Native to Mexico | Writing system Latin | |
Region La Huasteca (San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz) Native speakers (1.0 million cited 1991–2000) Language family Uto-Aztecan
Aztecan (Nahuan)
Nahuatl
Huasteca Nahuatl ISO 639-3 Variously:
nhe – Eastern (Hidalgo)
nch – Central
nhw – Western (Tamazunchale) |
Huasteca Nahuatl is a Nahuan language spoken by over a million people in the region of La Huasteca in Mexico, centered in the states of Hidalgo (Eastern) and San Luis Potosí (Western), but also spoken in the northern part of Veracruz and the extreme north of Puebla. Ethnologue divides Huasteca Nahuatl into three languages, Eastern, Central, and Western, as they judge that separate literature is required, but notes that there is 85% mutual intelligibility between Eastern and Western. Half of Eastern speakers know no Spanish.
Contents
XEANT-AM radio broadcasts in Huasteca Nahuatl.
Demographics
Huasteca Nahuatl is spoken in the following municipalities in the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz, and San Luis Potosí (Rodríguez & Valderrama 2005:168).
Phonology
The following description is that of Eastern Huasteca.
Orthography
Huasteca Nahuatl currently has several proposed orthographies, most prominent among them those of the Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas (IDIEZ), Mexican government publications, and the Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Sample text: 'a book about my location.'