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 Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico. During the subsequent centuries it was largely displaced by Spanish and evolved into the modern Nahuatl dialects in use today. Although classified as an extinct language,^[1] Classical Nahuatl has survived through a multitude of written sources transcribed by Nahuas and Spaniards in the Latin alphabet. The word Aztec is usually used as a historical term, although some contemporary Nahuatl speakers would consider themselves Aztecs. ... An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... (14th century - 15th century - 16th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was that century which lasted from 1401 to 1500. ... Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... Pre-contact distribution of Uto-Aztecan languages (note: this map does not show the distribution in Mesoamerica) The Uto-Aztecan languages are a Native American language family. ... Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of Estado de Mexico. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Aztec empire The Spanish conquest of Mexico was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. ... Nahuatl dialects and and dialect groupings The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects. ... An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Classification

Classic Nahuatl is an Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuan or Aztecan language. It belongs to the central dialects and is most closely related to the modern dialects of Nahuatl spoken in the valley of Mexico in colonial and modern times. It is probable that the Classical Nahuatl documented by 16th- and 17th-century written sources represents a particularly prestigious sociolect. That is to say, the variety of Nahuatl recorded in these documents is most likely to be more particularly representative of the speech of Aztec nobles (pipiltin), while the commoners (mācehualtin) spoke a somewhat different variety. Pre-contact distribution of Uto-Aztecan languages (note: this map does not show the distribution in Mesoamerica) The Uto-Aztecan languages are a Native American language family. ... Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... Nahuatl dialects and and dialect groupings The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects. ... Nahuatl dialects and and dialect groupings The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects. ... In linguistics, a sociolect is the language spoken by a social group, social class or subculture. ...

Sounds

Vowels

Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ...

Consonants

Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... A lateral affricate is an affricate with a lateral consonant. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ...

Prosody

Stress generally falls on the penultimate syllable. The one exception is the vocative suffix -e, used only by males, where stress falls on the final syllable, e.g. Cuāuhtlequetzqui (a name, meaning "eagle-warrior"), but Cuāuhtlequetzqué "Hey, Cuauhtlequetzqui!". In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis given to certain syllables in a word. ... The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed, found in Latin among other languages. ...

Phonotactics

Unlike English, which allows up to three consonants to occur at the start or end of words (e.g. sprints), Nahuatl allows only a single consonant at the start or end of a syllable, and up to two consonants word medially across a syllable boundary. Also, there are restrictions on which consonants can occur where. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ...

Grammar

Main article: Classical Nahuatl grammar

// The Nahuatl languages are agglutinative, non-configurational, headmarking, polysynthetic languages that make extensive use of compounding, noun incorporation and derivation. ...

Writing system

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec writing used mostly pictographs supplemented with a few ideograms. When needed it also used syllabic equivalences; Father Durán recorded how the tlacuilos could render a prayer in Latin using this system, but it was difficult to use. This writing system was adequate for keeping such records as genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists, but could not represent a full vocabulary of spoken language in the way that the writing systems of the Old World or of the Maya civilization's script could. Pictogram for public toilets A pictogram or pictograph is a symbol which represents an object or a concept by illustration. ... A Chinese character. ... Diego Durán (c. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively known as Africa-Eurasia), plus surrounding islands. ... The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems. ... Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico The Maya script, commonly known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. ...

The Spanish introduced the Roman script, which was then utilized to record a large body of Aztec prose and poetry, a fact which somewhat diminished the devastating loss caused by the burning of thousands of Aztec manuscripts by the Catholic priests (see Nahuatl transcription). The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Aztec codices (singular codex) are books written by pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial era Aztecs. ... THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION As with any other spoken language, there are several different manners in which Nahuatl can be transcribed:phonemic, phonetic, morphemic, syllabic, etc. ...

The writing system introduced by the Spanish, as well as a comprehensive study of Nahuatl grammar, has now become inefficient, as the language has evolved into different dialects, to a certain degree, distinct from the Nahuatl spoken in the fifteenth century. Today, in the bilingual education programmes in rural communities in Mexico a new writing system is being used, created by the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education), which allows for differences among dialects.

History

Literature

Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Indigenous languages of the Americas), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl); the Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an excellent early sample of literary Nahuatl. The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a number of Mesoamerican... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... This article is about the Texcocan philosopher-king. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Nican Mopohua. ...

References

• de Arenas, Pedro: Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana. [1611] Reprint: México 1982
• Carochi, Horacio: Arte de la lengua mexicana: con la declaración de los adverbios della. [1645] Reprint: Porrúa México 1983
• Garibay, Angel Maria : Llave de Náhuatl. México 19??
• Garibay, Angel María, Historia de la literatura náhuatl. México 1953
• Garibay, Angel María, Poesía náhuatl. vol 1-3 México 1964
• von Humboldt, Wilhelm (1767-1835): Mexicanische Grammatik. Paderborn/München 1994
• Karttunen, Frances, An analytical dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman 1992
• 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 dße la Lengua Nahuatl o Mexicana. [Paris 1885] Reprint: México 2001
• Sullivan, Thelma D. : Compendium of Nahuatl Grammar. Salt Lake City 1988
• The Nahua Newsletter: edited by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies of the Indiana University (Chief Editor Alan Sandstrom)
• Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl: special interest-yearbook of the Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas (IIH) of the Universidad Autonoma de México (UNAM), Ed.: Miguel Leon Portilla

Footnotes

See also

• Aztec codices
• Mesoamerican Linguistic Area