Talk:Nahuatl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Nahuatl is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 13, 2008.
Article milestones Date Process Result August 2, 2006 Good article nominee Listed October 14, 2007 Good article reassessment Delisted February 22, 2008 Peer review Reviewed March 9, 2008 Good article nominee Listed April 6, 2008 Featured article candidate Promoted Current Status: Featured article

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Nahuatl article.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

WikiProject Mesoamerica (Rated FA-Class) (Rated High-importance) This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, its civilizations, history, accomplishments and other topics. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page. Resources and guidelines for editing Mesoamerica-related articles: Guidelines— Outline of suggested guidelines and editing conventions Resources— Selected resources and compendia of Mesoamerican sources and studies Citations— Bibliography and pre-filled citations for Mesoamerican sources Journals— Links to selected journals publishing Mesoamerican research, example citation templates Article listing— Inventory and watchlists of WP:MESO articles and their talk pages (Article Watchlist)—(Talkpage Watchlist) Worklists— Project worklists and activities NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritising and managing its workload. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the Project's importance scale. This article is also supported by the WikiProject Aztec sub-project. WikiProject Mesoamerica priority open tasks: (click "show" to expand) WikiProject Mesoamerica Open Tasklist: a shortlist of things you can do to help out. Queries welcomed here. (Project Main • Activities • Catalogue • Guidelines • Strategy• Tools and refs) edit | watch | purge NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS: → Mesoamerica, Maya civilization, Olmec, Palenque are WP:MESO collaboration targets of the moment. → Pre-filled citation templates for Mesoamerican sources at Citations. → Recently promoted to GA status: Yuri Knorosov, Nahuatl language, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg. PROJECT ACTIVITIES: Meta-tasks and subprojects: • add project banner to articles • document Strategy • assign article ratings per the assessment scheme • add to Project references • collate images and maps • More... Categorisation: • develop full Category scheme • reorganise Cat:Mesoamerica contents • More category tasks... Templates: • {{Mesoamerica site infobox}} (create) • {{Mesoamerica ruler infobox}} (create) • {{Maya civilization}} (improve) • {{WP Mesoamerica}} project banner (populate) • More... ARTICLE TO-DO: Requested articles: • History of Mesoamerica • Chenes (Maya subregion & architectural style) • 260-day Mesoamerican calendar • List of Mesoamerican cultures • Hermann Beyer • Huastec civilization • Valley of Oaxaca • More... Expand from stub: • Calendar round • Chiapas highlands • Chilam Balam • Chol language • Trecena • Veintena • More... Cleanup/attention needed: • Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica • Gender in Mesoamerican cultures • History of Mesoamerica (Paleo-Indian) • Gender in Maya society • Olmec figurine • More... Improvement drive: Start-Class • Mesoamerican calendars • Mesoamerican chronology • Mixtec • Monte Albán • Toltec • Yucatán Peninsula • More... Improvement drive: B-Class • Chichen Itza • La Venta • Maya calendar • Maya civilization • Maya script • Olmec • Quetzalcoatl • More... Prepare for Quality reviews (GA, PR, FAC): • Mesoamerica • Mayan languages • Spanish conquest of Mexico • Palenque • Chunchucmil • More... WikiProject Languages (Rated FA-Class) This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Languages, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. language Portal FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. WikiProject Mexico (Rated FA-Class) Mexico Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

To-do:	edit · history · watch · refresh
Here are some tasks you can do:

Archives

/archive1

Contents 1 Language prehistory 2 Words lent/loaned to other languages 2.1 Interesting discussion! 3 Image of the historic distribution of náhuatl 4 Largest Population? Language or Language Family, Power of the Name 5 Tlaxcaltecs in missions 6 Dialects mutually unintelligible? 7 Move to Nahuatl? 8 Pronunciation of "Nahuatl (['na.watɬ])" 9 Monoglots 10 History? 11 Mexico City State 12 Orthography 13 Good Article status being reassessed 14 Major Reconstruction 15 Chicano language? 16 Wikitionary links 17 Quick review 18 Phonology Tables 19 Article size: don't be scared 20 *ts, *s split 21 Pre-Hispanic spread of Mexican Nahuatl as general lingua franca 22 Mexicapa, Mexicanos 23 Pipil 24 Examples 25 Good article review 26 Seconded 27 Help! ISO code reference 28 Overlapping changes (copied from personal talk page) 29 Relational Noun vs. Postposition 30 Restructuring nouns 31 disambig for the following links 32 Map omission 33 Honorific verb example/explanation 34 Media 35 Featured status 36 Suggestion for article split in future 37 Congratulations on Featured Article

[edit] Language prehistory

Having another look at this article my attention was caught by the Language Prehistory subsection. I notice that it only refers to, and draws information from, T. Kaufman's article. Having read that article, I was wondering just how reliable its conclusions are. Please note that I am not asking this as a way of attacking the article or its author. I am not a specialist on the history of Nahuatl and I lack sufficient criteria to take a stand myself. Perhaps my question would be better worded as: "What is the standing of this article (which is now quite old, so it must have one) according to current academic opinion in the field?" (By the way, although the Wikipedia article refers to it as K's 2001 article, the latter is based on his work from as early as 1989, and 2001 only being the latest of several revision dates given given at the beginning of the text.) I cannot evaluate the data in the article, except to say that it looks interesting, but as a "lay" reader, the assertions in the article about the prehistory of Nahuatl strike me as being built on a rather longish chain of mutually dependent, unproven conjectures, which is not a crime either, but in contrast with the apparently spectulative nature of that content, I find the tone of the article unexpectedly self-confident. Also not a crime, but if I am right about all these assessments, then the conclusion would be that although Kaufman says A = B, Wikipedia may be better off leaving it as "it has been suggested that A = B". Which it does, I admit, but I was wondering if either (a) the hypotheses mentioned are backed by other scholars (and we could then say so in our article) or (b) there are alternative viewpoints which might be added, so that this section does not hang on the conjectures of one scholar. Any thoughts from those of you who know your way around this subject better than I? Please do correct/educate me if I'm just wrong to think this!

Also: shouldn't the article by Kaufman be listed in the bibliography as well as referenced in the notes? --A R King 11:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I added the linguistic prehistory section last week and I must admit that I understand what you mean. Kaufman is always very confident about his own conjectures. And most of this article is conjecture. However he is also one of the most thorough and knowing scholars working with mesoamerican languages today and his guesswork does have some merit, also no other scholars that I know of work so exclusively with precolumbian contact linguistics in mesoamerica. His other work on the linguistic prehistory and contact linguistics of Mesoamerica is without a doubt among the most influential and respected scholarship in that field (CAMPBELL, LYLE R., and TERRENCE S. KAUFMAN. 1976, A Linguistic Look at the Olmec. American Antiquity 41(1):80-89., Campbell, Lyle and Terrence Kaufman. 1981. On Mesoamerican linguistics. American Anthropologist 82:850-857., Kaufman, Terrence. 1990. Language History in South America: What we know and how to know more. In David L. Payne, ed. Amazonian Linguistics, pp.13-74. Austin: University of Texas Press., Meso-America as a Linguistic Area Lyle Campbell, Terrence Kaufman, Thomas C. Smith-Stark Language, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sep., 1986), pp. 530-570, Mayan Linguistics: Where are we Now? Lyle Campbell, Terrence Kaufman Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 14, 1985 (1985), pp. 187-198)

I added the article for three reasons mainly: 1. it is the only article I know of that systematically deals with nahuan prehistory. 2. It substantiates, elaborates and supports the conclusions and ideas of nahuan prehistory advanced by other scholars (e.g. Canger and Campbell) and it doesn't contradict them. It would be great to be able to include more viewpoints and refereences but I don't know of other articles that are so explicit about it's conclusions on the linguistic prehistory of Nahuan.(although maybe Campbells work on the linguistic prehistory of Pipil has some information to add? I don't have it present) 3. The information and conclusions that are drawn in the paper are so interesting that I think they deserve mention here.

Also the material that I have added from the article is not really so controversial, the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a welldocumented sprachbund so contact phenomeena in the languages of the area are to be expected - Kaufman just maps them out. The more unexpected conclusions that he makes in the article such as the fall of Teotihuacan caused by Krakatoa, the presence of Mixe-Zoque speakers in central Mexico, the exact migration routes etc I don't think we need to put in here (although I personally find most of his conjecture quite convincing).

If you want to tone down the conclusions that is quite alright by me, and it can only gain by having references to and viewpoints from works by other scholars. If I find some I will certainly add them.Maunus 12:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I was just wondering, mainly, and also curious to know what somebody knowledgeble as you are actually thought about this. I don't know as much as you about Terence Kaufman, although I'm familiar with Campbell, Kaufman & Smith-Stark, "Meso-American as a Linguistic Area" in Language 62:3, 1986, pp. 530-570 which I have consulted many times. Maybe Kaufman is the kind of writer who is so very knowledgeable that he tends to make leaps that make perfect sense to him but leave some humbler readers behind who can't keep up with him because we simply lack access to (or the capacity to process?) the immense data feed that is actually sustaining his thesis. If so, that doesn't make him wrong, it just makes the rest of us bewildered! I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt (perhaps he deserves it), but as they stand on the page, sometimes one seems to be asked to take too much on faith. For example, on purely linguistic grounds and with the data that he supplies, I feel he is running too fast in his conclusions about which morphological affixes in historically attested Nahuatl "must" have developed from clitics. I am perfectly willing to concede that they may come from clitics, but how it is that he knows they do escapes me, as I seem to be able to imagine other possible explanations - perhaps through sheer ignorance on my part, but how can I know that unless the author explains himself? So all in all I'm left wondering, on the basis of the text as such, how methodologically trustworthy his conclusions are. (I mention the clitics example because it's in an area I can at least begin to get my teeth dug into, as opposed to Krakatoa and all that, which is all Martian to me!

I do have Campbell's Pipil book, so if you need to know anything specifically just ask me. He has several pages of discussion of theories about the origins of the Pipils (as I'm sure you know). Cheers, --A R King 15:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think your idea about what kind of scientist Kaufman is is probably pretty accurate. As far as I know he is extremely reluctant to publish stuff,I'm told he just can't be bothered, he is only interested in drawing his own conclusions based on hugee aamounts of data. I suspect that is why almost all of his published articles are coauthored. I also think he uses the same kind of linguistic intuition that Sapir was so famous for, and that is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it comes up with ideas that nobody else has thought of and a curse because we need to do so much more brainwork to arrive at the same conclusions - and when the author at the same time is reluctant to make his deductions explicit that makes it even more difficult. Anyway this article by Kaufman is clearly problematic in its pretty large leaps from data to conclusions that areen't possible to double check - his style is "Now I'll tell you how it is ..." and don't ask so many questions (a rather unorthodox and borthersome style to read indeed). As for the clitics I think Dakin reaches a similar conclusion in her articles about the morphological development of protonahuan - but I can't say that other explanations aren't possible. (another book of Kaufman's that I can recommend is the book "Language contact, creolization and geenetic linguistics" coauthoreed with Sara Thomason - in this one the thoroughness of his methods is brought to light in the analysis of contact phenomena in english dialects based on a really big material)Maunus 20:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Words lent/loaned to other languages

Lent is the past of lend. Except for dialectal use, I believe loan as a VERB (synonym of lend; past and participle: loaned) is a distinctive feature of US English. I have lived in both Britain and the US, but to me the use of loan as a verb just sounds/looks stylistically inappropriate in a text in "encyclopedic" register, i.e. too vernacular. In any case, loaned and lent would be synonyms. But the fact is that, if I am not mistaken, in linguistics, when talking about words from one language being adopted in another language it is not usual in English to employ either lend OR loan as a VERB, but rather borrow. Loan IS used as a noun, however. Therefore we either speak of Loan(word)s from Nahuatl in other languages or or Words borrowed from Nahuatl in other languages. --A R King 08:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a pretty distinct feeling that I have never seen "lent" regarding loanwords. I also have a feeling that I have read "borrowed from" but "loaned to" in most linguistic contexts. But I'll leave this to native speakers of English to judge.Maunus 11:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that "lent" and "loaned" are both grammatically correct (but of the two, "loaned" is more markedly colloquial), but that neither of these are as common in linguistic contexts as "borrowed". --A R King 13:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok. You're the man Alan. ;)Maunus 23:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with A R King - as far as I'm aware, "loan" is, in standard English usage, only a noun - not a verb. I see that "lent" has been changed back to "loaned" - I agree that "lend" is not commonly used in the linguistic sense. I am going to change this to "Words borrowed from Nahuatl in other languages", as A R King suggests. Aiwendil42

American Heritage dictionary, 1978 edition, lists _loan_ as a transitive verb (meaning "to lend") and says: "_Loan_ has long been established as a verb, especially in business usage. _Lend_ is considered by many to be preferable to _loan_ in general usage, however, and particularly in formal writing. More than 70 per cent of the Usage Panel express such a preference for _lend_ " in two particular examples involving lending/loaning money to a friend or lending/loaning someone a pencil. So nearly 30% did *not* think loan less preferable even in (at least one of) those contexts. Certainly, when talking about linguistic loans, I have often heard and used "loaned", and don't recall ever seeing "lent" (until whoever changed it in this Nahuatl article). I find _loaned from Nahuatl_ perfectly acceptable and find "borrowed from N in other languages" to be a tad awkward. ("into other lgs"? "by other lgs"?)

I don't much like the commercial metaphor here anyway: why not "migrant words"/"words crossing borders"? But that's a completely different sort of issue. For better or worse, the "borrowing/loaning" metaphor is the standard way to talk about it.

btw, I haven't been involved in any of the changes in the article this discussion is all about.

--Lavintzin 04:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Like Lavintzin, I also declare for what it's worth that I haven't been involved in any changes in the article either.

And for what it's worth, I still think I'm right about this, based on both my general competence in English and my experience reading linguistic texts in English. Probably the most reliable way to resolve the doubt (other than just reaching a consensus here) would be through an empirical corpus survey, but to do this systematically is probably not practical or economical. We can, however, look at appropriate texts and locate examples, and I shall pull a few off the nearest bookshelf as I write. Before I start quoting, I remind you that I am suggesting that common usage in such contexts includes the following possibilities: (a) as a noun: "loan" or "loanword" (I have also come across "borrowing", actually); (b) as a verb: "borrow". As regards the verbs "lend" and "loan", I repeat that while both exist in English, "lend" is more appropriate in formal style; but I am also saying that as linguistic terms, neither of these is commonplace (but if I had to use one, it would definitely be "to lend", not "to loan").

Okay, for my random survey I have chosen the book on my shelf that looks like it's most likely to contain discussion of the concept in question and which constitutes, I think, an impeccable specimen of a "prestige linguistic textbook", and this turns out to be Historical Linguistics by Theodora Bynon, published by Cambridge University Press in the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics series in 1977, but mine is the revised and corrected edition of 1983. The first observation is that in the book's Index, there are entries for "loan-words" (also for "loan translation") and for "borrowing", but none for "lending" or ??"loaning". I have followed up index references and quote sentences containing any of the terms relevant to this discussion, which I shall put in bold. Unfortunately time limitations have not allowed me to do this exhaustively for all the indexed references in the book, so I've just copied as many as I could in the time available.

pp. 180-1:

Conversely the Low German dialects of the north all have some words with High German
consonantism, which are clearly loans. It is these loan-words from High
German...

p. 217:

We are not here immediately concerned with the procedure whereby words are identified
by the linguist as loans, but rather with the pehnomena associated with the
transfer of lexical material across language boundaries as known from the study
of loan-words after these have been established as such. We may however briefly
say at this point that these words are considered to be borrowed from Latin
because they are innovations in both Old English and Old High German... Their
identification as loans from Latin...

p. 219:

In the case of German some of the words must have been borrowed early enough
for...

same page:

...it would appear that Kitte must have been borrowed while the initial
consonant was still a [k]...

and:

The reflexes... could then be accounted for in the same way as being due
to borrowing at different periods...

p. 220:

...its source word must have been borrowed before this took place.

p. 221:

These changes can be explained as due to the word stress having been shifted during
the borrowing process...

and:

We may therefore postulate for these loan-words...

and:

It will be seen from the above examples that where loan-words are concerned...

On the other hand, I am forced to admit (with slight embarrassment) that the book also says this (p. 217):

For our first example of "loaning", or "borrowing", we will take...

There is a footnote reference following the word "borrowing" here which discusses the practice of using these terms in linguistic texts, which makes two points: first, that neither of the words is really strictly accurate, but "these are the established terms" nevertheless; and secondly, that the term "loan-word" originated as a loan-translation from German Lehnwort. But I will still stick to my guns because I suspect that the observed usage of the author herself speaks more loudly than this metalinguistic comment with regard to the actual use or not of "loaning", which I don't believe anybody actually writes in linguistics texts, apart from this reference. But if somebody can show I'm wrong, go ahead! --A R King 07:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

How about we write "Loanwords from Nahuatl in other languages"?Maunus 09:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds okay to me. --A R King 20:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting discussion!

Languages tend more to "sucking words up" than to "spitting them out".

Seems to me there's a natural semantic reason borrowing is spoken of more often than loaning in linguistic use of this (rather poor) metaphor. Speakers normally take words from other languages (or accept them under various forms of prescription) — they adopt (and sometimes adapt) them. We have no verb for widely using a lexical item of one language in some other language, but convention gives us borrow [+object] [+indirect object] — e.g. English borrowed garage from French. Semantically, French did not loan us the word, whether or not verbal usage of loan is acceptable in formal contexts or not. This is where the metaphor breaks down. Use of a word originating in a foreign language is metaphorically like using money that originates with (or continues to rightly belong to) someone else. However, this metaphor only works from the perspective of the recipient, not from that of the benefactor. I would guess the metaphor arose because of the apt way it captures the idea of "filling a gap".

I would suggest our instinctive discomfort at hearing *garage is a word loaned from French to English, or *English loaned the word garage is because verbal uses of loan still properly imply movement from benefactor to beneficiary. The technical metaphorical use in linguistics has not (yet) become so isolated from the metaphor that it can be comfortably used without the full associations of colloquial forms of the verb intruding. This is unlike say manipulating, which has technical implications in psychology, that no longer suggest to anyone anything to do with use of the hands.

It's a fascinating thought that the word borrow in this linguistic context stems from the kinship of English and German, that allows compounds like loanword to superficially resemble the agglutinated form Lehnwort. German linguistics does not speak of languages lehnen words to others do they? If German also has Lehngeld, Lehnwort means something subtly different in German lexical choice than loanword does in the context of English. Alastair Haines (talk) 01:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image of the historic distribution of náhuatl

I've made this image trying to show the extent of nahuatl in modern and historical times - the yelow colour shows the approximate area where classical nahuatl is thought to have been used as a lingua franca or a prestige language spoken by the ruling classes. The orange area is the places where there is known to have been nahuatl speaking populations at the time of the conquest. And the red areas is where nahuatl is spoken now. The map has the drawback that it is quite impressionistic because we obviously don't know the exact boundaries of nahuatl populations or lingua franca use before the conquest. I think it illustrates well the decline of the nahuatl languages - but I am uncertain if that is enough to weigh up the probable inaccuracies. Do you think it is useful enough to warrant inclusion? Maunus 09:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it is quite a good piece of work. One question, though: Are you sure about Nahuatl having been spoken around 1521 in the western half of Hidalgo and on the northern and western rims of Oaxaca? Unoffensive text or character 13:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

No I am not, those part are impressionist. I have merely extended the borders of the places where modern nahuatl speakers live in Oaxaca and Hidalgo a bit farther to coincide more or less with the boundaries of areas conquered by the Aztecs. In order to create the map in a completely waterproof version I'd have to do OR and check up the relaciones Geogrficas from the entire central mexico to pinpoint Nahuatl speaking areas.Maunus 22:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course I have not read the relaciones geograficas either. But I think that in the areas I mentioned, there are other indigenous languages than Nahuatl spoken today. From this I guessed that in 1521 Nahuatl probably wasn't spoken there either. But that is only a suggestion. Unoffensive text or character 11:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely right - other languages were and are spoken within the "nahuatl speaking areas" and this is a problem for all kinds of linguistic maps of Mesoamerica. The main problem is that in Mesoamerica neither states/polities or linguistic or ethnic groups conform to coherent geographical areas as in Europe - one town might speak one language and the next another. I think you are right that the map is more confusing than helpful.Maunus 12:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, Maunus, if I conveyed the impression that I find the map confusing. I like it, but I would change it in one or two places.Unoffensive text or character 14:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Largest Population? Language or Language Family, Power of the Name

(Copied over from User talk:Lavintzin)

Your recent change to Nahuatl - Most populous indigenous languages

I think that your recent edit [8 Feb] although warranted because what the article was saying was untrue, obscured an important point, namely that Nahuatl, when counted as one language rather than a group of languages, is the amerindian language with most speakers along with Quechua and Guaraní. K'iche maya which is the most populous mayan language has only 1,000,000 speakers according to the figures given here - although The mayan language family has more speakers than nahuatl but it is comprised of thirty different languages (it also has more speakers than the combined speaker of Uto-Aztecan languages but that is beside the point). I hope you see my point and that you can think of a way of wording the sentence so that this point isn't lost. Basicaly I am saying that there is no need of adding "along with the mayan languages" to the phrase - but maybe the entire phrase as it is is redundant.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying, but the kicker is "when counted as one language rather than a group of languages". I don't speak any Mayan languages but I understand the differences among them are no greater than those among the Nahuatl languages. The fact that they are called by different outsider's names while Nahuatl is (generally) called by the same outsider name, is more a historical accident than anything significant. I have a good friend who grew up speaking a kind of Tzotzil, and he can get along pretty well in Tzeltal and Ch'ol as well as other Tzotziles. If you just lump K'iche and Yucatec Mayan, you've already outstripped Nahuatl. There are a *lot* of Mayan speakers. --Lavintzin 23:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

While you are right there is one problem with this approach. And that is the power of the name: to most people Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec etc are just is single languages with great dialectal diversity whereas the Mayan langauges are seen as separate languages because, for some reason, they are called by different names. The Mexican government for example count around sixty indigenous languages, Nahuatl, Zapotec and Mixtec each count once on that list while some 10 different Mayan languages are counted separately because they have separate names (just like a bunch of different languages, some non-related, are also counted together under the term Popoluca). It is simply customary to count nahuatl as a single language but Mayan as many.

In the article we describe nahuatl as one language with dialectal diversity - in the article on mayan languages we describe them (in accordance to the views of most Mayan peoples as expressed throuhg the ALMG) as disctinct languages. That means that the comparison of Nahuatl to Mayan is not justified by what we write in the articles. I think that maybe the most populous language comment is better left out altogether.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the power of the name is a real thing. I recently saw a very beautiful and expensively made picture book, put out by CDI (the old INI) on Mexico's indigenous groups, and it had about 10 pages of pictures on the Nahuas, and about 10 pages on (would you believe) the Mexicaneros. But the fact that people have this sort of language-induced or language-preserved misperception doesn't mean that we should perpetuate it.

It is also true that the articles currently go along with this standard in their organization. My response would be that maybe the Nahuatl article should be changed in this regard, to emphasize that this is a language *family*, and in that way comparable to Mayan, etc. You may be right that the best solution for the populous language comment is to omit it, but that doesn't seem quite right either. Nahuatl is indeed notable among NA indigenous languages for its huge population, and that is worth saying somehow. But it is not, or at least not clearly, the most populous comparable group, and I don't think it irrelevant or overly distracting to say so.

I think I'll copy these exchanges over to the Nahuatl talk page: it'd be relevant for others to put in their two cents worth.

--Lavintzin 16:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tlaxcaltecs in missions

I suggest that the Spanish practice of moving Tlaxcaltecs to missions to help convert various peoples to Christianity resulting in spreading Nahuatl should be mentioned. I was reading tonight about Nahuatl loanwords in Coahuilteco, which is rather on the fringes of the Mesoamerican area. It's interesting that there were non-native Nahuatl bilinguals that far north. – ishwar  (speak) 04:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Was it only Tlaxcaltecs? Nahuatl-speakers, anyway. And not only on missions, but in exploring parties and other largely or at least partly secularly-motivated expeditions. I agree that it's worth mentioning. One of the major results is in the placenames that got written down and then used by the Spanish. It is not always clear, though that loanwords came about only or primarily through Nahuatl-speakers who came with the Spaniards, is it? Nahuatl was already pretty widespread, and a useful language to be bilingual in, before the Spanish came. --Lavintzin 06:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'll leave it you specialists to write about. I dont know about what the primary Nahuatl people were, but Rudolph Troike ("A Nahuatl Loan-Word in Coahuilteco", IJAL 27 (2)) mentions only the Tlaxcaltecs. Since some loanwords (īliwat "feast", tiōpa "church", totā¢e "priest") are related to Catholic terms, Troike concludes that the borrowings occurred during post-Conquest times. Of course, it may be different for other peoples in southeastern Texas/northern Mexico. – ishwar  (speak) 16:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I've included info about this in the colonial period section.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:52, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dialects mutually unintelligible?

If dialects are mutually unintelligible, they should be considered as languages, not dialects.--Ornitorrinco 17:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For an explanation of this usage read: Mesoamerican languages#Dialects_vs._languages. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 17:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move to Nahuatl?

There's nothing else called Nahuatl that the language would need to be disambiguated from (well, there's Nahua, but "Nahuatl" is not generally used to refer to the people in English), and it would also avoid the language/dialect issue. --Ptcamn 16:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation of "Nahuatl (['na.watɬ])"

Could somebody please record and upload a pronunciation of "Nahuatl (['na.watɬ])" English doesn't contain the ɬ sound (voiceless alveolar lateral fricative) and I don't think I'm the only person reading this article who is curious as to how to correctly pronounce "Nahuatl". Patiwat 18:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Nawatl (help·info) try this for an approximation.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Put your tongue in position to say "l". Then, instead of using your voice, simply blow air through the sides of your mouth. If you blow spit droplets a couple of feet you're probably doing it right. That's a voiceless l (voiceless alveolar lateral fricative) Now say "Now watt" a couple of times. At the end of the t make the voiceless l sound. If you do it fast (i.e. not making the voiceless l as long after the t as if it were a separate syllable) you'll be pretty close to the right pronunciation. If the whole thing takes about the same length of time as "Nów watch" (accenting the "now") that would be about right.--Lavintzin 23:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monoglots

Nahuatl is the language spoken by the native people

any idea of percentage of monoglots vs. Spanish-speakers?

essentially zero monoglots

thanks - the article is extended in useful ways., too. --MichaelTinkler

No way zero monoglots. There are *lots* of people in a number of areas who are monolingual. Many more are able to use Spanish only for basic buying and selling, catching a bus to where they want to go, etc. --Lavintzin 00:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The full list of dialects in the infobox seems a bit excessive. Could we change this to a summary or a reference to a section in the article instead? Peter ^Isotalo 11:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree and have tried to change this, but somebody needs to tweak the infobox structure. It's not straightforward to change. I thought you could put in the infobox a link to the Nahuatl Dialects article. --Lavintzin 00:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The 2005 "conteo de población y vivienda" has 1,376,026 speakers of Nahuatl of which 129,350 declared that they did not speak Spanish.

The results of the 2000 census were 1,448,936 and 195,934 respectively.Unoffensive text or character 07:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History?

What happened to the rather large discussion history of this page?·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's still at Talk:Nahuatl language. The content of Nahuatl language was moved to Nahuatl, but the talk page wasn't. --Ptcamn 18:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed it all up now. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mexico City State

I heard that this language will become compulsory in the curriculum starting 2008, just wondering what Nahuatl language it is? Enlil Ninlil 06:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orthography

Can we get a few sentences added on why Nahuatl /s/ is commonly spelled as z rather than s? Mind you, "Spanish" is not an explanation in itself, since they do recognize /s/ = s too. It can't be 100% random, can it? --Tropylium 13:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article status being reassessed

Based on the current state of this article, and based on the good article criteria at this time, especially criteria 2 (b), with regards to verifiability and inline citations, this article does not appear to meet the standards of good articles. As such, a discussion has been initiated at good article reassessement to decide what can be done to bring it up to standard. Please see that page for further discussion. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I am delisting for now, but a renomination with Jayron reviewing might be a good next step. Geometry guy 20:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major Reconstruction

I am beginning a major reconstruction of the Nahuatl article, the aim is to reduce redundancy, repetition and trivia while maximizing the level of information and references. I have begun with removing the overview section and in stead making the lead conform better to WP:LEAD. I have also added a history section before the Genealogy and Geography sections describing the precolumbian, colonial and modern history of the language - this goes instead of the "linguistic prehistory" section which was only based on Kaufman 2001 and which was completely incomplete. The Geography section I have provided with sources, namely a reference to the most accessible description of the Nahuatl dialect of each region. Hopefully once this work is well underway the article will deserve its GA status and then we can move on towards an FA-run. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate any help with working the bibliography into a template format and citing the sources consistently, particularly the online sources. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 19:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Maunus, excellent and thoughtful work as always. I will go to work on the biblio references section for completeness and consistency in presentation. --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the work with the references, I find that stuff really tedious but I know from the Mayan languages experience that it is necessary in order to achieve any kind of approval.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

No probs, still a bit of tidying up to do, will chip away at it. Yes, given our experience there it would be just as well to address any potential presentational and formatting concerns beforehand- who knows, hopefully the reviewers will then have more time and attention to consider the content on its merits, not appearance... cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 02:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chicano language?

By what formal sense is Nahuatl identified as a "Chicano language" (Cf. the navigation template at the bottom)? Anyone else think this to be a problematic identification...?--cjllw ʘ TALK 08:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that that category is problematic.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

OK thx, I've removed Nahuatl from the template and the template from this article. --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikitionary links

"For a list of words relating to of the Nahuatl language, see the Nahuatl language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary" isn't very elegant - is there a better way to use the template to link to Wiktionary? (Found this while hunting for "to of" to correct, for WP:TYPO!). PamD (talk) 18:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quick review

Hey, Manaus requested that I give the article a quick review to see how it is coming relative to the good article criteria with the idea of getting the article relisted. For the record, the article's prose is quite well written, and it seems to be rather comprehensive and neutral. Still, there are a few issues, mainly with referencing, that may cause a hangup with regards to a GA review:

• Many sections lack references at all. In general, a good "rule of thumb" is that each paragraph should probably have a footnote describing where the information in that paragraph comes from. Having footnotes for each paragraph makes the referencing for an article like this unambiguous; given the length of the article and the sheer number of books used to reference it, it is difficult to ascertain where each bit of information came from. Footnotes help with this.
• Some statements may need specific referencing, for example where direct quotes or attributions are made,, or where superlative statements are made; for one example: " Among the most important works from this period ..." Well, according to WHOM are these works important?
• "Throughout the modern period the situation for indigenous languages have become increasingly worse" the whole paragraph that starts this way is entirely unreferenced, and since it makes contentious statements based on statistics (indeed, some real numbers may be VERY helpful here) those conclusions need to be backed up by specific footnoted reference. The paragraph also alludes to statistics, but doesn't actually quote them directly. It may be a good idea to put some real numbers to show the trend in Nahuatl literacy over time. But if you do, cite the source for the statistics.
• The section Loanwords from Nahuatl in other languages stands out as needing references. Etymolygies are particularly contentious, and should probably carry specific footnotes to respected linguists where it says "Such and such a word comes from such and such another word".
• The Writing systems section contains several "citation needed" tags. These will have to be cited; GA's tend to get rejected automatically with unresolved tags such as these.

Other than the above referencing issues, the article was very good. I enjoyed reading it, and it is quite informative without being overly technical or detailed. Fix those referencing issues, and you will most certainly have a GA on your hands. In fact, I would say that the article would be quite close to featured article status once those referencing issues are fixed. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 14:17, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I have tried to take care of all of you concerns, and the article now has more than 100 citations, and hardly any paragraphs without. I could not find a reference stating that the important works were the most important (probably because it is not really controversial) so i downgraded the superlative in that particular statement (also better style). The etymologies are also hard to find good references for, also not because they are controversial but rather because they are not (I found very good citations for the two etymologies that are semi-controversial). I also struck a number of words that weren't that interesting or common. I hope it can be accepted as is, a look in any etymological dictionary should corroborate the etymologies of the words that still remain uncited (I have checked american heritage dictionary for english and the spanish royal academy for spanish and they both agree on the nahuatl provenance).·Maunus· ·ƛ· 16:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology Tables

I would like the consonant and vowel tables to appear side by side rather than one above the other. How can this be done?·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You could make them as one table, or you could try nesting tables. See Help:Tables for some of the more complex aspects of table creation. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I put tables into 2 columns

Maybe this is what you want? – ishwar  (speak) 07:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly! Thanks!·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article size: don't be scared

Although the article currently says warning 66kb I have calculated the readable prose to be only 35kb - so there is no need to split the article yet. And by now I am just about finished.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] *ts, *s split

• Proto-Uto-Aztecan sibilants *ts and *s split into *ts, *ch and *s, *ʃ respectively.

Is there any environment conditioning the split? This is not mentioned here.

Or is it unknown? Or too complicated to fit within the bulleted list? If so, maybe there could be a mention in the footnote ref about why the details of this are omitted. – ishwar  (speak) 17:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

it is complicated and not completely understood hence the lack of explanation. A footnote is a good idea though. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 18:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-Hispanic spread of Mexican Nahuatl as general lingua franca

I have a factual question about the comment at the end of the Pre-Colombian subsection, which I reproduce here:

"This group were the Mexica who during the next 300 years founded an empire based in Tenochtitlan, their island capital. Their political and linguistic influence came to reach well into Central America and it is well documented that among several non-Nahuan ethnic groups, such as the K'iche' Maya, Nahuatl became a prestige language used for long distance trade and spoken by the elite groups, and a classical language among the educated."

I understand this to be referring to the period prior to the arrival of the Spanish, and I'm curious to know how whether it is firmly established to have been so. I ask because while I'm no historian (obviously!), I thought the Spanish had been instrumental in spreading "classical" Nahuatl as a prestige lingua franca over a wide region (which would include Central America, or course). This account seems to be saying this had already happened before they came (at least as far as the parts of Central America mentioned).

So perhaps Maunus or someone can just say a few words to clarify that question more explicitly? --A R King (talk) 08:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It is certainly an often repeated, and rarely questioned, statement in the literature - but I must admit that I have had my dounts too as to what is the basis for this understanding. Recently I had an exchange with User:rsheptak on my user page, he wrote "As for the idea of Nahuatl as a lingua franca, its not new. It permeates the pochteca trade literature, for example. Doña Marina and the other nahuatl speaking translators were understood over a wide area. Often, earlier literature has taken this to mean the locals were nahuatl (see Strong's article on Naco and Nito for an example) rather than they could understand and communicate in Nahuatl. There are even mentions of the people having funny accents or speaking a barely understood form of it. " I think he is right that one of the best foundations for this claim is the existance and descriptions of Aztec long distance traders, others would be the colonial descriptions of k'iche' society which according to Carmack and other expert had considerable central mexican influence and were partly bilingual. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

One expression of "Nahuatl as a lingua franca" that survives into present-day daily life (whether or not ordinary people are aware of it) is of course in modern place names. There are even cases such as the Guatemalan town of Quetzaltenango (a transparently Nahuatl name), in the heart of "Maya country", which is so called officially and on the maps, but which to this very day is widely referred to by the locals by the quite different Maya name of Xela. (This is so well known that the information even finds its way into tourist guide books.) I've long been curious about the details of how this happened. I used to have this image in my mind of Spanish mapmakers surveying the country in the company of their Mexican (Nahuatl-speaking) interpreters, the latter providing (from where?) Nahuatl designations of each place which were then transcribed onto the official maps and legal documents... I wonder how realistic that could be and if the answer is: Not very, then how and when all those Nahuatl place names in non-Nahuatl-speaking territories did come about. Certainly, the pre-existence of "Aztec" Nahuatl as a firmly established lingua france in the area would provide one plausible explanation. But if so, where does that leave the well-known assumption (to which I refer above) about the Spanish having been responsible for the spread of Nahuatl all over the area? --A R King (talk) 10:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think one thing rules out the other. I believe that nahuatl was to some extent a lingua franca and a prestige language among mesoamerican elites before the conquest and that the spanish use of Mexican soldiers (and the Nahuatl as official language of new spain policies of the 16th century) further consolidated the use of Nahuatl in the early colonial period.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

pg. 142-3 of Carmacks "Quiché Mayas of Utatlán" gives a good description of Aztec influence in central Guatemala: he describes that aztec pochteca merchant/spies operated in guatemala from the 1490'es after the aztecs having conquered the coastal provinces of chiapas, and that in 1510 the quiché rulers agreed to pay tribute to the Moctezuma II who also gave two daughters in marriage to the quiché king (a common domination strategy of the aztecs). The aztecs even sent messengers to the quiché to warn of the arrival of the spanish. He finishes by saying that "It is clear that strong Mexica influence at K'umarcaaj in the years preceding the conquest had to some extent Nahuatized the town. Before Spaniards even saw the town it was known in Mesoamerican circles as "otatlan""·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I know the use of Nahuatl place names is taken as a sign of the extensiveness of nahuatl use, but I'd like you to think about it in a different way. Who named the places? In what context? Often the "names" were supplied by the nahuatl allies of the Spanish. Much of the landscape isn't named in colonial documents, and the nahautl names that abound in Gazateers were assigned by later peoples. Finally, Nahuatl was the official language for instructing the native people in the catholic religion across all of "New Spain" (which was defined as everything north of Panama, not the more limited defininition that restricts it to Mexico). If the priests could be understood in nahuatl, they often didn't bother to learn the local native language, and they taught nahuatl to the native people in order to be able to preach to them. Rsheptak (talk) 01:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there's pretty good evidence in colonial documents that many mesoamerican people were polyglot when first contacted by the Spanish. For example, a group I recently looked at, the Toquegua, on the north coast of Guatemala and Honduras are identified in the archaeological record as chol maya speakers, solely on the basis that the Spanish priest assigned to convert them was understood when he spoke to them in Chol, which was spoken in adjacent Guatemala. He said they spoke chol with a funny accent (quoted in Ximenez). These same people were able to communicate with Cortes in 1525, when the only languages he had available were Yucatec and Nahuatl. I found a 1605 church census of Amatique that has a list of some 200 names (also badly reported on by Feldman). Among their personal names are words from Yucatec, Nahuatl, and Chol, as well as many in an unknown language, one that uses the "gua" ending which pretty much correlates otherwise with the distribution of Lenca at the time of the conquest. Their town names, which BTW, are also the names of important families of indios principales, are also the names of towns in the Lenca area. They regularly traded with the people of Yucatan, especially the east coast of Yucatan. They had political alliances with the lord of Chetumal. Probably they could understand and speak Yucatec. I think if we look honestly at the documentary record, we'll find a lot more evidence of polyglot communities prior to the Spanish Conquest. Fox wrote an article that Campbell largely rejected arguing this point. Rsheptak (talk) 01:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mexicapa, Mexicanos

"Alvarado conquered Guatemala with the help of tens of thousands of Tlaxcalan allies, who then settled outside of modern day Antigua the same happened in El Salvador, Nicaragua and in Honduras where Nahuatl speakers settled in communties named Mexicapa after them."

In San Salvador the "barrio" said to have been founded by the Mexicans accompanying the Spanish is to this day known as "Mexicanos". Is this fact sufficiently significant to merit expanding the above sentence to: "...named Mexicapa or Mexicanos after them"? --A R King (talk) 09:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I have been thinking about putting some of this into footnotes instead - since it is of only marginal relevance to the topic.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think its always safe to say its "mexicapa" because often its not, expecially in northern mexico. Rsheptak (talk) 01:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pipil

I don't know quite what to make of the wording of this sentence:

"Pipil, a Nahuatl dialect which happens to have its own name, is spoken as far south as El Salvador, by a small number of speakers."

As someone who has worked intensively on this language and written about it on Wikipedia, I try to be careful to tread carefully (even giving the benefit of the doubt against my own judgment if expedient) around issues on which scholarly and informed opinion is divided or uncommitted. Here the issues in question are: (a) whether this is a separate language or a "Nahuatl dialect", and (b) whether or not the name of the language is actually "Pipil". I am not asking to have my own opinions abided by on these things, only that other editors try to be as balanced as I am trying to be.

The words "Pipil, a Nahuatl dialect which happens to have its own name" sound like they are aimed at driving a particular point of view home - that this is "a Nahuatl dialect", not a language, and that its name is "Pipil" - much more insistently than anything said in the article about other universally recognised dialects of Nahuatl (some of which also have their own names). That pointedness is gratuitous as far as I can tell, and as such I take it as an invitation to expound my own point of view here, which differs from that expressed.

I would say (and do say so, when speaking for myself) that the real name of the language is not Pipil but Nawat. My main reason is that that is how its speakers refer to it; not a final argument (German speakers refer to their language as Deutsch, yet we still call it German in English), but a point to consider. A further point we might want to weigh up is that in El Salvador, where the language is spoken, it is also referred to in Spanish as "náhuat" (not as "pipil"). In Spanish it used to be called "nahuate", a hispanicized form of the name like "tomate", but that form is obsolescent and rarely if ever heard these days; instead, it is called, as I have said, "náhuat".

Only outsiders and in particular foreign scholars have taken to calling it "Pipil", after the designation of the people (although "Pipil" as an ethnonym is probably an exonym, and the "Pipils" are not in the habit of using it much either, but that's another can or worms. The reason for the preference for some such scholars of "Pipil" over "Nawat" (for the language) is no doubt to differentiate it clearly from Nahuatl. It is perhaps only natural that the speakers of the language themselves consider that less of an issue (they know who they are!), but in any case the fact is that for them the language already has a name, namely Nawat. So, the phrasing "which happens to have its own name" begs that question, whether on purpose or unwittingly.

As for whether Nawat/Pipil is a language in its own right or "a Nahuatl dialect", that is a question which I would consider open to debate - and within that debate, I have my own reasoned position on it, while recognising the right of others to have theirs. Linguists know that it is often by no means a cut-and-dried matter whether speech varieties are best considered dialects of "the same language" or not, and this is, in that sense, one of those cases. Hence my objection to the wording "Nahuatl dialect which happens to..." which blithely begs that question too. I think of Nawat as a language, not as a dialect-of, but that is not the point I wish to make; the point I wish to make is that this point of view is one legitimate way of understanding what it is, and the wording quoted seems to want to make that viewpoint illegitimate.

In short, I could have said nothing and just edit the sentence in question and just go ahead and put this in its place: "A different (though related) language spoken in El Salvador is also called Nawat...", and that would be at least as correct as: "Pipil, a Nahuatl dialect which happens to have its own name, is spoken as far south as El Salvador". We could even have a reversion war over it. But I don't want that; what I'm asking for is some balance, i.e. not making something sound like an airtight fact when it is only one way of looking at things. --A R King (talk) 19:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I see your poitn and agree - after all we are talking about "Nahuan languages" in several places in the article and if Pipil and Pochutec which are among the most divergent dialects from core aztec don't qualify for "language" status then talking about "nahuan languages" doesn't make much sense. Generally I think we should be generous with using "language", because of the political implications of not doing it. Also Ethnologue, which is one of our main sources definitely use this approach.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 19:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for coming back and for the revision in the article. I have made two changes: to correct "southern most" to "southernmost" (orthographic), and "as far south as El Salvador" -> "in El Salvador", partly for style (to avoid "southernmost...as far south"), and because the sentence is in the present tense, and at present El Salvador is the only place Nawat/Pipil is spoken anyway, so I think that makes it clearer. Alan --A R King (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes that was a little hurried. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

I want to include a text sample and preferably also a sound sample of Nahuatl. If anyone has an idea of which text to use that would be good. I would like to have a short text that could be shown side by side in two or more dialects to illustrate the diversity. Also if anyone knows of a short sample recording of a Nahuatl native speaker (with free license) that would be good - I would prefer a recording that has already been released into the public domain. But if all else fails I'll use one of my own recordings.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good article review

1. It is well written.

   It has a few snags here and there, but I've helped out with copyediting. If it be pushed to FAC, it should probably get a good run-through by native English-speaking copyeditors.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   Absolutely. The list of references includes a huge list of sources that includes not only plenty of different authors, but also various periods. If anything, I think there might be even too many citations, especially in the lead (since it's supposed to be a summary of the article itself), but I don't consider this enough to fail the article. I couldn't help myself in one particular case, though. A specific citation of the fact that Sahagún had informants to help him compile what would be the Florentine Codex just isn't necessary sinve even the most casual checking of the references would reveal this very uncontroversial fact.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   Without doubt. I was even concerned that the information on literature might be excessive, but I feel that the explanation provided by Maunus to my comment on this in the peer review was satisfactory. There's only one snag that I feel needs to be dealt with: the section called "Media". It comes right at the end of the article and is ultra short and would probably be better off in "History.

4. It is neutral.

   I have not been able to spot any signs of skewed perspectives or misrepresentations.

5. It is stable.

   Certainly.

6. It is illustrated, where possible and appropriate, by images.

   It could use a few extra images, for example from the Florentine Codex or similar sources, but I think it suffices quite well for GA status.

Since I was asked by Maunus to review this article since I had worked a bit on Aztec cuisine and was at least a bit familiar with Aztec customs, I have one rather specific request. In the example of parallellisms, I'd love to see how maize was called "our flesh, our bones", since I recall reading that in Sophie D. Coe's book America's First Cuisines. Since maize was so central to Aztec mythology and society, I think it could very well replace "the chest, the box"

Peter ^Isotalo 14:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the detailed review effort. I will try to find the reference to the corn metaphor. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I checked Coe and she refers to volume XI, 279. I don't have access to the original Nahuatl text, though (nor do I know it well enough to identify the words).

Peter ^Isotalo 15:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I need reference to the folio since I have a different edition.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 16:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to estimate the folio by dividing the page number by two and then checking both pages? If not, don't consider it necessary for promotion.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know - but I can probably get my hands on the dibble and anderson edition in a week or two.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 19:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I've got dibble and anderson in my office and will check for this on monday or tuesday. 04:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsheptak (talk • contribs)

Well, then all you need to do is to take care of "Media", and the article will be passed.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually i think that section should probably be cut altogether - a user inserted media sections plugging indigenous language radio stations on almost all articles on indigenous mexican languages. I don't know whether to take it for face value that it they are notable. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 19:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Listing individual radio stations in a language article seemed rather pointless, so I removed them and settled for the link to CDI. The article is once again a GA. Good work! After some copyediting and adding a few more images, I believe this is pretty much ready to go up as an FAC.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:16, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seconded

I've rather belatedly arrived to look at this article, after a request for review. I just want to endorse the GA decision. I concur on almost every point. My only disagreement is that I'm more lenient regarding whatever copyedit issues may have been in the mind of the editor who passed the article for GA. I've read a good proportion of the article at this stage. While it's style is not my own, I find it very pleasing indeed. In particular, vocabulary selection is clearly governed by the needs of a wide readership -- technical terms are used where, and only where, these are essential to description of the language. They are wikified so novices can learn their meaning, rather than creating digressions to explain what more experienced linguists are already familiar with. This is no mean feat, and a great credit to the editors who have compiled the article.

I am particularly pleased with the references. These appear to be the core standard reference works on the subject. As with technical vocabulary, selection of references shows a wise judgement on the part of the author(s) as to just how much detail should be provided.

I am thrilled to learn a little about the tl phoneme, as my naive impression of meso-american languages was that they were full of this distinctive sound. There are a couple of brief discussions of debate in the literature regarding this, and the most helpful reference is identified. Perhaps I will locate this reference at some time when I have liesure. It is a wonderful thing that Wiki provides a platform for experts to direct amateurs like me to the best sources to inform my curiosity.

I will close by repeating my praise of the quality of prose in this entry. The logical flow between and within sections, the steady cadence of simple sentences with supporting subordinate clauses and, above all, the user-friendly vocabulary choice make this a very readable article. If a reader has sufficient interest in the topic to engage, she will not find herself put off by the style of its prose.

I will keep reading, for the sake of my own education, and copyedit where I think appropriate. However, I think this article is so good already that it needs the FA process for possible further improvement. Only by explicitly hearing the competing demands of many fussy readers can we really know how to modify what has been contributed to satisfy the highest possible standards available to Wiki. Alastair Haines (talk) 01:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments (as well as for the praise). I do believe that you are probably right that the next step is the FA drive.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 06:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help! ISO code reference

I tried to move the infobox reference to the list of ISO codes into iso3 (=ISO 639-3). Those are not the iso2 (ISO 639-2) codes, as the pre-current version made it seem. I tried various configurations, and finally saved one of the more innocuous-looking ones. I have no idea *why* it insists on generating two references to the list where I only put one. I'd be delighted if somebody could fix it. --Lavintzin (talk) 15:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Normally, if you put iso3=xxx, the template turns it into [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=xxx xxx], so that it links to the SIL page for the code. Attempting to link to the list results in [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=see [[List of Nahuan languages]] see [[List of Nahuan languages]]], interpretting "see" as an ISO 639-3 code (which happens to be for Seneca) and displaying List of Nahuan languages twice. I don't think it's currently possible to link to a Wikipedia article in the ISO 639-3 slot; the template would have to be changed.

I've gone with a kludge, putting the code for Classical Nahuatl in the template and linking to List of Nahuan languages as part of the description. --Ptcamn (talk) 15:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent solution. Thanks! --Lavintzin (talk) 21:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Overlapping changes (copied from personal talk page)

-My changes to your changes-

(to Lavintzin:) I have recently undone or changed a few of your edits to Nahuatl and I feel I should explain my reasons for doing so. You changed the gloss to an example of a Nahuatl sentence with agreement markers to four participants - you correctly stated that te:- and tla- are non specific prefixes referring to "someone" and "something" and not to "him" and "it" as the gloss staed. The gloss however were from Suárez' book "The Mesoamerican Indian Languages" and I believe he used the gloss he did in order to show the possibilities for polypersonal headmarking in Nahuatl. While your gloss is undoubtedly more correct I feel that we should use the gloss used in the example so as not to be guilty of neither misrepresenting quotes or doing Original Research. Your other change introduced a very good and thorough explanation of the gloss of an example of a modern Nahuatl sentence that had various loaned words. However it was a bit too detailed for the scope of the section and I moved it into a footnote. I hope that you can agree with my reasoning for changing your edits, and if not I am quite ready to discuss how to do it in a better way. I hope I haven't discouraged you from adding any more of your high quality contributions to the article. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Makes plenty of sense to me:—I like what you did with it. The footnote probably isn't even necessary: why not just leave the Spanish words bold-faced?

I think the Suárez glosses as they stand are actually a misrepresentation. It is only in fairly exceptional cases that you get so many object prefixes, and only one of them is ever a specific non-reflexive. It's certainly historically accurate to give his glosses for it, but I think it's misleading for the audience, which is a more important consideration to me. I'd vote for putting his glosses in a footnote.

The line between "no original research" and "don't leave what you know to be false, even if you can't quote somebody else on it" is a slippery one.

and btw, sorry about messing up one of your edits: apparently we were both editing the same section at the same time. Fixed now, anyhow.

I'm going to copy this to the Nahuatl talk page, I think, fwiw.--Lavintzin (talk) 23:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we could change the glosses and leave a note that we have standardized them.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm for it. But I'd be glad to hear from others interested in the page. --Lavintzin (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've already done it - but of course we can alway do it back if someone disagrees. :) ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 18:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Relational Noun vs. Postposition

I don't like calling things like -pan relational nouns. What's nominal about them?

They have been called postpositions by many people, and that makes sense: they are like prepositions except they come after their object. Some only occur with pronominal objects (and may optionally have a noun or independent pronoun corresponding to that object fore or aft: there is no reason beyond a priori fiat to say that the overt prefixal object is just an inflected copy of a "real" phrasal object.) Other postpositions only occur with nominal stems as objects (the "locatives" as they are often called), and yet others can occur with either type of object. fwiw the name "relational noun" is also used by some to talk about nouns like father or aunt or lid (clearly nouns, but equally clearly denoting a prominent, defining relation to the designated thing).

Many postpositions are built of a noun along with a postposition or two (e.g. -kua-pa-k 'head-on-loc' 'on top of'. But so are many prepositions in other languages (e.g. on top of, be-side, under-neath, etc.) and we don't feel the need to call those relational nouns.

Languages like Mixtec that actually use an underived noun for this sort of purpose have more reason to adopt the term. E.g. they might say 'it happened eye me' for 'in my presence', but in Nahuatl you say -īx-pan, not just -īx.

Bottom line, I know people call these things by the name "relational nouns", but I would rather the Wiki article on Nahuatl not make it seem like that's the standard or maybe even the only way they're talked about.

--Lavintzin (talk) 00:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

They are nominal because they can be possessed like nominals and carry nominal morphology, and rather than being used as suffixes quite a lot of literature sees them as nouns forming compounds with other nouns. I also believe that most of them have a nominal origin. Also since Nahuatl is thought to have acquired relational nouns upon becoming part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area through diffusion from other languages that have relational nouns I think the historical picture is blurred if they are not called that. I also don't agree that because relational nouns in some languages like Mixtec are more nouny in their derivation that the construction of Nahuatl is any less a relational noun. In my understanding a relational noun is simply not similar to pre- or postpositions because they rely on headmarking strategies (possession morphology) to express the relational meaning. I am aware that there are divergent interpretations and that relational noun is not the only way to describe them, as postpositions, as locative suffixes etc. And I agree that this should probably be mentioned in the article. I have added it to the description of relational nouns that alternative descriptions call them either postpositions or locative suffixes, feel free to change or elaborate on it. Maybe a note going more into the terminology here would be appropriate? ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 06:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

- The pronominal postpositional objects are formally identical to possessives, yes. But their meaning is not the same as possessive prefixes' meanings generally are. (That's not a strong argument as stated, but it can easily be made stronger.) What other nominal morphology do the postp/rel-n's have? Not absolutive. (Of course they don’t when they have a pronominal prefix, assuming that's a possessive prefix. But they also don't have it when the object is a noun stem, even though N-N-abs is perfectly standard. If you say those nouns are possessors, then why don't real nouns take such possessors?) No plurals, possessed or otherwise. No collectives. Dim/honorific, but often in the wrong place: _before_ the postposition. And of course verbs take the dim-hon also. Nothing else particularly nouny that I can think of.

I wonder how secure the nominal etymologies of most of them are. But that's a side issue, really.

Anyhow, as you say, there are divergent interpretations. So I agree, this should be mentioned in the article. I'm not asking to exclude the idea that they are/might be nouns of some sort. --Lavintzin (talk) 07:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to continue the discussion even thought we are in agreement about what to include in the article: They also behave syntactically like NP's - they don't have to occur in a specific position in relation to the noun that they are governeing. The phrase "i:-itzkwin Pedro" and "i:-te.ch Pedro" have the same possibilities for changing places between the two NP's and put extraneous material in between them. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not a very strong argument. In at least some variants the same could be said of verbs and their clausal objects. It's easy enough to see it as a general rule that nominals corresponding to a pronominal object or possessor come next to the word in which that pronominal form occurs, except in a few special cases, and may occur either before or after (depending on the variant)... What noun did -ka come from? What did it mean? What noun did -wan come from? Anyway, the whole way of looking at it raises more questions than it provides answers. To my mind the only question it answers is "Why do the pronominal OP's have the same form as the pronominal possessors?" And I can answer that question without having to posit that the P's are nouns.

Probably this discussion is getting less relevant to the Nahuatl page. If we want to continue it one of our talk pages might be better.

Cheers!--Lavintzin (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring nouns

I'm changing a bunch of things in the noun article, including putting a separate section for pronouns and moving the inclusive/exclusive stuff there.

One thing I'm deleting for the present at least is the following:

Classical Nahuatl and some modern dialects also use a special locative suffix^[1] which can be described as a locative case.

What special locative suffix is this? How is it different from the other ones? If this is to go back in, I think it needs to be clearer.

In any case the tie-in between these structures and case markings is not close (though it is real. So is the tie-in between say English prepositional phrases and case markings.) One normally expects case markings to distinguish subjects and objects, not things like "in place of" from "between" or "underneath". To me it makes sense to downplay the identification of these constructions with case.

--Lavintzin (talk) 14:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It's -co/-c found in classical. Which is described by launey as the only postposition in the language. But I agree that it is probably too marginal too merit inclusion.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It's in the modern variants I know too. But I don't see it as all that different from -pan, -kan, -tlan, etc. They all mean more or less "(at the) place of __", and little else. Cases like -nawak, -tzallan, -kuapak, -tenko, -ixpan add a little more information about the kind of place, by including a noun giving a good hint to that information. Anyway, I should read what Launey says about why he thinks it's so different in Classical. It is one of the few that only goes on noun stems, not permitting the pronominal prefixes to be used. -tlan is similar in some dialects at least.

Anyhow, I agree not to put it in unless there is considerably more explanation as to what Launey is proposing and why. It's probably not best to do that for a general article such as this. --Lavintzin (talk) 23:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] disambig for the following links

predicate
hidalgo
Randomblue (talk) 10:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map omission

In the "Modern period" section, in the map Image:Nahuatl dialects map.png the whole Sierra de Zongolica area in Central Veracruz is omitted. There is a big white blob in northern Oaxaca, and there are indeed a few Nahuatl-speaking towns there, but the Zongolica area is very large and populous in comparison. (I have a map made from the INALI map of the area that I could send whoever (Maunus, I suppose?) "owns" this map, so it could be adapted.)

--Lavintzin (talk) 17:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll make a white blob in the zongolica right away.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 17:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like the copy of thr INALI map though just to be sure. You can send it to magnuspharao arroba hotmail punto com. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 17:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Honorific verb example/explanation

I feel the small paragraph there and example could use tweaking. The example is a bit atypical, given that the -tsinoa suffix is used only of verb whose normal construction is reflexive: the normal honorific is a form (usually a reflexive) where the subject is "doubled". Circeus (talk) 16:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I chose that example because it is in the Suárez book, and I am fairly sure he chose it because it has a specific honorific suffix - instead of the usual honorific construction which is an applicative or causative and less clearly shows the honorific element.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 20:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

But it is a minority construction in the language, and stating that "". In Launey's books, he starts by describing the usual form, then goes to explain that the reflexive verbs have to use a different construction because it already duplicates the subject. While all honorific are "special verb forms" bu definition (because honorifics is marked on the verb), implying that "honorific suffixes" is th, or even a usual method of forming them is misleading. I don'treally mind leaving that example, but I think at least one more "usual" example should be provided. I'm primarily concerned out of the fact Classical Nahuatl grammar completely fails to discuss honorific verbs. Circeus (talk) 21:47, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Media

is putting .ogg media files for the pronuciation of native terms something that's encouraged for every article? or only for difficultly-spelled names?CuteHappyBrute (talk) 01:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK there's not really any specific guideline, per se. Within moderation, and wherever it might seem particularly helpful for a term otherwise unfamiliar to the general english-speaking public, would be reasonable. --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured status

Oh my! A front page article which is manifestly wrong just by clicking on the links in the first paragraph? Why on earth does it say that all Uto-Aztecan languages are native to Mesoamerica? --Aaron Walden 21:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you're misreading it, although I can see reading it that way. What the authors intend to convey there is that all of the family of Nahuatl languages are Mesoamerican, not that all Uto-Aztecan languages are Mesoamerican. Rsheptak (talk) 21:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, in retrospect that had been ambiguously phrased, and that was not the intention. Thanks Rsheptak, reads better now. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 22:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Okay. Thanks for clarifying it. --Aaron Walden 02:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion for article split in future

The article, as implemented, addresses two separate topics, the nahuan family of languages, and central Mexican Nahuatl. I'd like to suggest that these need to be split into separate articles, and that the Nahuan family info needs to be significantly enhanced, with links to articles on the family members. As it stands, the classical nahuatl info is fantastic, but I'm left wondering about all the other nahuan dialects, how they're related, when they split, etc. Don't get me started on Pipil...It would be nice to see more from the linguists about the other family members, and I think that entails splitting the article. Rsheptak (talk) 18:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree. I have gone to great lengths to make the article reflect the variety of nahuan languages, if it seems slightly weigthed towads classical (which I don't really see that it is) that would be because of the much larger corpus of material on classical. If you want more detailed info on specific dialectological questions that would be found in Nahuatl dialects - but because you won't find splitting dates or a detailed stammbaum of dialects there - simply because the state of nahuatl dialectlogy has not been able to produce one. I maintain that the article named simply Nahuatl should provide an overview of all the languages that are subsumed under the name Nahuatl (i.e. Nahuan languages) but shouldn't go into unnecessary detail about dialectological issues or about individual varieties/dialects. It may be true that we need a new article about the specific historical linguistics of the Nahuan languages detailing developments from Proto-Nahuatl etc. but this article is not the place. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 01:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

fwiw I'm with Maunus on this one.--Lavintzin (talk) 05:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations on Featured Article

I was off the Internet for a few days and (bummer!) missed seeing Nahuatl on the front page on the 13th. Anyway, congratulations to us all, and especially to you, Maunus. I hope somebody who knows how to handle the barnstar thing gives you a couple! You done good. --Lavintzin (talk) 05:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)