Nahuatl

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Nahuatl, Mexicano, Nawatl Nāhuatlahtōlli, Māsēwallahtōlli
Spoken in:	Mexico: Mexico (state), Distrito Federal, Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Morelos, Oaxaca, Michoacán and Durango
Total speakers:	over 1.7 million[citation needed]
Language family:	Uto-Aztecan  Aztecan   General Aztec    Nahuatl, Mexicano, Nawatl
Official status
Official language of:	none
Regulated by:	Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	nah
ISO 639-3:	variously: nci — Classical Nahuatl nhn — Central Nahuatl nch — Central Huasteca Nahuatl ncx — Central Puebla Nahuatl naz — Coatepec Nahuatl nln — Durango Nahuatl nhe — Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl ngu — Guerrero Nahuatl azz — Highland Puebla Nahuatl nhq — Huaxcaleca Nahuatl nhk — Isthmus-Cosoleacaque Nahuatl nhx — Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl nhp — Isthmus-Pajapan Nahuatl ncl — Michoacán Nahuatl nhm — Morelos Nahuatl nhy — Northern Oaxaca Nahuatl ncj — Northern Puebla Nahuatl nht — Ometepec Nahuatl nlv — Orizaba Nahuatl ppl — Pipil language nhz — Santa María la Alta Nahuatl nhs — Southeastern Puebla Nahuatl nhc — Tabasco Nahuatl nhv — Temascaltepec Nahuatl nhi — Tenango Nahuatl nhg — Tetelcingo Nahuatl nhj — Tlalitzlipa Nahuatl nuz — Tlamacazapa Nahuatl nhw — Western Huasteca Nahuatl xpo — Pochutec
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Nahuatl (['na.watɬ]^[1]; Nawatl (help·info)) is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan^[2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It is indigenous to central Mexico where it is spoken by more than 1.5 million people. Under the Mexican "Law of Linguistic Rights" Nahuatl is recognized as a "national language" with the same "validity" as Spanish and Mexico's other indigenous languages [1]. Outside of Mexico Nahuatl is particularly known because it was spoken by Aztecs, who spoke a variant now known as Classical Nahuatl.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Geographic distribution 3 Classification and terminology 3.1 Genealogy 3.2 Linguistic Prehistory 4 Phonology of Nahuan languages 4.1 Historical phonological changes 4.2 Consonants 4.3 Vowels 5 Grammar 6 Vocabulary 6.1 Loanwords from Nahuatl in other languages 7 Writing systems 8 Literature 9 Notes 10 Bibliography 11 See also 12 External links

[edit] Overview

Nahuatl is (along with Mayan) one of the two most widely-spoken families of Native American languages in Mexico and in North America as a whole. As is the case with most other Mexican indigenous languages, many of the speakers of Nahuatl are bilingual, having working knowledge of the Spanish language. In the past, a significant number of the Nahuatl speakers outside the Valley of Mexico were bilingual in languages other than Spanish, speaking both Nahuatl and, as their mother tongue, some other indigenous language. A famous example of bilingualism was Malintzin ("La Malinche"), the native woman who translated between Nahuatl and a Mayan language (and who later learned Spanish as well) for Hernán Cortés.

There are an estimated 1.5 million people who speak one or another Nahuatl dialect, some of these dialects being mutually unintelligible. All of these dialects show influence from the Spanish language to various degrees, some of them much more than others. No modern dialects are identical with Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than are peripheral ones.^[3]

Often the term Nahuatl is used specifically with reference to Classical Nahuatl, the administrative language of the Aztec empire. The Aztecs were preceded by, and surrounded by, other Nahuatl-speaking cultures, whose language certainly differed in some degree from theirs. These include the Tepaneca, Acolhua, Tlaxcalteca, and Xochimilca; and Nahuatl was perhaps one of the languages spoken in Teotihuacan. As these groups became predominant, Nahuatl, and especially Classical Nahuatl after the ascendancy of the Aztec empire, was used as a lingua franca in much of Mesoamerica beginning from the 12th century AD until the 16th century, at which time its prominence and influence were eclipsed by the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Since we only have documentation available from that point on, and since the Spanish dealt especially with the Mexica in their administrative, religious and scholarly activities, Classical Nahuatl is for us the most available, as well as the most prestigious, early form of the language.

[edit] Geographic distribution

A range of Nahuatl dialects are currently spoken in an area stretching from the northern Mexican state of Durango to Veracruz in the south. Pipil, a Nahuatl dialect which happens to have its own name, is spoken as far south as El Salvador, by fewer than twenty speakers if it is not already extinct. Another Nahuan language, Pochutec, was spoken on the coast of Oaxaca until circa 1930. The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero and Hidalgo. Significant populations are also found in México State, Morelos, and the Mexican Federal District. Smaller populations exist in Michoacán, and Durango. In Jalisco, Colima and Tabasco, the language has become extinct during the 20th century.

It is likely that the speakers of Nahuatl languages originally came from the northern Mexican deserts and migrated into central Mexico in several waves. One of the last of these waves settled in what is now the Valley of Mexico and later founded what came to be known as the Aztec empire. During this period, if not before, Nahuatl became a lingua franca, used for trade purposes and as a prestige language in large parts of Mesoamerica, and causing the language to spread even further. For example, at the time of the Spanish conquest, the K'iche' (Mayan) nobility spoke Nahuatl as well as the K'iche' language.

Currently the influx of Mexican workers into the United States has created small Nahuatl-speaking communities in the United States, particularly in New York and California.

[edit] Classification and terminology

Sometimes a distinction is made among Nahuan (i.e. languages of the Nahuan or Aztecan branch of Uto-Aztecan) languages between Nahuatl (variants with the characteristic tl phoneme), Nahuat (variants which have t in its place), and Nahual (variants which have l instead). Although the classification implied by emphasizing these differences is currently not given as much weight as in the past,^[4] the terms are still used. Sometimes Nahuan is used for the family as a whole; others use the term Aztecan for the family, or Nahua for the family and in any context where one does not want to specify the tl/t/l differences. Most commonly, however, Nahuatl is used as a generic name for the family or any variant of it. In many Nahua speaking communities completely different names are used for the language, commonly speakers call their language "Mexicano" (a term originally used by the Spanish for languages related to the language of the Mexica (Aztecs)) or "Mācehualli" (meaning "commoners' speech").

The Nahuatl languages are related to the other Uto-Aztecan languages spoken by peoples such as the Hopi, Comanche, Paiute and Ute, Pima, Shoshone, Tarahumara, Yaqui, Tepehuán, Huichol and other peoples of western North America. They all belong to the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family which is one of the largest and best studied language families of the Americas consisting of at least 61 individual languages, and spoken from the United States to El Salvador. This is a grouping on the same order as Indo-European.

[edit] Genealogy

• Uto-Aztecan 5000 BP^*
  • Shoshonean (Northern Uto-Aztecan)
  • Sonoran^**
  • Aztecan 2000 BP (a.k.a. Nahuan)
    • Pochutec — Coast of Oaxaca
    • General Aztec (Nahuatl)
      • Western periphery
      • Eastern Periphery
      • Huasteca
      • Center

See the Nahuatl dialects page for further discussion of the sub-categories of General Aztec, which are somewhat controversial.

^*Estimated split date by glottochronology (BP = Before the Present).

^**Some scholars continue to classify Aztecan and Sonoran together under a separate group (called variously "Sonoran", "Mexican", or "Southern Uto-Aztecan"). There is increasing evidence that whatever degree of additional resemblance there might be between Aztecan and Sonoran when compared with Shoshonean is probably due to proximity contact, rather than to a common immediate parent stock other than Uto-Aztecan.

[edit] Linguistic Prehistory

In his 2001 article^[5] Terrence Kaufman examines the linguistic prehistory of the Nahuan languages. He argues that knowledge about the migrations and splits within the Nahuan group of the Uto-Aztecan languages can be deduced from a thorough study of traces of language contact between the Nahuan languages and other Mesoamerican languages. He documents early loanwords and grammatical influences in all the Nahuan languages from Mixe-Zoquean languages and from Totonacan. This leads him to postulate that Nahuan migrants must have been subject to influence from dominant cultures speaking these languages before they first split up. He documents influence from the Wastek language in the Nahuatl dialects of la Sierra Huasteca.

[edit] Phonology of Nahuan languages

[edit] Historical phonological changes

The Nahuan subgroup of Uto-Aztecan is classified partly by a number of shared phonological changes from reconstructed Proto-Uto-Aztecan to the attested Nahuan languages. The changes shared between the Nahuan languages are the basis for the reconstruction of the intermediate stage of Proto-Nahuan. Some of these changes shared by all Nahuan languages are:

• Proto-Uto-Aztecan *t becomes Proto-Nahuan lateral affricate *tl before Proto-Uto-Aztecan *a
• Proto-Uto-Aztecan initial *p is lost in Proto-Nahuan.
• Proto-Uto-Aztecan *u merges with *i into Proto-Nahuan *i
• Proto-Uto-Aztecan sibilants *ts and *s split into *ts, *ch and *s, *ʃ respectively.
• Proto-Uto-Aztecan fifth vowel reconstructed as *ɨ or *ə merged with *e into Proto-Nahuan *e
• a large number of metatheses in which Proto-Uto-Aztecan roots of the shape *CVCV have become *VCCV.

The table below presents some of the changes that are reconstructed from Proto-Uto-Aztecan to Proto-Nahuan.

Table of reconstructed changes from Proto-Uto-Aztecan to Proto-Nahuan

PUA	Proto-Nahuan
*ta:ka "man"	*tla:ka-tla "man"
*pahi "water"	*a:-tla "water"
*muki "to die"	*miki "to die
*pu:li "to tie"	*ilpi "to tie"
*nɨmi "to walk"	*nemi "to live, to walk"

From the changes common to all Nahuan languages the subgroup has diversified somewhat and giving a complete overview of the phonologies of Nahuan languages is not suitable here. However, the table below shows a standardised phonemic inventory based on the inventory of Classical Nahuatl. Many modern dialects have undergone changes from proto-Nahuan that have resulted in different phonemic inventories.

[edit] Consonants

Table of Nahuatl consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p	t		k / kʷ	ʔ
Fricatives		s	ʃ
Affricates		tɬ / ts	tʃ
Approximants	w	l	j
Nasals	m	n

[edit] Vowels

Table of Nahuatl vowels

	front		central		back
	long	short	long	short	long	short
high	i:	i
mid	e:	e			o:	o
low			a:	a

[edit] Grammar

For a grammatical sketch of a nahuan language see the article: Classical Nahuatl grammar.

The Nahuatl languages are agglutinative, polysynthetic languages that make extensive use of compounding, incorporation and derivation. That is, they can add many different prefixes and suffixes to a root until very long words are formed. Very long verbal forms or nouns created through incorporation and accumulation of prefixes are not uncommon in literary works. This also means that new words can be created at a moment's notice.

A minority of linguists consider the typology of Nahuatl to be oligosynthetic. This was first proposed by Benjamin Whorf in the early 20th Century. However, by the mid-1950s, this view was largely dismissed by the linguistic community.

[edit] Vocabulary

See the list of Nahuatl words and list of words of Náhuatl origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia’s sibling project.

[edit] Loanwords from Nahuatl in other languages

Main article: words of Nahuatl origin

Many Nahuatl words have been borrowed into the Spanish language, many of which are terms designating things indigenous to the American continent. Some of these loans are restricted to Mexican or Central American Spanish, but others have entered all the varieties of Spanish in the world and a number of them, such as "chocolate", "tomato" and "avocado" have made their way into many other languages via Spanish. For example because of extensive Mexican-Philippine contacts in the colonial history, there are an estimated 250 words of Nahuatl origin in the Tagalog language. Likewise a number of English words have been borrowed from Nahuatl through Spanish. Two of the most prominent are undoubtedly chocolate (from xocolātl, 'chocolate drink', perhaps literally 'bitter-water') and tomato (from (xi) tomatl). But there are others, such as coyote (coyotl), avocado (ahuacatl) and chile or chili (chilli). The brand name Chiclets is also derived from Nahuatl (tzictli 'sticky stuff, chicle'). Other English words from Náhuatl are: Aztec, (aztecatl); cacao (cacahuatl 'shell, rind'); mesquite (mizquitl); ocelot (ocelotl).

Many well-known toponyms also come from Nahuatl, including Mexico (mexihco) and Guatemala (cuauhtēmallan).

In Mexico many words for common everyday concepts attest to the close contact between Spanish and Nahuatl:

achiote, aguacate, ajolote, amate, atole, axolotl, ayate, cacahuate, camote, capulín, chapopote, chayote, chicle, chile, chipotle, chocolate, cuate, comal, copal, coyote, ejote, elote, epazote, escuincle, guacamole, guajolote, huipil, huitlacoche, hule, jícama, jícara, jitomate, malacate, mecate, metate, metlapil, mezcal, mezquite, milpa, mitote, molcajete, mole, nopal, ocelote, ocote, olote, paliacate, papalote, pepenar, petate, peyote, pinole, popote, pozole, quetzal, tamal, tianguis, tlacuache, tomate, zacate, zapote, zopilote.

(The persistent -te or -le endings on these words are Spanish reflexes of the Nahuatl 'absolutive' ending -tl, -tli, or -li, which appears on (most) nouns when they are not possessed or in the plural.)

[edit] Writing systems

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec writing used mostly pictographs supplemented by a few ideograms. When needed, it also used syllabic equivalences; Father Durán recorded how the tlacuilos (codex painters) could render a prayer in Latin using this system, but it was difficult to use. This writing system was adequate for keeping such records as genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists, but could not represent a full vocabulary of spoken language in the way that the writing systems of the old world or of the Maya civilization could. The Aztec writing was not meant to be read, but to be told; the elaborate codices were essentially pictographic aids for teaching, and long texts were memorized.

The Spanish introduced the Roman script, which was then utilized to record a large body of Aztec prose and poetry, a fact which somewhat mitigated the devastating loss of the thousands of Aztec manuscripts which were burned by the Spanish. Important lexical works (e.g. Molina's classic Vocabulario of 1571) and grammatical descriptions (of which Carochi's 1645 Arte is generally acknowledged the best) were produced using variations of this orthography.

The classical orthography was not perfect, and in fact there were many variations in how it was applied, due in part to dialectal differences and in part to differing traditions and preferences that developed. (The writing of Spanish itself was far from totally standardized at the time.) Today, although almost all written Nahuatl uses some form of Latin-based orthography, there continue to be strong dialectal differences, and considerable debate and differing practices regarding how to write sounds even when they are the same. Major issues are

• whether to follow Spanish in writing the /k/ sound sometimes as c and sometimes as qu or just to use k
• how to write /kʷ/
• what to do about /w/, the realization of which varies considerably from place to place and even within a single dialect
• how to write the "saltillo", phonetically a glottal stop ([ʔ]) or an [h], which has been spelled with j, h, and a straight apostrophe ('), but which traditionally was often omitted in writing.

There are a number of other issues as well, such as

• whether and how to represent vowel length
• how and whether to represent sound variants (allophones) which sound like different Spanish sounds [phonemes], especially variants of o which come close to u
• to what extent writing in one variant should be adapted towards what is used in other variants.

The Secretaría de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education) has adopted an alphabet for its bilingual education programs in rural communities in Mexico in which k is used and /w/ is written as u, and this decision has been influential. The recently established (2004) "Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas" (INALI) will also be involved in these issues.

For the pictographic writing system used by the precolumbian Nahua peoples see also Aztec writing and Aztec Codices

For more detail about the different orthographies used to transliterate Nahuatl in the Latin script see Nahuatl transcription

The Nahuatl edition Wikipedia (or Huiquipedia) has adopted a classical writing system, including the use of long accents or macrons for represent long vocals /ā/, /ē/, /ī/ and /ō/.

[edit] Literature

Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Indigenous languages of the Americas), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl). The two largest collections of poetry, the Cantares mexicanos and the Romances de los señores de la Nueva España, were in all likelihood copied down in the 1560s or somewhat later. Examples from the time immediately following the conquest include at least one census from the 1540s. The mammoth encyclopedia of Aztec culture known as the Florentine Codex was compiled by the Franciscan Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, with the assistance of tri-lingual students from the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco at about the same time. The Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an example of literary Nahuatl from the seventeenth century; there are also significant historical works (see Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc and Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl) as well as liturgical drama.

A large dictionary of the classical Nahuatl language was compiled by the bilingual Fray Alonso de Molina and published in 1555. Several grammars, called "Artes", of the Nahuatl language were published during colonial times. The most influential of them are Horacio Carochi's Arte de la Lengua Mexicana con la declaración de los adverbios della, published in 1645, and the earlier Arte de la Lengua Mexicana by Fray Andrés de Olmos, published in 1547.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

• de Arenas, Pedro: Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana. [1611] Reprint: México 1982
• Campbell, Joe and Frances Karttunen, Foundation course in Náhuatl grammar. Austin 1989
• Carochi, Horacio: Arte de la lengua mexicana: con la declaración de los adverbios della. [1645] Reprint: Porrúa México 1983
• Canger, Una, 1980. "Five Studies inspired by Náhuatl Verbs in -oa." Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague
• Canger, Una. 1988. Nahuatl dialectology: A survey and some suggestions. IJAL 54.1. 28-72.
• Dakin, Karen, 1982. "Evolución Fonológica del Protonáhuatl." UNAM, Mexico
• Garibay K., Angel María : Llave de Náhuatl. Ed. Porrúa, SC706, México 2004.
• Garibay K., Angel María, Historia de la literatura náhuatl. México 1953
• Garibay K., Angel María, Poesía náhuatl. vol 1-3 México 1964
• Garibay K. Angel María, Panorama Literario de los Pueblos Nahuas., Ed. Porrúa, SC022, México, 2001.
• Hill, Jane and Kenneth Hill, Speaking Mexicano: dynamics of syncretic language in Central Mexico. Tucson 1986
• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=91274
• von Humboldt, Wilhelm (1767–1835): Mexicanische Grammatik. Paderborn/München 1994
• Jiménez, Doña Luz (?–1965): Life and Death in Milpa Alta. Norman 1972
• Karttunen, Frances, An analytical dictionary of Náhuatl. Norman 1992
• Karttunen, Frances, Between worlds: interpreters, guides, and survivors. New Brunswick 1994
• Karttunen, Frances, Náhuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period. Los Angeles 1976
• Kaufman, Terrence, (2001) Nawa linguistic prehistory, published at website of the Mesoamerican Language Documentation Project
• Launey, Michel : Introduction à la langue et à la littérature aztèques. Paris 1980
• Launey, Michel : Introducción a la lengua y a la literatura Náhuatl. UNAM, México 1992
• de León-Portilla, Ascensión H.: Tepuztlahcuilolli, Impresos en Náhuatl: Historia y Bibliografia. Vol. 1-2. México 1988
• León-Portilla, Miguel : Literaturas Indígenas de México. Madrid 1992
• Lockhart, James (ed): We people here. Náhuatl Accounts of the conquest of Mexico. Los Angeles 1993
• de Molina, Fray Alonso: Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana y Mexicana y Castellana. [1555] Reprint: Porrúa México 1992
• de Olmos, Fray Andrés: Arte de la lengua mexicana concluído en el convento de San Andrés de Ueytlalpan, en la provincia de Totonacapan que es en la Nueva España. [1547] Reprint: México 1993
• del Rincón, Antonio: Arte mexicana compuesta por el padre Antonio del Rincón. [1595] Reprint: México 1885
• de Sahagún, Fray Bernardino (1499–1590): Florentine Codex. General History of the Things of New Spain (Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España). Eds Charles Dibble/Arthr Anderson, vol I-XII Santa Fe 1950–71
• Siméon, Rémi: Dictionnaire de la Langue Náhuatl ou Mexicaine. [Paris 1885] Reprint: Graz 1963
• Siméon, Rémi: Diccionario de la Lengua Náhuatl o Mexicana. [Paris 1885] Reprint: México 2001
• Stiles, Neville Náhuatl in the Huasteca Hidalguense: A Case Study in the Sociology of Language PhD thesis, Centre for Latin American Linguistic Study, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. 1983
• Sullivan, Thelma D & Neville Stiles.: Compendium of Náhuatl Grammar. Salt Lake City 1988
• 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 Historicas (IIH) of the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Ed.: Miguel Leon Portilla

[edit] See also

• Category: Nahuatl words and phrases
• List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin

[edit] External links

• Ethnologue reports on Náhuatl
• Náhuatl Learning Resource List, by Ricardo J. Salvador
• Brief Notes on Classical Náhuatl, by David K. Jordan
• Nahuatl (Aztec) family, SIL-Mexico, with subsites on some specific variants
• Náhuatl Summer Language Institute, Yale University
• English → Náhuatl,   Nahuatl → English   (Florentine Codex Vocabulary 1997, by R. Joe Campbell)
• Náhuatl → English   (Basic Dictionary, by Acoyauh)
• Spanish → Náhuatl,   Náhuatl → Spanish   (Ohui.net)
• Náhuatl-French dictionary Includes basic grammar
• Náhuatl Names An introduction to Náhuatl names.
• Books at Project Gutenberg in Nahuatl

Chicano languages
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