Classical Nahuatl language

Classical Nahuatl (also known as Aztec, and simply Nahuatl) is any of the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico. During the subsequent centuries it was largely displaced by Spanish and evolved into some of the modern Nahuatl dialects in use today (other modern dialects descend more directly from other 16th-century variants.) Although classified as an extinct language,^[2] Classical Nahuatl has survived through a multitude of written sources transcribed by Nahuas and Spaniards in the Latin script.

Classification

Classical Nahuatl is an Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan or Aztecan language. It belongs to the central dialects and is most closely related to the modern dialects of Nahuatl spoken in the valley of Mexico in colonial and modern times. It is probable that the Classical Nahuatl documented by 16th- and 17th-century written sources represents a particularly prestigious sociolect. That is to say, the variety of Nahuatl recorded in these documents is most likely to be more particularly representative of the speech of Aztec nobles (pipiltin), while the commoners (mācehualtin) spoke a somewhat different variety.

Sounds

Vowels

Consonants

Prosody

Stress generally falls on the penultimate syllable. The one exception is the vocative suffix -e, used only by males, where stress falls on the final syllable, e.g. Cuāuhtliquetzqui (a name, meaning "eagle-warrior"), but Cuāuhtliquetzqué "Hey, Cuauhtliquetzqui!".

Phonotactics

Maximally complex Nahuatl syllables are of the form CVC; that is, there can be at most one consonant at the beginning and end of every syllable. In contrast, English, for example, allows up to three consonants syllable-initially, and up to four consonants to occur at the end of syllables (e.g. strengths) (note that while there is a sequence of five consonant letters, the end of the word is pronounced with four consonant sounds, /ŋkθs/). For these purposes, tl /tɬ/, is treated as a single sound. Not all consonants can occur in both syllable-initial and -final position.

Grammar

Writing system

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec writing used mostly pictographs supplemented with a few ideograms. When needed it also used syllabic equivalences; Father Durán recorded how the tlacuilos 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's script could.

The Spanish introduced the Roman script, which was then utilized to record a large body of Aztec prose and poetry, a fact which somewhat diminished the devastating loss caused by the burning of thousands of Aztec manuscripts by the Spanish authorities (see Nahuatl transcription).

On the Nahuatl edition of Wikipedia, the language is written in a Latin alphabet, including four letters with macrons or long vowels: ā, ē, ī, ō. Many other foreign letters such as "b" or "k" are used only in foreign names such as in "Francitlān" (France).

The 25-letter alphabet is:

Notes:¨

• Similar to Spanish, /k/ is written as "c", except before "i" or "e" in which case "qu" is used. Likewise, /s/ is written as "z", except before "i" or "e" in which case "c" is used. However, /ts/ is always written as "tz". (Note that Nahuatl /s/ was likely somewhat different from a normal European /s/, which would explain why Spanish scribes used "z" and "c" instead of "s" to write the sound.)
• "x" is used for the sh-sound /ʃ/, as in early modern Spanish.
• "cu" and "hu", which represent /kʷ/ and /w/ respectively, are inverted to "uc" and "uh" when occurring at the end of a syllable. Note that the letter "u" is only used in digraphs, as the Nahuatl language lacks the vowel /u/.
• These (*) letters have no capital form except in foreign names.
• "h" represents a glottal stop (a silent pause caused by constricting the throat as in "oh-oh.")

History

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 Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an excellent early sample of literary Nahuatl.

A Spanish-Nahuatl, Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary, Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana, y mexicana is "the most important and most frequently reprinted Spanish work on Nahuatl," according to the World Digital Library.^[3]

Nowadays, Classical Nahuatl is used by Mexican NSBM groups supporting indigenismo, such as Kukulcan, Tlateotocani and Comando de Exterminio.

See also

Nāhuatl edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Aztec codices
• List of extinct languages of North America
• Mesoamerican Linguistic Area

Notes

References

External links

• "Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana, y mexicana. : En que se contienen las palabras, preguntas, y respuestas mas co[m]munes, y ordinarias que se suelen offrecer en el trato, y communicacion entre Españoles, é Indios". World Digital Library. Retrieved 2013-05-23.