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*Garibay K., Angel María, ''Historia de la literatura náhuatl''. México 1953
*Garibay K., Angel María, ''Historia de la literatura náhuatl''. México 1953
*Garibay K., Angel María, ''Poesía náhuatl''. vol 1-3 México 1964
*Garibay K., Angel María, ''Poesía náhuatl''. vol 1-3 México 1964
*Garibay K. Angel María, "Panorama Literario de los Pueblos Nahuas.", Ed Porúa SC022, México, 2001.
*Garibay K. Angel María, ''Panorama Literario de los Pueblos Nahuas.'', Ed. Porrúa, SC022, México, 2001.
*Hill, Jane and Kenneth Hill, ''Speaking Mexicano: dynamics of syncretic language in Central Mexico''. Tucson 1986
*Hill, Jane and Kenneth Hill, ''Speaking Mexicano: dynamics of syncretic language in Central Mexico''. Tucson 1986
*Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=91274
*Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=91274

Revision as of 02:06, 28 April 2006

Nahuatl, Mexicano
Nahuatlahtolli, Māsēwallahtōlli
RegionMexico: Mexico (state), Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Morelos, and Oaxaca, Tabasco, Michoacán, Durango, Jalisco
Native speakers
under 1.5 million
Uto-Aztecan
  • Aztecan
    • General Aztec
      • Nahuatl, Mexicano
Official status
Regulated bySecretaría de Educación Pública
Language codes
ISO 639-2nah
ISO 639-3Variously:
azz – Highland Puebla Nahuatl
naz – Coatepec Nahuatl
nch – Central Huasteca Nahuatl
nci – Classical Nahuatl
ncj – Northern Puebla Nahuatl
ncl – Michoacán Nahuatl
ncx – Central Puebla Nahuatl
ngu – Guerrero Nahuatl
nhc – Tabasco Nahuatl
nhe – Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl
nhg – Tetelcingo Nahuatl
nhi – Tenango Nahuatl
nhj – Tlalitzlipa Nahuatl
nhk – Isthmus-Cosoleacaque Nahuatl
nhm – Morelos Nahuatl
nhn – Central Nahuatl
nhp – Isthmus-Pajapan Nahuatl
nhq – Huaxcaleca Nahuatl
nhs – Southeastern Puebla Nahuatl
nht – Ometepec Nahuatl
nhv – Temascaltepec Nahuatl
nhw – Western Huasteca Nahuatl
nhx – Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl
nhy – Northern Oaxaca Nahuatl
nhz – Santa María la Alta Nahuatl
nln – Durango Nahuatl
nlv – Orizaba Nahuatl
nuz – Tlamacazapa Nahuatl

Nahuatl or Nawatl (pronounced in two syllables, NA-watl ['na.watɬ]) is a term applied to some members of the Aztecan or Nahuan sub-branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. Under the "Law of Linguistic Rights" it is recognized as a "national language" along with 62 other indigenous languages and Spanish which have the same "validity" in Mexico [1].

Often the term Nahuatl is used specifically with reference to the language called Classical Nahuatl, which was the administrative language of the Aztec empire but it was preceded by other Nahuatl speaking cultures, like the Tepanceca, Acolcuah, Tlaxcalteca, Xochimilc, etc. and possibly was one of the languages spoken in Teotihuacan. As the nahua groups became predominant, It was used as a lingua franca in much of Mesoamerica from the 12th century AD until the late 16th century, at which time its prominence and influence were interrupted by the Spanish conquest of the New World.

However, it also serves to identify a number of modern Nahuatl varieties (some mutually unintelligible) of the Nahuatl dialect complex that are still spoken by at least 1.5 million people in what is now Mexico. All of these dialects show influence from the Spanish language to various degrees, some of them much more than others. No modern dialects are identical with that of Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than are peripheral ones.

Overview

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

Classification

Sometimes a distinction is made among Nahuan languages between Nahuatl (variants with the characteristic tl phoneme), Nahuat (variants which have t in its place), and Nahual (variants which have l instead). Although the classification implied by emphasizing these differences is currently not given as much weight as in the past, the terms are still used. Sometimes Nahuan is used for the family as a whole; others use the term Aztecan for the family, or Nahua for the family and in any context where one does not want to specify the tl/t/l differences. Most commonly, however, Nahuatl is used as a generic name for the family or any variant of it.

Nahuatl is related to the languages spoken by the Hopi, Comanche, Paiute or Ute, Pima, Shoshone, Tarahumara, Yaqui, Tepehuán, Huichol and other peoples of western North America, as they all belong to the Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock or language family consisting of 61 individual languages. This is a grouping on the same order as Indo-European, including a number of language families such as the Aztecan or Nahuatl family.

Genealogy

  • Uto-Aztecan 5000 BP*
    • Shoshonean (Northern Uto-Aztecan)
    • Sonoran**
    • Aztecan 2000 BP (a.k.a. Nahuan)
      • Pochutec — Coast of Oaxaca
      • General Aztec
        • Pipil (a.k.a Nawat, Southern Nahuan) — Pacific coast of Chiapas, Guatemala, El Salvador
        • Nahuatl
          • Central dialects
          • Peripheral dialects
            • La Huasteca

*Estimated split date by glottochronology (BP = Before the Present).
**Some scholars continue to classify Aztecan and Sonoran together under a separate group (called variously "Sonoran", "Mexican", or "Southern Uto-Aztecan"). There is increasing evidence that whatever degree of additional resemblance that might be present 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.

Geographic distribution

Distribution of Nahuatl speakers per state.

A range of Nahuatl dialects are currently spoken in an area stretching from the northern Mexican state of Durango to Tabasco in the south. Pipil, a Nahuatl dialect which happens to have its own name, is spoken as far south as El Salvador.

Phonology of Nahuan languages

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

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

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

Table of reconstructed changes from proto Uto-aztecan to proto Nahuan

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


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

Consonants

Table of Nahuatl consonants

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

Vowels

Table of Nahuatl vowels

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

Grammar

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

The typology of Nahuatl has, by a minority of linguists, been regarded as oligosynthetic. This was first proposed in the early 20th Century by Benjamin Whorf, but was largely dismissed by the linguistic community by the mid-1950s.

Vocabulary

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

Words loaned to other languages

Main article: words of Nahuatl origin

Nahuatl has been an exceedingly rich source of words for the Spanish language, as the following examples show. Some of them are restricted to Mexico or Mesoamerica, but others are common to all the Spanish-speaking regions in the world and a number of them have made their way into many other languages via Spanish.

achiote, acocil, aguacate, ajolote, amate, atole, axolotl, ayate, cacahuate, camote, capulín, chamagoso, chapopote, chayote, chicle, chile, chipotle, chocolate, cuate, comal, copal, coyote, ejote, elote, epazote, escuincle, guacamole, guachinango, guajolote, huipil, huitlacoche, hule, jacal, jícama, jícara, jitomate, malacate, mecate, metate, metlapil, mezcal, mezquite, milpa, mitote, molcajete, mole, nopal, ocelote, ocote, olote, paliacate, papalote, pepenar, petaca, petate, peyote, pinole, piocha, popote, pozole, pulque, quetzal, tamal, tianguis, tiza, tomate, tule, zacate, zapote, zopilote.
(The persistent -te or -le endings on these words are Spanish reflexes of the Nahuatl 'absolutive' ending -tl, -tli, or -li, which appears on (most) nouns when they have no other affixes.)

Nahuatl has provided the English language with some words for indigenous animals, fruits, vegetables, and tools. Most of these borrowings are second-hand, coming first through Spanish. The two most prominent are undoubtedly chocolate (from xoco(l)atl, 'chocolate drink', perhaps literally 'bitter-water') and tomato (from (xi)tomatl), but there are others, such as coyote (coyotl), avocado (ahuacatl) and chile or chili (chilli). The brand name Chiclets is also derived from Nahuatl (tziktli 'sticky stuff, chicle'). Other English words from Nahuatl are: Aztec, (aztecatl); cacao (cacahuatl 'shell, rind'); mesquite (mizquitl); ocelot (ocelotl).

As a result of extensive Mexican-Philippine contacts, there are an estimated 250 words of Nahuatl origin in the Tagalog language. Some of them are: kamote 'sweet potato', sayote 'chayote', tiyangge 'seasonal market', tatay (from tata, familiar vocative of tahtli 'father'), nanay (from nana, familiar vocative of nantli 'mother'), guava 'guava, guayaba', tsokolate 'chocolate', tsanggo 'monkey', and the village of Zapote in Las Piñas City, Philippines.

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

Lizard, snake, death day pictographs on a Stone of the Sun

Writing systems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

History

Also known as Mexican language, or the language of the Mexica (i.e. Aztecs), it was not only spoken by the Aztecs but also their predecessors (the Colhua, Tecpanec, Acolhua, and the famous Toltecs in one interpretation of the term). Recently, there have begun to appear more and more suggestions, from several diverse fields of Mesoamerican research, that Nahuatl might have been one of the languages spoken at the legendary Teotihuacan.

Literature

Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Amerindian languages), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl); the Nican Mopohua is an excellent early sample of transcribed Nahuatl.

Bibliography

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

See also

Template:Chicano Language

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