Classical Nahuatl language

Updated on Sep 29, 2024

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Pronunciation [naːwat͡ɬaʔˈtoːɬːi] Region Aztec Empire		Native to Mexico ISO 639-3 nci
Era split into modern dialects by the 15th century Language family Uto-Aztecan languages Nahuan languages Nahuatl Central Nahuatl languages Nuclear Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl

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

Classification

Classical Nahuatl is one of the Nahuan languages within the Uto-Aztecan family. It is classified as a central dialect 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 (pīpiltin), while the commoners (mācēhualtin) spoke a somewhat different variety.

Prosody

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

Phonotactics

Maximally complex Nahuatl syllables are of the form CVC; that is, there can be at most one consonant at the beginning and end of every syllable. In contrast, English, for example, allows up to three consonants syllable-initially and up to four consonants to occur at the end of syllables (e.g. strengths) (ngths = /ŋkθs/).

For such purposes, tl /tɬ/, is treated as a single sound, and not all consonants can occur in both syllable-initial and syllable-final position.

Writing system

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec writing used mostly pictograms supplemented with a few ideograms. When needed, it also used syllabic equivalences; Diego Durán recorded how the tlacuilos could render a prayer in Latin using this system but it was difficult to use. The writing system was adequate for keeping such records as genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists, but it could not represent a full vocabulary of spoken language in the way that the writing systems of the Old World or the Maya civilization's script could.

The Spanish introduced the Latin script, which was then used to record a large body of Aztec prose and poetry, which somewhat diminished the devastating loss caused by the burning of thousands of Aztec codices by the Spanish authorities.

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

The orthography used there is outlined below:

a c ch cu e hu i l* m n o p qu t tl tz x y z ā ē ī ō ll* h*

Notes:

Letters above marked with an asterisk (*) have no capital forms except in foreign names.

Like in Spanish, /k/ is written as ⟨c⟩, except before ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩ in which case ⟨qu⟩ is used. Likewise, /s/ is written as ⟨z⟩, but before ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩, which case ⟨c⟩ is used. However, /ts/ is always written as ⟨tz⟩.

The Classical Nahuatl /s/ was likely substantially different from the normal Spanish s of the time, a voiceless retracted apico-alveolar sibilant fricative /s̺/ (still the norm in modern northern Peninsular Spanish; the sound may be perceived by an English speaker as some sort of cross between /s/ and /ʃ/). It was far more similar to the normal Spanish z of that time period: /s̻/, a voiceless laminal alveolar sibilant fricative, like the typical English /s/. This would explain why ⟨z⟩ and ⟨c⟩ were used instead of ⟨s⟩ to write the sound.

⟨x⟩ is used for the sh-sound /ʃ/, as in Early Modern Spanish.

⟨cu⟩ and ⟨hu⟩, which represent /kʷ/ and /w/ respectively, are inverted to ⟨uc⟩ and ⟨uh⟩ at the end of a syllable.

The letter ⟨u⟩ is used only in digraphs, as the Nahuatl language lacks an /u/, distinct from /o/.

⟨h⟩ represents a glottal stop, a sort of pause caused by constricting the throat, as in uh-oh.

Literature

Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Indigenous languages of the Americas), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl). The Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an excellent early sample of literary Nahuatl.

A bilingual dictionary with Spanish wwss first published in 1611, Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana and is "the most important and most frequently reprinted Spanish work on Nahuatl," according to the World Digital Library.

Now, Classical Nahuatl is used by black metal groups of Mexico supporting indigenismo, such as Kukulcan, Tlateotocani and Comando de Exterminio.

References

Classical Nahuatl language Wikipedia

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