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  Spanish Version

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The Nahuatl

By Chloe Bustin

Whilst Spanish is the dominant language spoken in Mexico, there are in fact an additional 68 Amerindian languages that are considered national languages, the most widely spoken of which is Nahuatl.  The Nahtuatl language is spoken by almost 1.5 million people in Mexico, and comprises of a group of closely related Aztec languages and dialects known as the Nahuan, some of which are mutually unintelligible.  

The distribution of speakers of Nahuatl is mainly concentrated in central Mexico (see map), with the greatest population of speakers in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí and Guerrero. There are also significant numbers of speakers in Mexico State, Morelos and Federal District. However, there are also speakers as far south as El Salvador and some small communities which have developed in the US as well.   

Nahuatl has been spoken since the 7^th century AD. The expansion and great influence of the Aztec Empire meant that the prestige of the ancient Mexican language grew enormously. In fact, it was the lingua franca in much of Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest in the 16^th century.

While Nahuatl has had a Latin alphabet for several centuries, the phonology of Nahuatl is somewhat distinct. Such as the pronunciation of certain consonants, for example, ‘j’ sounds like a hard ‘h’, ‘x’ like ‘sh’ and solitary ‘h’ considered a pause rather than a sound.

Nahuatl grammar is relatively complex too. There no cases or genders; however some dialects do distinguish between animate and inanimate and inanimate nouns are uncountable, i.e. do not have plural forms. While there are no cases, relational nouns exist, i.e. nouns with integrated prepositions, such as ‘kal-pan’- ‘in the house’. There is also a huge amount of verbal diversity with the roots, prefixes and suffixes, as well as perfective and imperfective aspects.

Some examples of common Nahuatl vocabulary include:

The close contact between Spanish and Nahuatl has meant that borrowing between the languages has occurred over time. Due to the dominance of Spanish, Nahuatl language has started to include certain Spanish words and phrases, e.g. ‘pero āmo tēchentenderoah lo que tlen tictoah en mexicano’.

However, Spanish has also borrowed from Nahuatl, and Nahuatl has even diffused into other languages, including English. Like these words for example:

Nowadays, the Nahuatl language is protected by Mexico’s ‘Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas’ which recognizes it as a national language and has the same status as Spanish in the regions it is spoken.

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