Nahuatl, Mexicano, Nawatl Nāhuatlahtōlli, Māsēwallahtōlli
Nahua woman from the Florentine Codex. The Florentine Codex is the name given to 12 books created under the supervision of Bernardino de Sahagún between approximately 1540 and 1585 The speech scroll indicates that she is speaking:
Spoken in:	Mexico (Mexico State, Distrito Federal, Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Morelos, Oaxaca, Michoacán and Durango) El Salvador United States,
Total speakers:	1. A speech scroll, also called a banderole in Western art history is an illustrative device used to denote speech song or in rarer cases other types of sound The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Mexico State or State of Mexico (often abbreviated to " Edomex " from Estado de México in Spanish) is a state in the Mexico City (in Spanish: Ciudad de México, México DF, México or simply Méjico) is the Capital city of Mexico Is a Mexican state located in the center east of the country to the east of Mexico City. Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the republic of Mexico. The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. Morelos is one of the constituent States of Mexico. Morelos has an area of about, making it the second-smallest of the country's states The Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), in Spanish phonemically /oa'xaka/ named for its largest city, is one of the Michoacán formally Michoacán de Ocampo (from Nahuatl Michhuacān "place of the fishermen" is one of the 31 constituent states Durango (duˈɾaŋgo is one of the constituent States of Mexico. El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the 45 million (2000)[1]
Language family:	Uto-Aztecan  Aztecan   General Aztec    Nahuatl, Mexicano, Nawatl
Official status
Official language in:	none
Regulated by:	Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	nah
ISO 639-3:	nci – Classical Nahuatl For modern varieties, see List of Nahuan languages. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American Language family. Nahuatl ( is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan or Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas ("National Indigenous Languages Institute" better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages Classical Nahuatl (also known as Aztec, and simply Nahuatl) is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Nahuatl ([ˈnaː.wat͡ɬ] (help·info))^[2] is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan, or Nahuan, branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Pipil or Nawat is the language originally spoken by the Pipils of western El Salvador and still remembered by some of them mostly elderly Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American Language family. All Nahuan branch languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica and are spoken by an estimated 1. Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Mesoamérica is a Region extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, defined 5 million Nahua people, most of whom live in Central Mexico. The Nahuas are a group of indigenous peoples of Mexico. Their language of Uto-Aztecan affiliation is called Nahuatl and consists of many The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America.

Nahuatl has been spoken in Central Mexico since at least the 7th century AD. ^[3] At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the early 16th century it was the language of the Aztecs, who dominated central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who achieved political Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into a number of named successive eras or periods from the earliest evidence of human habitation The expansion and influence of the Aztec Empire led to the dialect spoken by the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan becoming a prestige language in Mesoamerica in this period. There are some towns in Mexico which are spelled "Tenochtitlán" like San Lorenzo A prestige dialect is the Dialect spoken by the most prestigious people in a Speech community which is large enough to sustain more than one dialect With the introduction of the Latin alphabet, Nahuatl also became a literary language and many chronicles, grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in the 16th and 17th centuries. A literary language is a register of a Language that is used in Literary Writing. Generally a chronicle (chronica from Greek (from) is a historical account of facts and events in chronological order Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. A document (noun is a bounded physical representation of body of Information designed with the capacity (and usually intent to Communicate. Aztec codices (singular Codex) are Books written by Pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs ^[4] This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan dialect has been labeled Classical Nahuatl and is among the most-studied and best-documented languages of the Americas. Classical Nahuatl (also known as Aztec, and simply Nahuatl) is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America ^[5]

Today Nahuan dialects^[6] are spoken in scattered communities mostly in rural areas. The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects There are considerable differences between dialects, and some are mutually unintelligible. In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand They have all been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish. Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact No modern dialects are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Valley of Mexico is a highland Plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State ^[7] Under Mexico's Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ("General Law on the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples") promulgated in 2003,^[8] Nahuatl along with the other indigenous languages of Mexico are recognized as lenguas nacionales ("national languages") in the regions where they are spoken, with the same status as Spanish. Mexico has an enormous linguistic diversity apart from Spanish, the government recognizes 62 indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages ^[9]

Nahuatl is a language with a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination, allowing the construction of long words with complex meanings out of several stems and affixes. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word Nahuatl has been influenced by other Mesoamerican languages through centuries of coexistence, becoming part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Mesoamerican languages are the Languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a Sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. 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 "atlatl", "avocado", "chili", "chocolate", "coyote" and "tomato". An atlatl (from Nahuatl ahtlatl; in English pronounced or) or spear-thrower is a Tool that uses Leverage to achieve greater velocity The avocado ( Persea americana) (from Nahuatl āhuacatl) also known as aguacate ( Spanish) butter pear or The chili pepper, chilli pepper, or chili, is the fruit of the plants from the Genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade Chocolate ( pronounced or /-ˈələt/ comprises a number of raw and processed foods that are produced from the seed of the tropical Cacao tree The coyote (kaɪˈoʊti ˈkaɪoʊt ( Canis latrans) also known as the prairie wolf, is a Mammal of the order Carnivora The tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum, syn Lycopersicon lycopersicum) is a herbaceous usually sprawling plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family

Contents 1 History 1.1 Pre-Columbian period 1.2 Colonial period 1.3 Modern period 2 Geographic distribution 3 Classification 3.1 Genealogy 4 Phonology 4.1 Sounds 4.2 Allophony 4.3 Phonotactics 4.4 Reduplication 5 Grammar 5.1 Nouns 5.2 Pronouns 5.3 Verbs 5.4 Syntax 5.5 Contact phenomena 6 Vocabulary 7 Writing and literature 7.1 Writing 7.2 Literature 7.3 Stylistics 8 Sample text 9 See also 10 Notes 11 Bibliography 12 Further reading 13 External links

History

Pre-Columbian period

By a general consensus developed in the 20th century, linguists contend that the Uto-Aztecan languages originated in the southwestern United States, and thereafter migrated southwards into Mexico. The Southwestern area of the United States could be defined as the states west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37 ^[10] Some recent scholars such as Jane H. Hill have challenged this view, by proposing instead that the Uto-Aztecan languages originated in central Mexico and then spread northwards at a very early date. ^[11] This hypothesis is yet to be consolidated, and a northern origin of the Uto-Aztecan languages remains the most favored.

Archaeological, ethnohistorical and linguistic evidence suggests that speakers of early Nahuan languages first migrated into central Mexico from the northern Mexican deserts, most likely in several waves. Aridoamerica was a broad cultural area in pre-Columbian North America used to describe the northern region of Mexico, in contrast to Mesoamerica (the south Before reaching the central altiplano, these early pre-Nahuan groups probably spent a period of time in contact with the Coracholan languages in northwestern Mexico (Cora and Huichol). The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano, is a large plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico. Coracholan (alternatively Corachol, Cora-Huichol or Coran) is a grouping of Languages within the Uto-Aztecan Language family The Cora language is an indigenous language of Mexico of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. The Huichol language is an Indigenous language of Mexico, belonging to the Uto-Aztecan Language family. ^[12]

This migration of proto-Nahuatl speakers into the Mesoamerican region has been placed at sometime around AD 500, towards the end of the Early Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology. Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into a number of named successive eras or periods from the earliest evidence of human habitation ^[13] The major political and cultural influence across the region in the Early Classic had been Teotihuacan, the great city which flourished in central Mexico during the first half-millennium AD. Teotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the Pre-Columbian Americas The language(s) spoken by Teotihuacan's founders has long been debated, and the relationship of Nahuatl to Teotihuacan has figured centrally in that enquiry. ^[14] While in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was presumed that Teotihuacan had been founded by speakers of Nahuatl, later linguistic and archaeological research tended to discount this view. Instead, the timing of the Nahuatl influx was seen to coincide more closely with Teotihuacan's fall than its rise, and other candidates such as Totonacan identified as more likely. The Totonac people resided in the eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. ^[15] Recently discovered linguistic and epigraphic evidence from the Maya region has revived interest in the notion that Nahuan influences may have been significantly earlier than previously thought, opening up again the possibility of a significant Nahuatl presence at Teotihuacan. Epigraphy (ἐπιγραφολογία from Greek ἐπιγραφή — "inscription" is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved ^[16] However the exact implications of this evidence are not yet agreed upon by the Mesoamericanist community, and the linguistic affiliations of Teotihuacan's populace remain undetermined. ^[17]

In Mesoamerica the Nahua came into contact with speakers of Mayan, Oto-Manguean and Mixe-Zoquean languages who had coexisted for millennia, and whose languages had converged to form the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Oto-Manguean languages (also Otomanguean) are a large family comprised of several families of Native American languages. The Mixe-Zoque languages constitute a Language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a Sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. The earlier nomadic Nahuas adopted many aspects of Mesoamerican culture, which caused proto-Nahuatl to develop new traits similar to the other Mesoamerican languages. Mesoamerican languages are the Languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala Those traits which are common to all Nahuatl varieties, but are absent in other Uto-Aztecan languages outside of Mesoamerica, are held to date from this period. ^[18] Examples of such adopted traits include the use of relational nouns, the appearance of calques, or loan translations, and a form of possessive construction typical of Mesoamerican languages. Relational nouns are a class of words used in some languages that is characterized by functioning syntactically as Nouns but conveying the meaning of Prepositions In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word ^[19]

The first group to split from the main group of proto-Nahuatl speakers were the Pochutec, who went on to settle on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, possibly as early as AD 400, arriving in Mesoamerica a few centuries earlier than the main bulk of Nahua peoples. Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Aztecan branch which was spoken in around the town of Pochutla on the pacific coast of Oaxaca The Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), in Spanish phonemically /oa'xaka/ named for its largest city, is one of the ^[20] The earliest migrations are thought to correspond to the modern peripheral dialects some of which are relatively conservative and do not display much influence from the central dialects. ^[21] Some Nahuan groups migrated south along the Central American isthmus, reaching as far as El Salvador and Panama. El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America. Panama, officially the Republic of Panama (República de Panamá) is the southernmost country of Central America. They would be ancestral to speakers of modern Pipil. Pipil or Nawat is the language originally spoken by the Pipils of western El Salvador and still remembered by some of them mostly elderly ^[22] Beginning in the 7th century Nahuan speakers rose to power in central Mexico, where they expanded into areas earlier occupied by speakers of Oto-Manguean, Totonacan and Huastec languages. Oto-Manguean languages (also Otomanguean) are a large family comprised of several families of Native American languages. The Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of The Wastek or Huastec language is a Mayan language of Mexico spoken by the Huastecs living in rural areas of San Luis Potosí and northern ^[23] The people of the Toltec culture of Tula, Hidalgo, which was active in central Mexico around the 10th century, are thought to have been Nahuatl speakers, and the traits associated with the central dialects spread within central Mexico in the epi-Toltec period migrations. Toltec-style Vessel 1jpg|thumb|250px|right|A rather expressive orange-ware clay vessel in the Toltec style Tula is a town of 28432 (2005 census in the southwestern part of the state of Hidalgo in central Mexico, some 100 km to the north-northwest of Mexico City

By the 11th century, Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, with centers such as Azcapotzalco, Colhuacan and Cholula rising to prominence. Valley of Mexico is a highland Plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State Azcapotzalco (Āzcapotzalco|aːskapo'ʦaɬko From Nahuatl Azcalli=ant Potzulli=ant hill co= place Lteraly "In the place of the ant hills" is one of the Culhuacan or Colhuacan (Cōlhuàcān|koːɬ'waʔkaːn was one of the Nahuatl -speaking Pre-Columbian city-states of the Valley of Mexico. Successive Nahua migrations from the north into the region continued into the Postclassic period. Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into a number of named successive eras or periods from the earliest evidence of human habitation One of the last of these migrations to arrive in the valley settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco and proceeded to subjugate the surrounding tribes. Lake Texcoco (Lago de Texcoco was a natural Lake formation within the Valley of Mexico, a basin with an average Elevation of 2236 m Above This group were the Mexica (or Mexihka), who over the course of the next three centuries founded an empire based from Tenochtitlan, their island capital. The Mexica ( Nahuatl: Mēxihcah, meːˈʃiʔkaʔ or Mexicans ( Spanish: Mexicanos) were an indigenous people of the There are some towns in Mexico which are spelled "Tenochtitlán" like San Lorenzo 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. This page is about the Native American people for other uses the dish see Quiché (disambiguation. ^[24]

Colonial period

With the arrival of the Spanish in 1519 the tables turned for the Nahuatl language, and a new language became dominant. Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. However, because the Spanish allied themselves with the Nahuatl speakers from Tlaxcala and later with the conquered Aztecs, the Nahuatl language continued spreading throughout Mesoamerica in the decades after the conquest, when Spanish expeditions with thousands of Nahua soldiers marched north and south to conquer new territories. Tlaxcala ( Nahuatl Tlaxcallān "place of maize tortillas" was a pre-Columbian City state of central Mexico. Jesuit missions in northern Mexico and the southwestern US region often included a barrio of Tlaxcaltec soldiers who remained to guard the mission. The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order The Southwestern area of the United States could be defined as the states west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37 Barrio is a Spanish word meaning District or Neighborhood. The Word has come into use in English mostly through the large ^[25] For example, some fourteen years after the northeastern city of Saltillo, Coahuila, was founded in 1577, a Tlaxcaltec community was resettled in a separate nearby village (San Esteban de la Nueva Tlaxcala), to cultivate the land and aid colonization efforts that had stalled in the face of local hostility to the Spanish settlement. ^[26] Spanish conquests to the south of Mexico also often included Tlaxcatecs or other Nahuatl speaking allies. ^[27]

As a part of their missionary efforts, members of various religious orders (principally Fransciscan friars, Dominican friars and Jesuits) introduced the Latin alphabet to the Nahuas, who were eager to learn to read and write both in Spanish and in their own language. A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion usually The term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic A Friar is a member of one of the Mendicant orders. Friars and monks Friars differ from Monks in that they are called to a life of poverty in service The Order of Preachers ( Latin: Ordo Praedicatorum) after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order Within the first twenty years after the Spanish arrival, texts were being prepared in the Nahuatl language written in Latin characters. ^[28] Also during this time institutions of learning were founded, such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, inaugurated in 1536, which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Indians and priests. The Real Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico, was the first European school of higher learning in the Americas. A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites in particular rites of sacrifice to and propitiation of a deity or deities Missionary grammarians undertook the writing of grammars of indigenous languages for use by priests. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. The first Nahuatl grammar, written by Andrés de Olmos, was published in 1547, three years before the first French grammar. Andrés de Olmos (c 1485 &ndash 1571 Franciscan priest and extraordinary Grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's Indians was born in Oña French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people By 1645 a further four had been published: one by Alonso de Molina in 1571, one by Antonio del Rincón in 1595, one by Diego de Guzmán in 1642, and in 1645, what is today considered the most important Nahuatl grammar, that of Horacio Carochi. Alonso de Molina (1513 or 1514 &ndash 1579 was a Franciscan priest and Grammarian, who wrote and published a well-known dictionary of the Nahuatl language. Antonio del Rincón (1566&ndash March 2, 1601) was a Jesuit priest and Grammarian, who wrote one of the earliest grammars of the Nahuatl Horacio Carochi (1586–1666 was a Jesuit priest and Grammarian, who was born in Florence, Italy, and died in Mexico. ^[29]

In 1570 King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain in order to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies. Philip II (Felipe II de España Filipe I ( May 21, 1527 &ndash September 13 1598) was King of Spain from 1556 until 1598 The Viceroyalty of New Spain (Virreinato de Nueva España was a name given to the Viceroy -ruled territories of the Spanish Empire in North America, ^[30] This led to the Spanish missionaries teaching Nahuatl to Indians who were native speakers of other indigenous languages as far south as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Honduras in Spanish, República de Honduras) is a democratic republic in Central America. Guatemala (República de Guatemala) is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west the Pacific Ocean to the southwest El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America. 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 a wide variety of administrative and mundane documents. The Spanish permitted a great deal of autonomy in the local administration of indigenous towns during this period, and in many Nahuatl speaking towns Nahuatl was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. A large body of Nahuatl literature was composed during this period, including the Florentine Codex, a twelve-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún; Crónica Mexicayotl, a chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc; Cantares Mexicanos, a collection of songs in Nahuatl; a 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. Nahuatl ( is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan or Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family The Florentine Codex is the name given to 12 books created under the supervision of Bernardino de Sahagún between approximately 1540 and 1585 Bernardino de Sahagún (1499 &ndash October 23 1590) was a Franciscan missionary to the Aztec ( Nahua) people of Mexico The Crónica Mexicayotl is a chronicle of the Aztec empire that was written in the Nahuatl language by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc around 1598 Fernando or Hernando ( de) Alvarado Tezozómoc was a colonial Nahua noble. The Cantares Mexicanos is the name given to a manuscript collection of Nahuatl songs or poems recorded in the 16th century. Alonso de Molina (1513 or 1514 &ndash 1579 was a Franciscan priest and Grammarian, who wrote and published a well-known dictionary of the Nahuatl language. Huei tlamahuiçoltica omonexiti in ilhuicac tlatocaçihuapilli Santa Maria totlaçonantzin Guadalupe in nican huei altepenahuac Mexico itocayocan Tepeyacac ( Nahuatl Our Lady of Guadalupe, also called the Virgin of Guadalupe (Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe or Virgen de Guadalupe is a 16th century Roman Catholic Mexican

Grammars and dictionaries of indigenous languages were composed throughout the colonial period, but their quality was highest in the initial period and declined towards the ends of the 18th century. ^[31] In practice, the friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible and began to focus on Nahuatl. For a period the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained relatively stable, but in 1696 King Charles II passed a decree banning the use of any language other than Spanish throughout the Spanish Empire. Charles II ( November 6 1661, Madrid – November 1 1700, Madrid was the last Habsburg King of Spain and the A decree is an order made by a Head of state or government and having the force of Law. The Spanish Empire (Imperio Español was one of the largest Empires in history and one of the first Global empires In the 15th and 16th centuries In 1770 another decree with the avowed purpose of eliminating the indigenous languages, issued by the Royal Cedula, ended the existence of Classical Nahuatl as a literary language. A decree is an order made by a Head of state or government and having the force of Law. Classical Nahuatl (also known as Aztec, and simply Nahuatl) is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the ^[32]

Modern period

Throughout the modern period the situation of indigenous languages has grown increasingly precarious, and the numbers of speakers of virtually all indigenous languages have dwindled. Although the absolute number of Nahuatl speakers has actually risen over the past century, indigenous populations have become increasingly marginalized in Mexican society. In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. By 2000, this proportion had fallen to 1. 49%. Given the process of marginalization combined with the trend of migration to urban areas and to the United States, some linguists are warning of impending language death. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[34] At present Nahuatl is mostly spoken in rural areas by an impoverished class of indigenous subsistence agriculturists. ^[35]

Since the early 20th century and until recently, educational policies in Mexico focused on the "hispanification" of indigenous communities, teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of Nahuatl. ^[36] The result has been that today no group of Nahuatl speakers has general literacy in Nahuatl,^[37] while their literacy rate in Spanish also remains much lower than the national average. ^[38] Even so, Nahuatl is still spoken by well over a million people, of whom around 10% are monolingual. Nahuatl as a whole is not imminently endangered, but some of its dialects are severely endangered and others have become extinct within the last few decades of the 20th century. ^[39]

More recent government policy has encouraged the establishment of bilingual schools where at least some of the instruction is in Nahuatl. Although there are still problems, such as lack of textbooks in the Nahuatl of particular regions, or teachers from one dialect assigned to teach children in another region, there is at least some movement towards more widespread literacy in Nahuatl and use of Nahuatl in written form. The Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ("General Law regarding the Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples"), promulgated on 13 March 2003, recognizes all the country's indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as "national languages" and gives indigenous people the right to use them in all spheres of public and private life. Events 1138 - Cardinal Gregorio Conti is elected Antipope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ^[40] Government-sponsored broadcasting in Nahuatl is also carried by the CDI's radio stations. The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples ( Spanish: Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, CDI is a decentralized

In February 2008 the mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, launched a drive to have all government employees learn Nahuatl. The Head of Government (Jefe de Gobierno wields executive power in the Mexican Federal District. Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón (b October 10, 1959 in Mexico City) is a Mexican politician affiliated to the Party of the Democratic Ebrard stated he would continue institutionalizing Nahuatl, and that it was important for Mexico to remember its history and its tradition. ^[41]

Geographic distribution

Main articles: Nahuatl dialects, List of Nahuan languages, and Nahua peoples

Speakers over 5 years of age in the ten states with most speakers (2000 census). The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects The Nahuas are a group of indigenous peoples of Mexico. Their language of Uto-Aztecan affiliation is called Nahuatl and consists of many Absolute and relative numbers. ^[42]

Region	Totals	Percentages
Federal District	37,450	0. Mexico City (in Spanish: Ciudad de México, México DF, México or simply Méjico) is the Capital city of Mexico 44%
Guerrero	136,681	4. The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. 44%
Hidalgo	221,684	9. 92%
Mexico (state)	55,802	0. Mexico State or State of Mexico (often abbreviated to " Edomex " from Estado de México in Spanish) is a state in the 43%
Morelos	18,656	1. Morelos is one of the constituent States of Mexico. Morelos has an area of about, making it the second-smallest of the country's states 20%
Oaxaca	10,979	0. The Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), in Spanish phonemically /oa'xaka/ named for its largest city, is one of the 32%
Puebla	416,968	8. Is a Mexican state located in the center east of the country to the east of Mexico City. 21%
San Luis Potosí	138,523	6. San Luis Potosí is the name of both a state in Mexico and that state's capital city 02%
Tlaxcala	23,737	2. Tlaxcala (tlasˈkala is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located to the east of Mexico City. 47%
Veracruz	338,324	4. Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the republic of Mexico. 90%
Rest of Mexico	50,132	0. 10%
Total:	1,448,937	1. 49%

A range of Nahuatl dialects are currently spoken in an area stretching from the northern state of Durango to Veracruz in the southeast. The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects Durango (duˈɾaŋgo is one of the constituent States of Mexico. Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the republic of Mexico. Pipil (also known as Nawat),^[43] the southernmost Nahuan language, is spoken in El Salvador by a small number of speakers. Pipil or Nawat is the language originally spoken by the Pipils of western El Salvador and still remembered by some of them mostly elderly El Salvador ( República de El Salvador,) is a country in Central America. ^[44] Another Nahuan language, Pochutec, was spoken on the coast of Oaxaca until circa 1930. Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Aztecan branch which was spoken in around the town of Pochutla on the pacific coast of Oaxaca The Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), in Spanish phonemically /oa'xaka/ named for its largest city, is one of the Circa (often abbreviated c, ca, ca or cca and sometimes Italicized to show it is Latin) means "about" ^[45]

Based on figures accumulated by INEGI from the national census conducted in 2000, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1. 45 million people, some 198,000 (14. 9%) of whom are monolingual. Monoglottism ( Greek monos, "alone solitary" + glotta, "tongue language" or more commonly monolingualism or unilingualism ^[46] There is a disparity in monolingualism between males and females, with females representing nearly two-thirds of all monolinguals. The states of Guerrero and Hidalgo have the highest ratios of monolingual Nahuatl speakers, calculated at 24. 2% and 22. 6%, respectively. The proportion of monolinguals for most other states is less than 5%. ^[47]

The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Guerrero. Is a Mexican state located in the center east of the country to the east of Mexico City. Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the republic of Mexico. San Luis Potosí is the name of both a state in Mexico and that state's capital city The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. Significant populations are also found in Mexico State, Morelos, and the Federal District, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Mexico State or State of Mexico (often abbreviated to " Edomex " from Estado de México in Spanish) is a state in the Morelos is one of the constituent States of Mexico. Morelos has an area of about, making it the second-smallest of the country's states Mexico City (in Spanish: Ciudad de México, México DF, México or simply Méjico) is the Capital city of Mexico Michoacán formally Michoacán de Ocampo (from Nahuatl Michhuacān "place of the fishermen" is one of the 31 constituent states Durango (duˈɾaŋgo is one of the constituent States of Mexico. Nahuatl was formerly spoken in the states of Jalisco and Colima, where it became extinct during the 20th century. Jalisco is a state in Mexico. The capital of Jalisco is the city of Guadalajara. For the state capital of the same name see Colima Colima. There is also a volcano named Colima, and a spider genus Colima ( Zodariidae As a result of internal migrations within the country, all Mexico's states today have some isolated pockets and groups of Nahuatl speakers. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the United States has resulted in the establishment of a few small Nahuatl-speaking communities, particularly in New York and California. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. ^[48]

Classification

The terminology used to describe varieties of spoken Nahuatl is inconsistently applied. Many terms are used for differing meanings, or the same groupings go under several names. Sometimes older terms are substituted with newer terms or the speakers' own name for their specific variety. The word Nahuatl is itself a Nahuatl word, 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 their language mexicacopa. ^[49] Nowadays the term "Aztec" is rarely used for modern Nahuan languages, but "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". ) "General Aztec" is used by some linguists to refer to the Aztecan languages excluding Pochutec. Pochutec is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the Aztecan branch which was spoken in around the town of Pochutla on the pacific coast of Oaxaca ^[50]

The speakers of Nahuatl themselves often refer to their language as either mexicano^[51] or a word derived from mācehualli, the Nahuatl word for "commoner". One example of the latter is the case for Nahuatl spoken in Tetelcingo, Morelos, whose speakers call their language mösiehuali. Tetelcingo is a Town in the Mexican state of Morelos. It is located about 6 kilometers north of the city of Cuautla, and because Cuautla has ^[52] The Pipil of El Salvador do not call their own language "Pipil", as most linguists do, but rather nawat. The Pipil are an indigenous people who live in western El Salvador. ^[53] The Nahuas of Durango call their language mexicanero. Durango (duˈɾaŋgo is one of the constituent States of Mexico. ^[54] Speakers of Nahuatl of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec call their language mela'tajtol ("the straight language"). The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is an Isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, and ^[55] Some speech communities also use "Nahuatl" as the name for their language although this seems to be a recent innovation. Linguists commonly identify localized dialects of Nahuatl by adding as a qualifier the name of the village or area where that variety is spoken (for example, "Nahuatl of Acaxochitlan"). ^[56]

Genealogy

Main articles: Uto-Aztecan languages and Nahuatl dialects

The Nahuatl languages belong to the Uto-Aztecan language family which is one of the largest and best studied language families of the Americas. Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American Language family. The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects Uto-Aztecan (also Uto-Aztekan) is a Native American Language family. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Nahuatl languages (including Pipil and the extinct Pochutec) are the only members of the "Aztecan" or "Nahuan" subgroup of Uto-Aztecan. The subgroupings of the Nahuan dialects and languages have been the subject of discussions among linguists for the past fifty years. Early classifications rested on the assumption that the basic division of Nahuan languages lay between the languages which had the /tl/ sound and others which had /t/ . ^[57] This assumption 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/ . Lyle Richard Campbell (born 1942) is a Linguist who is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Native American languages, especially the Mayan Ronald W Langacker (born December 27, 1942) is an American linguist and Professor Emeritus at the University of California ^[58]

The most recent authoritative classifications of the Nahuan languages have been done by Yolanda Lastra de Suárez and by Una Canger. Una Canger ( Née Una Rasmussen (born May 14, 1938) is a Danish linguist specializing in languages of Mesoamerica. ^[59] Both of these approaches were based on dialectological research that focussed on delineating isoglosses, or linguistic boundaries, based on differences in phonology, grammar and vocabulary. An isogloss is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistic feature e Both classifications define the basic split to be that between central and peripheral dialects. The hypothesis presented is that the speakers of peripheral dialects were the first Nahuatl speakers to arrive in Mesoamerica, and that they therefore preserve some slightly archaic features. The speakers of the central dialects who arrived later, among them the Aztecs, introduced linguistic innovations that then spread outwards from the Valley of Mexico aided by the expansion of Aztec hegemony and prestige. ^[60] The two classifications are largely similar, but differ in their treatment of the dialects from the region of La Huasteca. La Huasteca is a region in the northeastern part of Mexico, comprising mountains hill country and lowlands centered on the watershed of the Pánuco River, inland Canger places these in the central group, while Lastra de Suárez places them in a separate group. The classification below is based on that of Lastra de Suárez, combined with Lyle Campbell's classification for the higher-level groupings. Lyle Richard Campbell (born 1942) is a Linguist who is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Native American languages, especially the Mayan

^*Estimated split date by glottochronology (BP = years Before Present). Glottochronology refers to methods in Historical linguistics used to estimate the time at which languages diverged based on the assumption that the basic (core vocabulary of

^**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

Nahuan is defined as a subgroup of Uto-Aztecan by having undergone a number of shared changes from the Uto-Aztecan proto-language (PUA) since the original speakers of Nahuan split from the main Uto-Aztecan group. The Proto-Uto-Aztecan language (abbreviated PUA; also sometimes Uto-Aztekan, Utoaztekan) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Uto-Aztecan languages These changes shared by all Nahuan languages are the basis for the reconstruction of an intermediate stage called Proto-Nahuan (PN) from which the modern Nahuan languages have since developed. Proto-Nahuan is the hypothetical daughter language of the Proto-Uto-Aztecan language which is the common ancestor from which the modern Nahuan languages have developed

The table below shows the phonemic inventory of Classical Nahuatl, as an example of a typical Nahuan language. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Many modern dialects have undergone changes from proto-Nahuan that have resulted in different phonemic inventories. For example some dialects do not have the /t͡ɬ/ phoneme that is so common in classical Nahuatl, but have instead changed it into /t/ as it has happened in Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl, Mexicanero and Pipil or into /l/ as it has happened in Nahuatl of Pómaro, Michoacán. Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl or Isthmus Nahuat ( l) ( native name: mela'tájtol) is a modern variety of Nahuatl spoken by about Mexicanero is the name used by the speakers of the variety of the Nahuatl language spoken in southern Durango to refer to their language Pipil or Nawat is the language originally spoken by the Pipils of western El Salvador and still remembered by some of them mostly elderly Michoacán formally Michoacán de Ocampo (from Nahuatl Michhuacān "place of the fishermen" is one of the 31 constituent states ^[61] Many dialects no longer distinguish between short and long vowels. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Some have introduced completely new vowel qualities to compensate for this, as is the case for Tetelcingo Nahuatl. Tetelcingo Nahuatl, or Mösiehuali, is a Nahuatl variety spoken by 3500 people ( in the town of Tetelcingo and its colonias ^[62] Others developed a pitch accent, such as Nahuatl of Oapan, Guerrero. Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a Syllable The State of Guerrero is a state in the southern meridional region of Mexico. ^[63] Many modern dialects have also introduced new phonemes such as /b, d, ɡ, f/ under influence from Spanish.

Sounds

The consonants of classical Nahuatl   Labial Alveolar Post- alveolar Palatal Velar Labio- velar Glottal Nasal m n           Plosive p t     k kʷ ʔ (h)* Affricate   t͡ɬ / t͡s t͡ʃ         Fricative   s ʃ         Approximant   l   j   w

The vowels of classical Nahuatl   Front Central Back long short long short long short Close iː i oː o Mid eː e Open aː a

* The glottal phoneme (called the "saltillo") only occurs after vowels. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as In Mexican linguistics, saltillo ( Spanish, meaning "little skip" refers to a Glottal stop consonant (ʔ In many modern dialects it is realized as an [h], but in classical Nahuatl and in other modern dialects it is a glottal stop [ʔ].

Nahuatl generally has stress on the penultimate syllable of a word, but some varieties have changed this. Mexicanero Nahuat from Durango has lost many unstressed syllables and now has phonemic stress,^[64] and Pochutec had the accent on the last syllable of the word. ^[65]

Allophony

Allophony, in Nahuatl, is not very rich in most varieties: In many dialects the voiced consonants are often devoiced in wordfinal position and in consonant clusters: /j/ devoices to a voiceless palatal sibilant /ʃ/,^[66] /w/ devoices to a voiceless glottal fricative [h] or to a voiceless labialized velar approximant [ʍ] and /l/ devoices to voiceless alveolar lateral [ɬ]. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative ( IPA) is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a " fricative " is a type of sound used in some spoken Languages which often behaves like a The voiceless labiovelar approximant (traditionally called a voiceless labiovelar fricative) is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet In some dialects the first consonant in almost any consonant cluster becomes [h]. Some dialects have productive lenition of voiceless consonants into their voiced counterparts between vowels. Lenition is a kind of Consonant mutation that appears in many Languages Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless The nasals are normally assimilated to the place of articulation of a following consonant. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary The voiceless lateral affricate [t͡ɬ] is assimilated after /l/ and pronounced as [l]. Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both ^[67]

Phonotactics

Classical Nahuatl and most of the modern varieties have fairly simple phonological systems. They allow only syllables with maximally one initial and one final consonant. Consonant clusters only occur wordmedially and over syllable boundaries. Some morphemes have two alternating forms, one with a vowel i to prevent consonant clusters, and one without. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. For example, the absolutive suffix has the variant forms – tli (used after consonants) and – tl (used after vowels). In Ergative-absolutive languages the absolutive ( abbreviated ABS) is the Grammatical case used to mark both the subject of an In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word ^[68]

Some modern varieties however have formed complex clusters due to vowel loss. Others have contracted syllable sequences, causing accents to shift or vowels to become long. ^[69]

Reduplication

Many varieties of Nahuatl have productive reduplication. In Linguistics, productivity is the degree to which Native speakers use a particular grammatical process especially in Word formation. Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated By reduplicating the first syllable of a root a new word is formed. The root is the primary lexical unit of a Word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents In nouns this is often used to form plurals, e. g. /tla:katl/ "man" > /tla:tla:kah/ "men", but also in some varieties to form diminutives, honorifics, or for derivations. A diminutive is a formation of a Word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning smallness of the object or quality named encapsulation intimacy or endearment An honorific is a word or expression that conveys esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person In Linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from ^[70] In verbs reduplication is often used to form a reiterative (expressing repetition), or to intensify the meaning of the verb. E. g. /kitta/ "he sees it", /kihitta/ "he looks at it repeatedly" and /ki:itta/ "he stares at it".

Grammar

See also: Classical Nahuatl grammar

The Nahuatl languages are agglutinative, polysynthetic languages that make extensive use of compounding, incorporation and derivation. The Grammar of Classical Nahuatl is agglutinative, non-configurational, head-marking, polysynthetic and makes extensive An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of That is, they can add many different prefixes and suffixes to a root until very long words are formed – and a single word can constitute an entire sentence. An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word The root is the primary lexical unit of a Word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents

The following verb shows how the verb is marked for subject, patient, object, and indirect object:

ni-mit͡s-te:-t͡la-maki:-lti:-s

I-you-someone-something-give-CAUSATIVE-FUTURE

"I shall make somebody give something to you"^[71] (Classical Nahuatl)

Nouns

The Nahuatl noun is relatively complex with some inflectional categories. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the In Linguistics, a grammatical patient is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ^[72] It is only obligatorily inflected for number and possession. Noun compounds are commonly formed by combining two or more nominal stem, or combining a noun stem with other kinds of stems such as adjectives or verbs. Nahuatl has no cases or genders but Classical Nahuatl and some modern dialects distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns which behave differently with respect to pluralization. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Animacy is a grammatical and/or Semantic category of Nouns based on how Sentient or alive the Referent of the noun is

In most varieties of Nahuatl most nouns in the unpossessed singular form take a suffix traditionally called an "absolutive". The most common forms of the absolutive are -tl after vowels, -tli after consonants other than l, and -li after l.

Nahuatl distinguishes only singular and plural forms of nouns. Plural forms of nouns are normally formed by adding a suffix, although some words form irregular plurals by using reduplication. In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated In Classical Nahuatl only animate nouns could take a plural form, whereas all inanimate nouns were uncountable (like the words "bread" and "money" are uncountable in English). Nowadays many dialects do not maintain this distinction and allow all nouns to be pluralized, although most inanimates and sometimes animates often show the common number pattern, i. e. their absolutive form can be understood as either singular or plural.

Singular noun: kojo-t͡l coyote-ABSOLUTIVE "coyote" (Classical Nahuatl)

Plural animate noun: kojo-meh coyote-PLURAL "coyotes" (Classical Nahuatl)

Nahuatl distinguishes between possessed and unpossessed forms of nouns. As mentioned above, the absolutive suffix is not used on possessed nouns. In all dialects possessed nouns take a prefix agreeing with number and person of its possessor.

Absolutive noun: kal-li house-ABSOLUTIVE "house" (Classical Nahuatl)

Possessed noun: no-kal my-house "my house" (Classical Nahuatl)

Nahuatl does not have grammatical case but uses what is sometimes called a relational noun to describe spatial (and other) relations. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the Relational nouns are a class of words used in some languages that is characterized by functioning syntactically as Nouns but conveying the meaning of Prepositions These morphemes cannot appear alone but must always occur after a noun or a possessive prefix. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. They are also often called postpositions^[73] or locative suffixes. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. ^[74] In some ways these locative constructions resemble, and can be thought of as, locative case constructions. Most modern dialects have incorporated prepositions from Spanish that are competing with or that have completely replaced relational nouns. In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. ^[75]

Uses of relational noun/postposition/locative -pan with a possessive prefix: no-pan my-in/on "in/on me" (Classical Nahuatl) i:-pan its-in/on "in/on it" (Classical Nahuatl) i:-pan kal-li its-in house-ABSOLUTIVE "in the house" (Classical Nahuatl)

Use with a preceding noun stem: kal-pan house-in "in the house" (Classical Nahuatl)

Pronouns

Nahuatl generally distinguishes three persons – both in the singular and plural numbers. In at least one modern dialect, the Isthmus-Mecayapan variety, there has come to be a distinction between inclusive (I/we and you) and exclusive (we but not you) forms of the first person plural:^[76]

First person plural pronoun in Classical Nahuatl: tehwa:ntin "we"

First person plural pronouns in Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuat: nejamēn ([nehame:n]) "We but not you" tejamēn ([tehame:n]) "We, I and you (and others)"[77]

Much more common is an honorific/non-honorific distinction, usually applied to second and third persons but not first. Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl or Isthmus Nahuat ( l) ( native name: mela'tájtol) is a modern variety of Nahuatl spoken by about In Linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person Pronouns and Verbal morphology, In Linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person Pronouns and Verbal morphology,

Non-honorific forms: tehwa:tl "you sg. " amehwa:ntin "you pl. " yehwatl "he/she/it"

Honorific forms tehwa:tzin "you sg. honorific" amehwa:ntzitzin "you pl. honorific" yehwa:tzin "he/she honorific"

Verbs

The Nahuatl verb is quite complex and inflects many grammatical categories. ^[78] The verb is composed of a root which can take both prefixes and suffixes. The person of the subject, and person and number of the object and indirect object is expressed by agreement prefixes, whereas tense, aspect, mood and subject number is expressed by suffixes.

Most Nahuatl dialects distinguish present, past and future tenses and perfective and imperfective aspects. In Grammar, the perfective aspect is an aspect that exists in many languages The imperfective aspect is a Grammatical aspect. It refers to an action that is viewed from a particular viewpoint as ongoing habitual repeated or generally containing internal Some varieties have progressive or habitual aspects. The continuous and progressive aspects are Grammatical aspects that express incomplete action in progress at a specific time they are non-habitual imperfective As for moods all dialects distinguish indicative and imperative moods and some also have optative and vetative moods.

Most Nahuatl varieties have a number of ways to alter the valency of a verb. In Linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. Classical Nahuatl had a passive voice, but this is not found in most modern varieties. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified However the applicative and causative voices are found in many modern dialects. The applicative voice is a Grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a Verb to the (core patient argument and indicates the oblique A causative form in Linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition ^[79] Many Nahuatl varieties also allow forming verbal compounds with two or more verbal roots.

The following verbal form has two verbal roots and is inflected for causative voice and both a direct and indirect object:

ni-kin-t͡la-kwa-lti:-s-neki

I-them-something-eat-CAUSATIVE-FUTURE-want

"I want to feed them" (Classical Nahuatl)

Some Nahuatl varieties, notably Classical Nahuatl, can inflect the verb to show the direction of the verbal action going away from or towards the speaker. Some also have specific inflectional categories showing purpose and direction and such complex notions as "to go in order to" or "to come in order to", "go, do and return", "do while going", "do while coming", "do upon arrival", or "go around doing".

Classical Nahuatl and many modern dialects have grammaticalised ways to express politeness towards addressees or even towards people or things that are being mentioned, by using special verb forms and special "honorific suffixes". ^[80]

Familiar verbal form: ti-mo-t͡la:lo-a you-yourself-run-PRESENT "you run"(Classical Nahuatl)

Honorific verbal form: ti-mo-t͡la:lo-t͡sino-a you-yourself-run-HONORIFIC-PRESENT "You run"(said with respect) (Classical Nahuatl)

Syntax

The syntax of modern and Classical Nahuatl has been a topic of numerous studies. In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Some linguists, notably Mark Baker, have argued that Nahuatl displays the properties of a non-configurational language, meaning that word order in Nahuatl is basically free. Mark C Baker is an American linguist. He received his Ph D from MIT in 1985 and has taught at Rutgers since 1998. Non-configurational languages are languages that have the following characteristics free (or more accurately pragmatically determined Word order null ^[81] He notes that Nahuatl allows all possible inversions of the basic sentence constituents, allows pro-drop of all direct arguments of a predicate, and that certain kinds of syntactically discontinuous expressions are allowed. A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping" is a Language in which certain classes of Pronouns may be omitted when they are in some sense pragmatically In traditional Grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies

The widest accepted conclusion is that Nahuatl originally has a basic verb initial word order but with extensive freedom for variation which is then used to encode pragmatic functions such as focus and topicality. Pragmatics is the study of the ability of Natural language speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated Focus is a concept in linguistic theory that deals with how information in one phrase relates to information that has come before In Linguistics, the topic (or theme) is the part of the proposition that is being talked about ( predicated) ^[82] For example in most varieties independent pronouns are used only for emphasis. In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or

newal no-nobia

I my-fianceé

"My fiancée "(and not anyone else’s) (Michoacán Nahual)^[83]

Some Nahuatl scholars such as Michel Launey^[84] and J. Richard Andrews^[85] have argued that classical Nahuatl syntax is best characterised by what Launey calls "omnipredicativity", meaning that any noun or verb in the language is in fact a full predicative sentence. This is a radical interpretation of Nahuatl syntactic typology, that nonetheless seems to account for some of its peculiarities, for example, why nouns must also carry the same agreement prefixes as verbs, and why predicates do not require any noun phrases to function as their arguments. For example the verbal form "tzahtzi" means "he/she/it shouts", and with the second person prefix titzahtzi it means "you shout". Nouns are inflected in the same way: the noun "konētl" means not just "child", but also "it is a child", and tikonētl means "you are a child". This prompts the omnipredicative interpretation which posits that all nouns are also predicates, and that a phrase such as "tzahtzi in konētl" should not be interpreted as meaning just "the child screams" but, more correctly, "it screams, (the one that) is a child". ^[86]

Contact phenomena

Nearly 500 years of intense contact between speakers of Nahuatl and speakers of Spanish, combined with the minority status of Nahuatl and the higher prestige associated with Spanish has caused many changes in modern Nahuatl varieties, with large numbers of words borrowed from Spanish into Nahuatl, and the introduction of new syntactic constructions and grammatical categories.

For example, a construction like the following, with several borrowed words and particles, is common in many modern varieties (Spanish loanwords in boldface):

pero āmo tēchentenderoah lo que tlen tictoah en mexicano

but not they-us-understand-PLURAL that which what we-it-say in Nahuatl

"But they don't understand what we say in Nahuatl" (Malinche Nahuatl)^[87][88]

In some modern dialects basic word order has become a fixed Subject Verb Object, probably under influence from Spanish. In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object ^[89] Other changes in the syntax of modern Nahuatl includes the usage of Spanish prepositions instead of postpositions or relational nouns and the reinterpretation of original postpositions/relational nouns into prepositions. In the following example, from Michoacán Nahual, the postposition -ka meaning "with" appears used as a preposition, with no preceding object:

ti-ya ti-k-wika ka tel

you-go you-it-carry with you

"are you going to carry it with you?" (Michoacán Nahual)^[90]

And, in this example from Mexicanero Nahuat, of Durango, the original postposition/relational noun -pin "in/on" is used as a preposition. Mexicanero is the name used by the speakers of the variety of the Nahuatl language spoken in southern Durango to refer to their language Durango (duˈɾaŋgo is one of the constituent States of Mexico. "porque", a preposition borrowed from Spanish, also occurs in the sentence.

amo wel kalaki-yá pin kal porke ¢akwa-tiká im pwerta

not can he-enter-PAST in house because it-closed-was the door

"He couldn't enter the house because the door was closed" (Mexicanero Nahuat)^[91]

Many dialects have also undergone a degree of simplification of their morphology which has caused some scholars to consider them to have ceased to be polysynthetic. Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of ^[92]

Vocabulary

Main article: Words of Nahuatl origin

Many Nahuatl words have been borrowed into the Spanish language, most of which are terms designating things indigenous to the American continent. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Some of these loans are restricted to Mexican or Central American Spanish, but others have entered all the varieties of Spanish in the world. A number of them, such as "chocolate", "tomato" and "avocado" have made their way into many other languages via Spanish.

Likewise a number of English words have been borrowed from Nahuatl through Spanish. Two of the most prominent are undoubtedly chocolate^[93] and tomato (from Nahuatl tomatl). Chocolate ( pronounced or /-ˈələt/ comprises a number of raw and processed foods that are produced from the seed of the tropical Cacao tree The tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum, syn Lycopersicon lycopersicum) is a herbaceous usually sprawling plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family Other common words such as coyote (from Nahuatl coyotl), avocado (from Nahuatl ahuacatl) and chile or chili (from Nahuatl chilli). The coyote (kaɪˈoʊti ˈkaɪoʊt ( Canis latrans) also known as the prairie wolf, is a Mammal of the order Carnivora The avocado ( Persea americana) (from Nahuatl āhuacatl) also known as aguacate ( Spanish) butter pear or The chili pepper, chilli pepper, or chili, is the fruit of the plants from the Genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade The word chicle is also derived from Nahuatl tzictli "sticky stuff, chicle". Chicle is the Natural gum from Manilkara chicle, which is a tropical evergreen tree native to Central America. Some other English words from Nahuatl are: Aztec, (from aztecatl); cacao (from Nahuatl cacahuatl 'shell, rind');^[94] ocelot (from ocelotl). Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who achieved political CACAO is a research Java Virtual Machine developed at Vienna University of Technology. The Ocelot ( Leopardus pardalis) also known as the Painted Leopard, McKenney's Wildcat, Jaguatirica (in Brazil or Manigordo ^[95] In Mexico many words for common everyday concepts attest to the close contact between Spanish and Nahuatl, so many in fact that entire dictionaries of "mexicanismos" (words particular to Mexican Spanish) have been published tracing Nahuatl etymologies, as well as Spanish words with origins in other indigenous languages. Many well-known toponyms also come from Nahuatl, including Mexico (from the Nahuatl word for the Aztec capital mexihco) and Guatemala (from the word cuauhtēmallan). ^[96]

Writing and literature

Writing

Main article: Nahuatl orthography

See also: Aztec writing and Aztec Codices

Precolumbian Aztec writing used three basic means of expression: First of all it used the technique of direct representations or pictures of that which was to be expressed. Secondly it used ideograms or logograms symbolically representing the thing or concept that was to be represented. An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language And lastly, to some degree, it also used phonetic transcription, employing logograms meant to represent only the sound of a given word, to be interpreted according to the rebus principle. Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language A rebus ( Latin: "by things" is a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words for example H + = 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 that of the Maya civilization could. The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican Civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the Pre-Columbian Americas Aztec writing was not meant to be read, but to be told; the elaborate codices were essentially pictographic aids for teaching, and long texts were memorized. ^[97]

The Spanish introduced the Roman script, which was then utilized to record a large body of Aztec prose, poetry and mundane documentation such as testaments, administrative documents, legal letters etc. In a matter of decades pictorial writing was completely replaced with the Latin alphabet. ^[98] No standardized Latin orthography has been developed for Nahuatl, and no general consensus has arisen for the representation of many sounds in Nahuatl that are lacking in Spanish, such as long vowels and the glottal stop. This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. ^[99] The orthography that most accurately represented the phonemes of Nahuatl was developed in the 17th century by the Jesuit Horacio Carochi. The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order Horacio Carochi (1586–1666 was a Jesuit priest and Grammarian, who was born in Florence, Italy, and died in Mexico. Carochi's orthography used two different accents: a macron to represent long vowels and a grave for the saltillo, and sometimes an accute accent for short vowels. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally Pitch The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred only on the last syllable of a word in cases where the ^[100] This orthography did not achieve a wide following outside of the Jesuit community.

When Nahuatl became the subject of focussed linguistic studies in the 20th century, linguists acknowledged the need to represent all the phonemes of the language. Several practical orthographies were developed to transcribe the language, many using the Americanist transcription system. Americanist phonetic notation (variously called American Phonetic Alphabet or APA is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and Euro-American With the establishment of Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas in 2004, new attempts to create standardized orthographies for the different dialects were resumed. The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas ("National Indigenous Languages Institute" better known by its acronym INALI) is a Mexican federal public agency However to this day there is no single official orthography for Nahuatl. Apart from the issue of dialectal differences, some of the major issues in the transcription of Nahuatl are:^[101]

• whether or not to follow Spanish orthographic practice and write /k/ with c and qu, /kʷ/ with cu, /s/ with c/z or s, and /w/ with hu or u.
• how to write the "saltillo" phoneme (in some dialects pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ] and in others as an [h]), which has been spelled with j, h, ' (apostrophe), or a grave accent on the preceding vowel, but which traditionally has often been omitted in writing. In Mexican linguistics, saltillo ( Spanish, meaning "little skip" refers to a Glottal stop consonant (ʔ This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. ^[102]
• whether and how to represent vowel length, e. g. by double vowels or by the use of macrons.

Literature

Main article: Mesoamerican literature

Among the indigenous languages of the Americas, Nahuatl's extensive corpus of surviving literature dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries may be considered unique. The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early Writing in the Mesoamerican region which date from Indigenous languages of the Americas (or Amerindian Languages are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and ^[103] Nahuatl literature encompasses a diverse array of genres and styles, the documents themselves composed under many different circumstances. It appears that the pre-conquest Nahua had a distinction much like the European distinction between "prose" and "poetry" the first they called tlahtolli "speech" and the second cuicatl "song". For the Wikipedia guideline regarding editing articles see WikipediaManual of Style. ^[104]

Nahuatl tlahtolli prose has been preserved in different forms. Annals and chronicles recount history, normally written from the perspective of a particular altepetl (locally based polity) and often combining mythical accounts with real events. The altepetl, in Pre-Columbian and Spanish conquest -era Aztec society, was the local ethnically based political entity Polity ( Greek: Πολιτεία or Πολίτευμα transliterated as Politeía or Políteuma) was originally a term used in Ancient Greece Important works in this genre include those from Chalco written by Chimalpahin, from Tlaxcala by Diego Muñoz Camargo, from Mexico-Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc and those of Texcoco by Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Chalco was a complex Pre-Columbian Nahua Altepetl or confederacy in central Mexico. Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (1579 Amecameca, Chalco &mdash1660 Mexico City) usually referred to simply as History of Tlaxcala is an illustrated Codex written by and under the supervision of Diego Muñoz Camargo in the years leading up to 1585 Diego Muñoz Camargo (c 1529 - 1599 was the author of History of Tlaxcala, an illustrated Codex that highlights the religious cultural and military Fernando or Hernando ( de) Alvarado Tezozómoc was a colonial Nahua noble. Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl (b between 1568 and 1580 Texcoco &mdash1648 Mexico City) was a Mexican Historian. Many annals recount history year-by-year and are normally written by anonymous authors. These works are sometimes evidently based on pre-Columbian pictorial year counts that existed, such as the Cuauhtitlan annals and the Anales de Tlatelolco. Cuautitlán is a city and municipality in the State of Mexico, just north of the northern tip of the Federal District (Distrito Federal within the Greater Mexico The Anales de Tlatelolco ( Annals of Tlatelolco) is a Codex manuscript written in Nahuatl, using Latin characters, by anonymous Purely mythological narratives are also found, like the "Legend of the Five Suns", the Aztec creation myth recounted in Codex Chimalpopoca. The concept known generally as the Five Suns describes the mythical world-view held by the Aztec and other Nahua peoples in which the present world was preceded by A creation myth is a supernatural mytho-[[religion religious]] story or explanation that describes the beginnings of humanity, Earth, life, and

One of the most important works of prose written in Nahuatl is the twelve-volume compilation generally known as the Florentine Codex, produced in the mid-16th century by the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún with the help of a number of Nahua informants. The Florentine Codex is the name given to 12 books created under the supervision of Bernardino de Sahagún between approximately 1540 and 1585 The term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic Bernardino de Sahagún (1499 &ndash October 23 1590) was a Franciscan missionary to the Aztec ( Nahua) people of Mexico With this work Sahagún bestowed an enormous ethnographic description of the Nahua, written in side-by-side translations of Nahuatl and Spanish and illustrated throughout by color plates drawn by indigenous painters. Its volumes cover a diverse range of topics: Aztec history, material culture, social organization, religious and ceremonial life, rhetorical style and metaphors. The twelfth volume provides an indigenous perspective on the conquest itself. Sahagún also made a point of trying to document the richness of the Nahuatl language, stating:

“

This work is like a dragnet to bring to light all the words of this language with their exact and metaphorical meanings, and all their ways of speaking, and most of their practices good and evil. [105]

”

Nahuatl poetry is preserved in principally two sources: the Cantares Mexicanos and the Romances de los señores de Nueva España, both collections of Aztec songs written down in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Cantares Mexicanos is the name given to a manuscript collection of Nahuatl songs or poems recorded in the 16th century. The Romances de los señores de Nueva España ( Spanish for "Ballads of the Lords of New Spain" is a 16th century compilation of Nahuatl Some songs may have been preserved through oral tradition from pre-conquest times until the time of their writing, for example the songs attributed to the poet-king of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl. Nezahualcoyotl (Nezahualcoyōtl nesawaɬˈkojoːtɬ (meaning "Coyote in fast" or "Coyote who Fasts"( April 28 1402 &ndash June 4 Lockhart and Karttunen identify more than four distinct styles of songs, e. g. the icnocuicatl ("sad song"), the xopancuicatl ("song of spring"), melahuaccuicatl ("plain song") and yaocuicatl ("song of war"), each with distinct stylistic traits. ^[106] Aztec poetry makes rich use of metaphoric imagery and themes and are lamentation of the brevity of human existence, the celebration of valiant warriors who die in battle, and the appreciation of the beauty of life. ^[107]

Stylistics

The Aztecs distinguished between the at least two social registers of language: the language of commoners (macehuallahtolli) and the language of the nobility (tecpillahtolli). The latter was marked by the use of a distinct rhetorical style. Since literacy was confined mainly to these higher social classes, most of the existing prose and poetical documents were written in this style. An important feature of this high rhetorical style of formal oratory was the use of parallelism,^[108] whereby the orator structured their speech in couplets consisting of two parallel phrases. A couplet is a pair of lines of verse. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter For example:

ye maca timiquican

"May we not die"

ye maca tipolihuican

"May we not perish"^[109]

Another kind of parallelism used is referred to by modern linguists as difrasismo, in which two phrases are symbolically combined to give a metaphorical reading. Difrasismo is a term derived from Spanish that is used in the study of certain Mesoamerican languages, to describe a particular Grammatical construction Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects Classical Nahuatl was rich in such diphrasal metaphors, and a number of the primary-source language commentaries such as Sahagún's Florentine Codex and Andrés de Olmos' Arte describe and give examples of this particular rhetoric trait. Andrés de Olmos (c 1485 &ndash 1571 Franciscan priest and extraordinary Grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's Indians was born in Oña Such difrasismos include:

in xochitl, in cuicatl

"The flower, the song" – meaning "poetry"^[110]

in cuitlapilli, in atlapalli

"the tail, the wing" – meaning "the common people"^[111]

in toptli, in petlacalli

"the chest, the box" meaning "something secret"^[112]

in yollohtli, in eztli

"the heart, the blood" – meaning "cacao"^[113]

in iztlactli, in tenqualactli

"the drool, the spittle" – meaning "lies"^[114]

Sample text

The sample text below is an excerpt from a statement issued in Nahuatl by Emiliano Zapata in 1918 in order to convince the Nahua towns in the area of Tlaxcala to join the Revolution against the regime of Venustiano Carranza. Emiliano Zapata Salazar ( August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in The Mexican Revolution (Revolución Mexicana was a major armed struggle that started with an uprising led by Francisco I It is quoted from León-Portilla's book Los Manifiestos en Náhuatl de Emiliano Zapata (1978). Miguel León-Portilla (born in Mexico City, February 22, 1926) is a Mexican anthropologist and historian and a prime authority on Nahuatl The orthography employed in the letter is improvised, and does not distinguish long vowels and only sporadically marks "saltillo" (with both <h> and accute accent), The original orthography has been retained. ^[115]

Tlanahuatil Panoloani An Altepeme de non cate itech nin tlalpan de netehuiloya den tlanahuatiani Arenas. Axcan cuan nonques tlalticpacchanéhque de non altepeme tlami quitzetzeloa neca tliltic amo cuali nemiliz Carrancista, noyolo pahpaqui ihuan itech nin mahuiztica, intoca netehuiloanime tlatzintlaneca, ihuan nanmechtitlanilia ze páhpaquilizticatlápaloli ihuan ica nochi noyolo niquinyolehua nonques altepeme aquihque cate quichihuazque netehuiliztle ipampa meláhqui tlanahuatil ihuan amo nen motenecahuilia quitlahtlaczazque in anmocualinemiliz. tiquintlahpaloa nonques netehuiloanime tlen mocuepan ican nin yolopaquilizticatequi, ihuan quixnamiqui in nexicoaliztle ipan non huei tehuile tlen aic hueliti tlami nian aic tlamiz zeme ica nitlamiliz in tliltic oquichtlanahuatiani, de neca moxicoani, teca mocaya de non zemihcac teixcuepa tlen itoca Venustiano Carranza que quimahuizquixtia in netehuiliztle ihuan quipinahtia totlalticpacnantzi "Mexico" zeme quimahuizpolóhtica.

Message to be passed around To the towns that are located in the area that fought under General Arenas. Now, that the dwellers of this earth, of those towns, finish shaking out that black, evil life of the Carrancismo my heart is very happy and with the dignity in the name of those who fight in the ranks, and to You all I send a happy greeting. and with all of my heart I invite those towns, those who are there, to join the fight for a righteous mandate to not vainly issue statements, to not allow to be done away with your good way of life. We salute those fighters who turn towards this joyous labour and confront the greed in this great war, which can never end, nor will ever end until the end of the black tyrant of that glutton, who mocks and always cheat people and whose name is Venustiano Carranza, who takes the glory out of war and who shames our motherland, Mexico completely dishonouring it.

See also

• List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
• Mexican Spanish

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

Dictionaries of Classical Nahuatl

• de Molina, Fray Alonso: Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana y Mexicana y Castellana. [1555] Reprint: Porrúa México 1992
• Karttunen, Frances, An analytical dictionary of Náhuatl. Norman 1992
• Siméon, Rémi: Diccionario de la Lengua Náhuatl o Mexicana. [Paris 1885] Reprint: México 2001

Grammars of Classical Nahuatl

• Carochi, Horacio. Grammar of the Mexican Language: With an Explanation of its Adverbs (1645) Translated by James Lockhart. Stanford University Press. 2001.
• Lockhart, James: Nahuatl as written: lessons in older written Nahuatl, with copious examples and texts, Stanford 2001
• Campbell, Joe and Frances Karttunen, Foundation course in Náhuatl grammar. Austin 1989
• Launey, Michel. Introducción a la lengua y a la literatura Náhuatl. México D. F. : UNAM. 1992 (Spanish)
• Andrews, J. Richard. Introduction to Classical Nahuatl University of Oklahoma Press: 2003 (revised edition)

Modern Dialects

• Herrera, Fermin. Nahuatl (Aztec)-English / English-Nahuatl (Aztec) Concise Dictionary, Hippocrene Books, Inc. , 2004
• Ronald W. Langacker (ed. ): Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 2: Modern Aztec Grammatical Sketches, Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics, 56. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington, pp. 1–140. ISBN 0883120720. OCLC 6086368. 1979. (Contains studies of Nahuatl from Michoacan, Tetelcingo, Huasteca and North Puebla)
• Canger, Una. Mexicanero de la Sierra Madre Occidental, Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México, #24. México D. F. : El Colegio de México. ISBN 968-12-1041-7. OCLC 49212643. 2001 (Spanish)
• Campbell, Lyle. The Pipil Language of El Salvador, Mouton Grammar Library (No. 1). Berlin: Mouton Publishers. 1985. ISBN 0-89925-040-8. OCLC 13433705.
• Wolgemuth, Carl. Gramática Náhuatl (melaʼtájto̱l) de los municipios de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz, 2nd edition. 2002. (Spanish)

Miscellaneous

• The Nahua Newsletter: edited by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies of the Indiana University (Chief Editor Alan Sandstrom)
• Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl: special interest-yearbook of the Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas (IIH) of the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Ed. : Miguel Leon Portilla

External links

• Ethnologue Náhuatl dialects
• Nahuatl (Aztec) family, SIL-Mexico, with subsites on some specific variants
• Náhuatl-French dictionary Includes basic grammar
• Books at Project Gutenberg in Nahuatl

Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to Digitize, archive and distribute Cultural works

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