 51% of Nahuatl speakers are involved in the farming sector and 6 in 10 receive no wages or less than the minimum wage. From the early 20th century to at least the mid-1980s, educational policies in Mexico focused on the Hispanicization () of indigenous communities, teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of indigenous languages. As a result, today there is no group of Nahuatl speakers having attained general literacy in Nahuatl, while their literacy rate in Spanish also remains much lower than the national average. Even so, Nahuatl is still spoken by well over a million people, of whom around 10% are
monolingual Monoglottism (Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...
. The survival of Nahuatl as a whole is not imminently endangered, but the survival of certain dialects is, and some dialects have already become extinct within the last few decades of the 20th century. The 1990s saw the onset of a radical change in official Mexican government policies towards indigenous and linguistic rights. Developments of accords in the international rights arenaSuch as the 1996 adoption at a world linguistics conference in Barcelona of the
Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (known also as the Barcelona Declaration) is a document signed by the International PEN Club, and several non-governmental organizations in 1996 to support linguistic rights, especially those of endan ...
, a declaration which "became a general reference point for the evolution and discussion of linguistic rights in Mexico"
combined with domestic pressures (such as social and political agitation by the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas (Mexican ), is a far-left political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Since ...
and indigenous social movements) led to legislative reforms and the creation of decentralized government agencies like the
National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples The National Institute of Indigenous Peoples ( es, Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas, INPI) is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was established on December 4, 2018, though the earliest Mexican g ...
(CDI) and the
Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (National Indigenous Languages Institute, better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos d ...
(INALI) with responsibilities for the promotion and protection of indigenous communities and languages. In particular, the federal ''
Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ( en, General Law of Indigenous Peoples' Linguistic Rights) was published in the Mexican '' Official Journal of the Federation'' on 13 March 2003Lang, 2008; p.115 during the term ...
''
General Law on the Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples', promulgated 13 March 2003 A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
recognizes all the country's indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as
national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
s and gives indigenous people the right to use them in all spheres of public and private life. In Article 11, it grants access to compulsory, bilingual and intercultural education. Nonetheless, progress towards institutionalizing Nahuatl and securing linguistic rights for its speakers has been slow.


Demography and distribution

Today, a spectrum of
Nahuan languages The Nahuan or Aztecan languages are those languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family that have undergone a sound change, known as Whorf's law, that changed an original *t to before *a. Subsequently, some Nahuan languages have changed this to ...
are spoken in scattered areas stretching from the northern state of Durango to
Tabasco Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa. It is located in ...
in the southeast. Pipil, the southernmost Nahuan language, is spoken in El Salvador by a small number of speakers. According to IRIN-International, the Nawat Language Recovery Initiative project, there are no reliable figures for the contemporary numbers of speakers of Pipil. Numbers may range anywhere from "perhaps a few hundred people, perhaps only a few dozen". According to the 2000 census by INEGI, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1.45 million people, some 198,000 (14.9%) of whom are monolingual. There are many more female than male monolinguals, and women represent nearly two-thirds of the total number. The states of Guerrero and Hidalgo have the highest rates of monolingual Nahuatl speakers relative to the total Nahuatl speaking population, at 24.2% and 22.6%, respectively. For most other states the percentage of monolinguals among the speakers is less than 5%. This means that in most states more than 95% of the Nahuatl speaking population are bilingual in Spanish. The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla,
Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
,
Hidalgo Hidalgo may refer to: People * Hidalgo (nobility), members of the Spanish nobility * Hidalgo (surname) Places Mexico * Hidalgo (state), in central Mexico * Hidalgo, Coahuila, a town in the north Mexican state of Coahuila * Hidalgo, Nuevo Le ...
, San Luis Potosí, and
Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...
. Significant populations are also found in the State of Mexico, Morelos, and the
Federal District A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they ...
, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Nahuatl became extinct in the states of Jalisco and
Colima Colima (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Colima ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Colima), is one of the 31 states that make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It shares its name with its capital and main city, Colima. Colima i ...
during the 20th century. As a result of internal migration within the country, Nahuatl speaking communities exist in all states in Mexico. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
has resulted in the establishment of a few small Nahuatl speaking communities in the U.S., particularly in
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, New York,
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
,
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
and
Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
.


Phonology

Nahuan languages are defined as a subgroup of Uto-Aztecan by having undergone a number of shared changes from the Uto-Aztecan protolanguage (PUA). The table below shows the
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
inventory of Classical Nahuatl as an example of a typical Nahuan language. In some dialects, the phoneme, which was common in Classical Nahuatl, has changed into either , as in Isthmus Nahuatl,
Mexicanero The Mexicaneros are an indigenous people of Durango and Nayarit, Mexico. They are one of the 62 original cultures of Mexico. They speak the Mexicanero language, one of the Nahuatl dialects. Some 1,300 individuals spoke the Mexicanero language as o ...
and Pipil, or into , as in Nahuatl of Pómaro, Michoacán. Many dialects no longer distinguish between short and long
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s. Some have introduced completely new vowel qualities to compensate, as is the case for
Tetelcingo Nahuatl Tetelcingo Nahuatl, called ''Mösiehuali̱'' by its speakers, is a Nahuatl variety of central Mexico. It is one of the core varieties closely related to Classical Nahuatl. It is spoken in the town of Tetelcingo, Morelos, and the adjacent '' Col ...
. Others have developed a
pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
, such as Nahuatl of Oapan,
Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...
. Many modern dialects have also borrowed phonemes from Spanish, such as .


Phonemes

** The glottal phoneme, called the ''saltillo'', occurs only after vowels. In many modern dialects it is realized as an , but in others, as in Classical Nahuatl, it is a glottal stop . In many Nahuatl dialects vowel length contrast is vague, and in others it has become lost entirely. The dialect of Tetelcingo (nhg) developed the vowel length into a difference in quality:


Allophony

Most varieties have relatively simple patterns of sound alternation (allophony). In many dialects, the voiced consonants are devoiced in word-final position and in consonant clusters: devoices to a
voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceless ...
, devoices to a
voiceless glottal fricative The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called the aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', b ...
or to a
voiceless labialized velar approximant In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
, and devoices to
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , ...
. In some dialects, the first consonant in almost any consonant cluster becomes . Some dialects have productive
lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
of
voiceless consonants In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
into their voiced counterparts between vowels. The
nasals In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
are normally assimilated to the place of articulation of a following consonant. The
voiceless alveolar lateral affricate The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is (often simplified to ), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is (barred lambda). T ...
is assimilated after and pronounced .


Phonotactics

Classical Nahuatl and most of the modern varieties have fairly simple phonological systems. They allow only syllables with maximally one initial and one final consonant. Consonant clusters occur only word-medially and over syllable boundaries. Some
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
s have two alternating forms: one with a vowel ''i'' to prevent consonant clusters and one without it. For example, the
absolutive In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
suffix has the variant forms ''-tli'' (used after consonants) and ''-tl'' (used after vowels). Some modern varieties, however, have formed complex clusters from vowel loss. Others have contracted syllable sequences, causing accents to shift or vowels to become long. and for a brief description of these phenomena in Nahual of Michoacán and Durango respectively


Stress

Most Nahuatl dialects have stress on the penultimate syllable of a word. In Mexicanero from Durango, many unstressed syllables have disappeared from words, and the placement of syllable stress has become phonemic.


Morphology and syntax

The Nahuatl languages are
agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
,
polysynthetic In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
languages that make extensive use of compounding, incorporation and derivation. That is, they can add many different
prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particu ...
and suffixes to a
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
until very long words are formed, and a single word can constitute an entire sentence. The following
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
shows how the verb is marked for subject,
patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...
,
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
, and indirect object:


Nouns

The Nahuatl noun has a relatively complex structure. The only obligatory inflections are for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
(singular and plural) and possession (whether the noun is possessed, as is indicated by a prefix meaning 'my', 'your', etc.). Nahuatl has neither case nor
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
, but Classical Nahuatl and some modern dialects distinguish between
animate Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...
and inanimate nouns. In Classical Nahuatl the animacy distinction manifested with respect to pluralization, as only animate nouns could take a plural form, and all inanimate nouns were uncountable (as the words ''bread'' and ''money'' are uncountable in English). Now, many speakers do not maintain this distinction and all nouns may take the plural inflection. One dialect, that of the Eastern Huasteca, has a distinction between two different plural suffixes for animate and inanimate nouns. In most varieties of Nahuatl, nouns in the unpossessed singular form generally take an absolutive suffix. The most common forms of the absolutive are ''-tl'' after vowels, ''-tli'' after consonants other than ''l'', and ''-li'' after ''l''. Nouns that take the plural usually form the plural by adding one of the plural absolutive suffixes -''tin'' or -''meh'', but some plural forms are irregular or formed by reduplication. Some nouns have competing plural forms. Singular noun: Plural animate noun: Plural animate noun with reduplication: Nahuatl distinguishes between possessed and unpossessed forms of nouns. The absolutive suffix is not used on possessed nouns. In all dialects, possessed nouns take a prefix agreeing with number and person of its possessor. Possessed plural nouns take the ending ''-''. Absolutive noun: Possessed noun: Possessed plural: Nahuatl does not have
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
but uses what is sometimes called a
relational noun Relational nouns or relator nouns are a class of words used in many languages. They are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions (i.e. prepositions and postposi ...
to describe spatial (and other) relations. These
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
s cannot appear alone but must occur after a noun or a possessive prefix. They are also often called
postposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s or locative suffixes. In some ways these locative constructions resemble and can be thought of as locative case constructions. Most modern dialects have incorporated
prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
from Spanish that are competing with or that have completely replaced relational nouns. Uses of relational noun/postposition/locative ''-pan'' with a possessive prefix: Use with a preceding noun stem: Noun compounds are commonly formed by combining two or more nominal stems or combining a nominal stem with an adjectival or verbal stem.


Pronouns

Nahuatl generally distinguishes three persons, both in the singular and plural numbers. In at least one modern dialect, the Isthmus-Mecayapan variety, there has come to be a distinction between inclusive (I/we and you) and exclusive (we but not you) forms of the first person plural: First person plural pronoun in Classical Nahuatl: *' "we" First person plural pronouns in Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuat: *''nejamēn'' () "We, but not you" (= me & them) *''tejamēn'' () "We along with you" (= me & you & them) Much more common is an honorific/non-honorific distinction, usually applied to second and third persons but not first. Non-honorific forms: *' "you sg." *' "you pl." *' "he/she/it" Honorific forms *' "you sg. honorific" *' "you pl. honorific" *' "he/she honorific"


Numerals

Nahuatl has a vigesimal (base-20) numbering system. The base values are (1 × 20), (1 × 400), (1 × 8,000), (1 × 20 × 8,000 = 160,000), (1 × 400 × 8,000 = 3,200,000) and (1 × 20 × 400 × 8,000 = 64,000,000). Note that the prefix at the beginning means 'one' (as in 'one hundred' and 'one thousand') and is replaced with the corresponding number to get the names of other multiples of the power. For example, (2) × (20) = (40), (2) × (400) = (800). The in (and ) and the in are grammatical noun suffixes that are appended only at the end of the word; thus , and compound together as .


Verbs

The Nahuatl verb is quite complex and inflects for many grammatical categories. The verb is composed of a root, prefixes, and suffixes. The prefixes indicate the person of the subject, and person and number of the
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
and indirect object, whereas the suffixes indicate tense,
aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
, mood and subject number. Most Nahuatl dialects distinguish three tenses: present, past, and future, and two aspects:
perfective The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...
and
imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a g ...
. Some varieties add progressive or habitual aspects. Many dialects distinguish at least the indicative and imperative moods, and some also have
optative The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...
and vetative/prohibitive moods. Most Nahuatl varieties have a number of ways to alter the valency of a verb. Classical Nahuatl had a
passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
(also sometimes defined as an impersonal voice), but this is not found in most modern varieties. However the applicative and causative voices are found in many modern dialects. Many Nahuatl varieties also allow forming verbal compounds with two or more verbal roots. The following verbal form has two verbal roots and is inflected for causative voice and both a direct and indirect object: Some Nahuatl varieties, notably Classical Nahuatl, can inflect the verb to show the direction of the verbal action going away from or towards the speaker. Some also have specific inflectional categories showing purpose and direction and such complex notions as "to go in order to" or "to come in order to", "go, do and return", "do while going", "do while coming", "do upon arrival", or "go around doing". Classical Nahuatl and many modern dialects have grammaticalised ways to express politeness towards addressees or even towards people or things that are being mentioned, by using special verb forms and special "honorific suffixes". Familiar verbal form: Honorific verbal form:


Reduplication

Many varieties of Nahuatl have
productive Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
reduplication. By reduplicating the first syllable of a
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
a new word is formed. In nouns this is often used to form plurals, e.g. 'man' → 'men', but also in some varieties to form diminutives,
honorific An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
s, or for
derivations Derivation may refer to: Language * Morphological derivation, a word-formation process * Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars Law * Derivative work, in copyright law * Derivation proceeding, a proc ...
. In verbs reduplication is often used to form a reiterative meaning (i.e. expressing repetition), for example in Nahuatl of Tezcoco: */'/ 'he/she falls' */'/ 'he/she falls several times' */'/ 'they fall (many people)'


Syntax

Some linguists have argued that Nahuatl displays the properties of a
non-configurational language In generative grammar, non-configurational languages are languages characterized by a flat phrase structure, which allows syntactically discontinuous expressions, and a relatively free word order. History of the concept of "non-configurationality" ...
, meaning that word order in Nahuatl is basically free. Nahuatl allows all possible orderings of the three basic sentence constituents. It is prolifically a
pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...
language: it allows sentences with omission of all noun phrases or independent pronouns, not just of noun phrases or pronouns whose function is the sentence subject. In most varieties independent
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
s are used only for emphasis. It allows certain kinds of syntactically discontinuous expressions. Michel Launey argues that Classical Nahuatl had a verb-initial basic word order with extensive freedom for variation, which was then used to encode
pragmatic Pragmatism is a philosophical movement. Pragmatism or pragmatic may also refer to: *Pragmaticism, Charles Sanders Peirce's post-1905 branch of philosophy *Pragmatics, a subfield of linguistics and semiotics *''Pragmatics'', an academic journal in ...
functions such as
focus Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...
and topicality. The same has been argued for some contemporary varieties. It has been argued, most prominently by the linguist Michel Launey, that Classical Nahuatl syntax is best characterised by "omnipredicativity", meaning that any noun or verb in the language is in fact a full predicative sentence. A radical interpretation of Nahuatl syntactic typology, this nonetheless seems to account for some of the language's peculiarities, for example, why nouns must also carry the same agreement prefixes as verbs, and why predicates do not require any noun phrases to function as their arguments. For example, the verbal form means 'he/she/it shouts', and with the second person prefix it means 'you shout'. Nouns are inflected in the same way: the noun means not just 'child', but also 'it is a child', and means 'you are a child'. This prompts the omnipredicative interpretation, which posits that all nouns are also predicates. According to this interpretation, a phrase such as should not be interpreted as meaning just 'the child screams' but, rather, 'it screams, (the one that) is a child'.


Contact phenomena

Nearly 500 years of intense contact between speakers of Nahuatl and speakers of Spanish, combined with the minority status of Nahuatl and the higher prestige associated with Spanish has caused many changes in modern Nahuatl varieties, with large numbers of words borrowed from Spanish into Nahuatl, and the introduction of new syntactic constructions and grammatical categories. For example, a construction like the following, with several borrowed words and particles, is common in many modern varieties (Spanish loanwords in boldface): In some modern dialects basic word order has become a fixed subject–verb–object, probably under influence from Spanish. Other changes in the syntax of modern Nahuatl include the use of Spanish prepositions instead of native postpositions or relational nouns and the reinterpretation of original postpositions/relational nouns into prepositions. In the following example, from Michoacán Nahual, the postposition -''ka'' meaning 'with' appears used as a preposition, with no preceding object: In this example from
Mexicanero The Mexicaneros are an indigenous people of Durango and Nayarit, Mexico. They are one of the 62 original cultures of Mexico. They speak the Mexicanero language, one of the Nahuatl dialects. Some 1,300 individuals spoke the Mexicanero language as o ...
Nahuatl, of Durango, the original postposition/relational noun -''pin'' 'in/on' is used as a preposition. Also, , a conjunction borrowed from Spanish, occurs in the sentence. Many dialects have also undergone a degree of simplification of their morphology that has caused some scholars to consider them to have ceased to be
polysynthetic In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
.


Vocabulary

Many Nahuatl words have been borrowed into the
Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...
, most of which are terms designating things indigenous to the Americas. Some of these loans are restricted to Mexican or Central American Spanish, but others have entered all the varieties of Spanish in the world. A number of them, such as ''chocolate'', ''tomato'' and ''avocado'' have made their way into many other languages via Spanish. For instance, in English, two of the most prominent are undoubtedly ''
chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
''While there is no real doubt that the word ''chocolate'' comes from Nahuatl, the commonly given Nahuatl etymology 'bitter water' no longer seems to be tenable. suggest the correct etymology to be – a word found in several modern Nahuatl dialects. and ''
tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
'' (from Nahuatl ). Other common words are '' coyote'' (from Nahuatl ), ''
avocado The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family ( Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for ...
'' (from Nahuatl ) and ''chile'' or ''chili'' (from Nahuatl ). The word '' chicle'' is also derived from Nahuatl 'sticky stuff, chicle'. Some other English words from Nahuatl are: ''
Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...
'' (from ); '' cacao'' (from Nahuatl 'shell, rind'); '' ocelot'' (from ). In Mexico many words for common everyday concepts attest to the close contact between Spanish and Nahuatl – so many in fact that entire dictionaries of (words particular to Mexican Spanish) have been published tracing Nahuatl etymologies, as well as Spanish words with origins in other indigenous languages. Many well known
toponyms Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
also come from Nahuatl, including ''Mexico'' (from the Nahuatl word for the Aztec capital ) and '' Guatemala'' (from the word ).The Mexica used the word for the Kaqchikel capital
Iximche Iximcheʼ () (or Iximché using Spanish orthography) is a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican archaeological site in the western highlands of Guatemala. Iximche was the capital of the Late Postclassic Kaqchikel Maya kingdom from 1470 until its abandon ...
in central Guatemala, but the word was extended to the entire zone in colonial times; see .


Writing and literature


Writing

Traditionally, Pre-Columbian Aztec writing has not been considered a true writing system, since it did not represent the full vocabulary of a spoken language in the way that the writing systems of the Old World or the
Maya Script Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...
did. Therefore, generally Aztec writing was not meant to be read, but to be told. The elaborate codices were essentially pictographic aids for memorizing texts, which include genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists. Three kinds of signs were used in the system: pictures used as
mnemonic A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
s (which do not represent particular words),
logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...
s which represent whole words (instead of
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s or syllables), and logograms used only for their sound values (i.e. used according to the
rebus A rebus () is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. For example: the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+ ...
principle). However, epigrapher Alfonso Lacadena has argued that by the eve of the Spanish invasion, one school of Nahua scribes, those of Tetzcoco, had developed a fully syllabic script which could represent spoken language phonetically in the same way that the
Maya script Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...
did. Some other epigraphers have questioned the claim, arguing that although the syllabicity was clearly extant in some early colonial manuscripts (hardly any pre-Columbian manuscripts have survived), this could be interpreted as a local innovation inspired by Spanish literacy rather than a continuation of a pre-Columbian practice. The Spanish introduced the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
, which was used to record a large body of Aztec prose, poetry and mundane documentation such as testaments, administrative documents, legal letters, etc. In a matter of decades pictorial writing was completely replaced with the Latin alphabet. No standardized Latin orthography has been developed for Nahuatl, and no general consensus has arisen for the representation of many sounds in Nahuatl that are lacking in Spanish, such as long vowels and the glottal stop. The orthography most accurately representing the phonemes of Nahuatl was developed in the 17th century by the Jesuit
Horacio Carochi Horacio Carochi (1586–1666) was a Jesuit priest and grammarian who was born in Florence and died in New Spain. He is known for his grammar of the Classical Nahuatl language. Life Carochi was born in Florence. He went to Rome where he entered ...
, building on the insights of another Jesuit,
Antonio del Rincon Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...
. Carochi's orthography used two different diacritics: a macron to represent long vowels and a
grave A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grav ...
for the , and sometimes an acute accent for short vowels. This orthography did not achieve a wide following outside of the Jesuit community. When Nahuatl became the subject of focused linguistic studies in the 20th century, linguists acknowledged the need to represent all the phonemes of the language. Several practical orthographies were developed to transcribe the language, many using the Americanist transcription system. With the establishment of Mexico's
Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (National Indigenous Languages Institute, better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency, created 13 March 2003 by the enactment of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos d ...
in 2004, new attempts to create standardized orthographies for the different dialects were resumed; however to this day there is no single official orthography for Nahuatl. Apart from dialectal differences, major issues in transcribing Nahuatl include: * whether to follow Spanish orthographic practice and write with ''c'' and ''qu'', with ''cu'' and ''uc'', with ''c'' and ''z'', or ''s'', and with ''hu'' and ''uh'', or ''u''. * how to write the ''saltillo'' phoneme (in some dialects pronounced as a glottal stop and in others as an ), which has been spelled with ''j'', ''h'', ''ꞌ'' (apostrophe), or a grave accent on the preceding vowel, but which traditionally has often been omitted in writing. * whether and how to represent vowel length, e.g. by double vowels or by the use of macrons. In
2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...
, Nahua peoples from 16 states in the country began collaborating with INALI creating a new modern orthography called ''Yankwiktlahkwilolli'', designed to be the standardized orthography of Nahuatl in the coming years. The modern writing has much greater use in the modern variants than in the classic variant, since the texts, documents and literary works of the time usually use the Jesuit one.


Literature

Among the
indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...
, the extensive corpus of surviving literature in Nahuatl dating as far back as the 16th century may be considered unique. Nahuatl literature encompasses a diverse array of genres and styles, the documents themselves composed under many different circumstances. Preconquest Nahua had a distinction between 'speech' and second 'song', akin to the distinction between "
prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...
" and "
poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
". Nahuatl prose has been preserved in different forms. Annals and chronicles recount history, normally written from the perspective of a particular ''
altepetl The (, plural ''altepeme'' or ''altepemeh'') was the local, ethnically-based political entity, usually translated into English as "city-state," of pre-Columbian Nahuatl-speaking societiesSmith 1997 p. 37 in the Americas. The ''altepetl'' was ...
'' (locally based polity) and often combining mythical accounts with real events. Important works in this genre include those from Chalco written by Chimalpahin, from
Tlaxcala Tlaxcala (; , ; from nah, Tlaxcallān ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipaliti ...
by
Diego Muñoz Camargo Diego Muñoz Camargo (c. 1529 – 1599) was the author of ''History of Tlaxcala'', an illustrated codex that highlights the religious, cultural, and military history of the Tlaxcalan people. Life Diego Muñoz Camargo was born in Spanish colonia ...
, from Mexico-Tenochtitlan by
Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc Fernando is a Spanish and Portuguese given name and a surname common in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, former Spanish or Portuguese colonies in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka. It is equivalent to the G ...
and those of Texcoco by Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Many annals recount history year-by-year and are normally written by anonymous authors. These works are sometimes evidently based on pre-Columbian pictorial year counts that existed, such as the Cuauhtitlan annals and the Anales de Tlatelolco. Purely mythological narratives are also found, like the "Legend of the
Five Suns In the context of creation myths, the term Five Suns describes the doctrine of the Aztec and other Nahua peoples in which the present world was preceded by four other cycles of creation and destruction. It is primarily derived from the mythologi ...
", the Aztec creation myth recounted in Codex Chimalpopoca. One of the most important works of prose written in Nahuatl is the twelve-volume compilation generally known as the ''
Florentine Codex The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''Th ...
'', authored in the mid-16th century by the
Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...
missionary
Bernardino de Sahagún Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, ...
and a number of Nahua speakers. With this work Sahagún bestowed an enormous ethnographic description of the Nahua, written in side-by-side translations of Nahuatl and Spanish and illustrated throughout by color plates drawn by indigenous painters. Its volumes cover a diverse range of topics: Aztec history, material culture, social organization, religious and ceremonial life, rhetorical style and metaphors. The twelfth volume provides an indigenous perspective on the conquest. Sahagún also made a point of trying to document the richness of the Nahuatl language, stating: Nahuatl poetry is principally preserved in two sources: the '' Cantares Mexicanos'' and the '' Romances de los señores de Nueva España'', both collections of Aztec songs written down in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some songs may have been preserved through oral tradition from pre-conquest times until the time of their writing, for example the songs attributed to the poet-king of Texcoco,
Nezahualcoyotl Nezahualcoyotl may refer to: * Nezahualcoyotl (tlatoani), the ruler of Texcoco * Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a city in the State of Mexico * Nezahualcóyotl metro station, in Mexico City * The Nezahualcóyotl Award, a literary prize in Mexico * Nezah ...
. identify more than four distinct styles of songs, e.g. the ('sad song'), the ('song of spring'), ('plain song') and ('song of war'), each with distinct stylistic traits. Aztec poetry makes rich use of metaphoric imagery and themes and are lamentation of the brevity of human existence, the celebration of valiant warriors who die in battle, and the appreciation of the beauty of life.


Stylistics

The Aztecs distinguished between at least two social registers of language: the language of commoners () and the language of the nobility (). The latter was marked by the use of a distinct rhetorical style. Since literacy was confined mainly to these higher social classes, most of the existing prose and poetical documents were written in this style. An important feature of this high rhetorical style of formal oratory was the use of parallelism, whereby the orator structured their speech in couplets consisting of two parallel phrases. For example: * *'May we not die' * *'May we not perish' Another kind of parallelism used is referred to by modern linguists as '' difrasismo'', in which two phrases are symbolically combined to give a
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
ical reading. Classical Nahuatl was rich in such diphrasal metaphors, many of which are explicated by Sahagún in the Florentine Codex and by
Andrés de Olmos Andrés de Olmos (c.1485 – 8 October 1571) was a Spanish Franciscan priest and grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's indigenous languages and peoples. He was born in Oña, Burgos, Spain and died in Tampico in New Spain (modern-day Ta ...
in his ''Arte''. Such include: * *'The flower, the song' – meaning 'poetry' * *'the tail, the wing' – meaning 'the common people' * *'the chest, the box' – meaning 'something secret' * *'the heart, the blood' – meaning 'cacao' * *'the drool, the spittle' – meaning 'lies'


Sample text

The sample text below is an excerpt from a statement issued in Nahuatl by
Emiliano Zapata Emiliano Zapata Salazar (; August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a Mexican revolutionary. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, the main leader of the people's revolution in the Mexican state of Morelos, and the ins ...
in 1918 in order to convince the Nahua towns in the area of Tlaxcala to join the
Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
against the regime of
Venustiano Carranza José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was a Mexican wealthy land owner and politician who was Governor of Coahuila when the constitutionally elected president Francisco I. Madero was overthrown in a Februa ...
.Text as reproduced in León-Portilla 1978:78–80 The orthography employed in the letter is improvised, and does not distinguish long vowels and only sporadically marks (with both and acute accent).


See also

* ''
Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana ''Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana'' is a Spanish-Nahuatl language, Nahuatl dictionary by Pedro de Arenas, first published some time before 1611 (the year of the second edition). It was one of the most popular Nahuatl dicti ...
'' (a Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary) * '' Vocabulario trilingüe'' (dictionary of Spanish, Latin, and Nahuatl)


Notes


Content notes


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
pdf
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading


Dictionaries of Classical Nahuatl

* de Molina, Fray Alonso: ''Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana y Mexicana y Castellana''. 555Reprint: Porrúa México 1992 * Karttunen, Frances, ''An analytical dictionary of Náhuatl''. Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1992 * Siméon, Rémi: ''Diccionario de la Lengua Náhuatl o Mexicana''. aris 1885Reprint: México 2001


Grammars of Classical Nahuatl

* Carochi, Horacio. ''Grammar of the Mexican Language: With an Explanation of its Adverbs (1645)'' Translated by James Lockhart. Stanford University Press. 2001. * Lockhart, James: ''Nahuatl as written: lessons in older written Nahuatl, with copious examples and texts'', Stanford 2001 * Sullivan, Thelma: ''Compendium of Nahuatl Grammar'', Univ. of Utah Press, 1988. * Campbell, Joe and Frances Karttunen, ''Foundation course in Náhuatl grammar''. Austin 1989 * Launey, Michel. ''Introducción a la lengua y a la literatura Náhuatl''. México D.F.: UNAM. 1992 (Spanish); ''An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl'' nglish translation/adaptation by Christopher Mackay 2011, Cambridge University Press. * Andrews, J. Richard. ''Introduction to Classical Nahuatl'' University of Oklahoma Press: 2003 (revised edition)


Modern dialects

* Ronald W. Langacker (ed.): ''Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 2: Modern Aztec Grammatical Sketches'', Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics, 56. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington, pp. 1–140. . OCLC 6086368. 1979. (Contains studies of Nahuatl from Michoacan, Tetelcingo, Huasteca and North Puebla) * Canger, Una. ''Mexicanero de la Sierra Madre Occidental'', Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México, #24. México D.F.: El Colegio de México. . OCLC 49212643. 2001 (Spanish) * Campbell, Lyle. ''The Pipil Language of El Salvador'', Mouton Grammar Library (No. 1). Berlin: Mouton Publishers. 1985. . OCLC 13433705. * Wolgemuth, Carl
''Gramática Náhuatl (melaʼtájto̱l) de los municipios de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz''
2nd edition. 2002.


Miscellaneous

* ''The Nahua Newsletter'': edited by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies of the Indiana University (Chief Editor Alan Sandstrom) * ''Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl'': special interest-yearbook of the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas (IIH) of the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Ed.: Miguel León Portilla
A Catalogue of Pre-1840 Nahuatl Works Held by The Lilly Library
from ''The Indiana University Bookman'' No. 11. November, 1973: 69–88.

containing recordings in Nahuatl by native speakers and transcriptions, from the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America. * Barnstone, Willis (2003). Literatures of Latin America: From Antiquity to Present. Princeton: Prentice Hall.


External links


Online Nahuatl Dictionary – Wired Humanities Projects, University of Oregon
{{Featured article Indigenous languages of Mexico Agglutinative languages Languages with own distinct writing systems Mesoamerican languages Polysynthetic languages Uto-Aztecan languages Verb–subject–object languages