Nahuatl is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan branch of the
Uto-Aztecan language family which is indigenous to
Mesoamerica and is spoken by around 1.5 million
Nahua people in Central Mexico.
Groups speaking Nahuan languages have existed in central Mexico at least since 600 AD and at the time of the
Spanish conquest of Mexico one of these Nahuatl-speaking groups, the
Aztecs dominated central Mexico. Because of the expansion of the Aztec Empire the dialect spoken by the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan had become a prestige language throughout Mesoamerica. With the arrival of the Spanish and the introduction of the
Latin Alphabet Nahuatl became also a literary language with large amounts of chronicles, grammars, poetry, administrative documents and codices being written in the language during the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan dialect has been labelled
Classical Nahuatl and is among the most studied and best documented languages of the
Americas.
Today
Nahuan dialects are spoken by more than 1.5 million people in scattered villages, towns and rural areas, 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.. 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.
Nahuatl is a language with a complex
morphology characterized by
polysynthesis and
agglutination, allowing the construction of long words with complex meaning out of several stems and
affixes. Throughout the centuries of coexistence with the other
Mesoamerican languages Nahuatl has been influenced by these and has become part of the
Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.
Many words from Nahuatl have been borrowed into Spanish and further on into hundreds of other languages. These are mostly words for concepts indigenous to central Mexico which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English words of Nahuatl origin include "
tomato" from Nahuatl
tōmatl, "
avocado" from Nahuatl
ahuacatl, "
chili" from Nahuatl
chīlli and
coyote from Nahuatl
coyōtl.
History
Precolumbian Period
Archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence suggest that the speakers of Nahuatl languages originally came from the northern Mexican deserts and migrated into central Mexico in several waves. Before the Nahuan languages entered Mesoamerica they were probably spoken in northwestern Mexico alongside the Coracholan languages(
Cora and
Huichol). The first group to split from the main group were the
Pochutec who went on to settle on the Pacific coast of
Oaxaca possibly as early as 400 AD From ca 600 AD Nahuan speakers quickly rose to power in central Mexico and expanded into areas earlier occupied by speakers of
Oto-Manguean,
Totonacan and
Huastec.. Also some speakers of Nahuan moved south as far as El Salvador and Panama becoming the ancestors of the speakers of modern
Pipil. The earliest migrations are thought to correspond to the modern peripheral dialects some of which are relatively conservative and don't display much influence from the central dialects.
Around 1000 AD Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, and migrations kept coming in from the north. One of the last of these migrations to arrive in the valley settled on an island in the
Lake Texcoco and proceded to subjugate the surrounding tribes. 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's 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.
Colonial Period
With the arrival of the Spanish in 1519 the tables turned for the Nahuatl language and a new language was now in the prestige position. But the missionary effort undertaken by monks from various monastic orders principally the
Fransciscans,
Dominicans and
Jesuits introduced the alphabet to the Nahuas and they were eager to learn to read and write, both in Spanish and in their own language. Within the first ten years after the Spanish arrival texts were being prepared in the Nahuatl language written with Latin characters.
Also during this time institutions of learning were opened, such as the
Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco which was inaugurated in 1536 and which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Indians and priests. And missionary grammarians undertook the job of writing grammars for the indigenous languages in order to teach priests. For example the first grammar of
Nahuatl, written by
Andrés de Olmos, was published in 1547 - three years before the first grammar of French, and by 1645 another four grammars of Nahuatl had been published: One by
Alonso de Molina in 1571, one by Antonio del Rincón in 1595, one by Diego de Guzman in 1642 and the grammar today seen as being the most important by
Horacio Carochi in 1645.
In 1570
Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of
New Spain in order to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies.
During the 16th and 17th centuries Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language and a large corpus of texts from that period is in existence today. Texts from this period include histories, chronicles, poetry, theatrical works, Christian canonical works, ethnographic description and all kinds of administrative and mundane documents. During this period the Spanish allowed for a great deal of autonomy in the local administration of indigenous towns and in many Nahuatl speaking towns Nahuatl was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. Among the most important works from this period is the
Florentine Codex, a 12-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan
Bernardino de Sahagún;
Crónica Mexicayotl, a chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by
Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc,
Cantares Mexicanos a collection of songs in Nahuatl, the Nahuatl-Spanish/Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by
Alonso de Molina and the
Huei tlamahuiçoltica a description in Nahuatl of the apparition of the
Virgin of Guadalupe.
Throughout the colonial period grammars and dictionaries of indigenous languages were composed, but strangely the quality of these were highest in the initial period and declined towards the ends of the 18th century. In practice the friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible and they began to focus on Nahuatl. During this period the linguistic situation of Mesoamerica was relatively stable. However, in 1696
Charles II made a counter decree banning the use of any languages other than Spanish throughout the
Spanish Empire. And in 1770 a decree with the avowed purpose of eliminating the indigenous languages was put forth by the Royal Cedula. This marked the end of Nahuatl as a literary language.
Modern Period
Throughout the modern period the situation for indigenous languages have become increasingly worse: Numbers of speakers for virtually all indigenous languages have decreased, and this is also the case for Nahuatl. Nahuatl is now mostly spoken in rural areas by the empoverished class of indigenous subsistence agriculturists. Since the early 20th century educational policies in Mexico have focused on "hispanification" of indigenous communities teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of Nahuatl. Even so Nahuatl is spoken by well over a million people, most of whom are bilinguals but some of whom are monolingual, and Nahuatl isn't as a whole endangered, even though some dialects are severely endangered and others have become extinct within the last ten years.
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 a small number of speakers. 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 and
Colima the language has become extinct during the 20th century. Due to migrations within Mexico nahuatl groups of nahuatl speakers or even small language communities can be found in all of the Mexican states. 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.
Classification and terminology
Terminology
The terminology relating to the Nahuatl varieties is rather vague and confusing - many terms are applied with differing meanings, or the some groupings have several names. Sometimes older terms are substituted with newer terms or the speakers own name for their specific variety.
The word Nahuatl itself is a Nahuatl word which is probably derived from the word "
nāwatlahtolli" - "clear language". The language was formerly called "Aztec" because it was spoken by the Aztecs, who however didn't call themselves Aztecs but Mexica, and who called their language
Mexicacopa. Nowadays the term "Aztec" is rarely used for modern Nahuan languages, but the term "Aztecan" is used for the Nahuatl languages and dialects when described as the second constituent part of the Uto-Aztecan language family - this group is also often called "Nahuan". The term "General Aztec" is used by some linguists to refer to the Aztecan languages but not
Pochutec.
The speakers of Nahuatl themselves often refer to their language as "Mexicano" or a word derived from the Nahuatl word for "commoner" "
mācehualli". The Pipil of El Salvador don't call their own language "Pipil" as most linguists do, but rather "Nawat". The Nahuas of Durango call their language "Mexicanero". Speakers of Nahuatl of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec call their language "
mela'tajtol" - "the straight language". Some speech communities also use the word "Nahuatl" about their language although this seems to be a recent practice. It is common practice for linguists referring to specific dialects of nahuatl to speak of "Nahuatl" adding the village or area where it's spoken as a qualifier, for example "Nahuatl of Acaxochitlan".
Genealogy
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.
The first linguist to recognize the relationship between the northern
Shoshonean languages with the southern Aztecan languages was
Hubert Howe Bancroft, and the unity was confirmed in the classification of
Daniel Garrison Brinton in 1891, the first classification to use the term "Uto-Aztecan" for the language family .
The subgroupings of the Nahuan dialects and languages have been the subject of discussions among linguists for the past 50 years.
In the early 20th century the first classifications of the Nahuan languages were proposed. Walter Lehmann suggested a basic split between languages which had the /tl/ sound and other which had /t/. In 1939 another classification was proposed by
B. L. Whorf which distinguished "Nahuat", the dialects with /t/ from "Aztec" the dialects with /tl/. at first the assupmtion of linguists was that /t/ was the original
phoneme and had changed into /tl/ in some dialects only. Another classification distinguishing between dialects with /tl/, /t/ and /l/ was proposed by Juan Hasler in the 1950'es but this and the earlier classifications have been criticized by Canger for suffering from methodological flaws and for assuming that the t-tl-l trichotomy reflected an important historical division among the dialects. This assumption however was refuted by
Lyle Campbell and
Ronald Langacker in 1978 who showed that all the aztecan languages had shared the development of */t/ to /tl/ but that subsequently some dialects had changed the /tl/ back to /t/ or /l/.
The most recent authoritative classifications of the Nahuan languages have been done by
Yolanda Lastra de Suárez and by
Una Canger. Both classifications are based on dialectological research focusing on the delineation of
isoglosses based on differences in phonology, grammar and vocabulary. The two classifcations are largely identical, but vary on the status of the dialects of
La Huasteca which Canger places in the central group but are placed by Lastra in a group unto themselves.
The classification below is based on that of Lastra in combination with the classification of Campbell for the higher level groupings.
- 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.
Phonology of Nahuan languages
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 isn't 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.
Consonants
Table of Nahuatl consonants
Vowels
Table of Nahuatl vowels
| |
front |
central |
back |
| |
long |
short |
long |
short |
long |
short |
| high |
iː |
i |
|
|
|
|
| mid |
eː |
e |
|
|
oː |
o |
| low |
|
|
aː |
a |
|
|
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.
Vocabulary
Loanwords from Nahuatl in other languages
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 during Spanish colonialism in both regions, 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); shack (xacalli), and more.
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're not possessed or in the plural.)
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 tlahcuilos (codex painters) could render a prayer in Latin using this system, but it was difficult to use as it was still in development. This writing system was adequate for keeping such records as genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists, but couldn't 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 wasn't 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 (for example Molina's classic Vocabulario of 1571) and grammatical descriptions (of which Horacio Carochi's 1645 Arte is generally acknowledged the best) were produced using variations of this orthography.
Carochi's ortography used two different accents: a macron to represent long vowels and a grave for the saltillo.
The classic orthography isn't perfect, and in fact there were many variations in how it's 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're 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 controversial; SEP's modern ortography doesn't recognise saltillo nor long vowels so many people still prefer the classical ortography. 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
has adopted a classical Carochi-based writing system, including the use of long accents (macrons) for represent long vowels /ā/, /ē/, /ī/ and /ō/.
The 25-letter alphabet is:
a c ch cu e hu i l* m n o p qu t tl tz x y z ā ē ī ō ll* h*
Notes:¨
"cu" and "hu" are inverted to "uc" and "uh" when occuring at the end of a syllable.
These (*) letters have not capital form except in foreign names.
"h" is used as saltillo.
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