Nahuatl Language Research Articles

Nahuatl -ka words: evidence for a proto-Uto- Aztecan derivational pattern

Nahuatl -ka words: evidence for a proto-Uto- Aztecan derivational pattern

El calli de los nahuas del México antiguo: hogar, familia y género

This article studies three important issues regarding the method used by Woodrow Borah and S.F. Cook for the evaluation of the population size in Mexico and Latin America, namely the nature and composition of the old rural nahua (aztec) family. To that end a documentary source is used here —the Libros de Tributo— which was not used by the said authors due to the fact that they had no command of the nahuatl language, while no complete translation or transcription of this document was available at the time. It is argued here that the Old Mexico nahuas lived in big homes of extended families (calli). This thesis was supported by Borah and Cook, but was not taken into account within the wide field of the History of the Family, in particular the way it was developed by the Cambridge University’s «Laslett school».

El águila y la cruz: Orígenes religiosos de la conciencia criolla, México, siglos XVI-XVII

The growth of creole identity in New Spain is one of the most important questions of the colonial period. When and how did criollos come to define themselves as such? North American historians have tended to deal with the issue in terms of social and economic forces. Solange Alberro seeks to explain it as a religious phenomenon closely connected with the development of a distinctively Mexican form of syncretistic religion.She divides this growth into two periods, the Franciscan and the Jesuit, dating the former between 1525 and 1578, the latter from 1578 to 1648, year of publication of Miguel Sánchez’s Imagen de la Virgen María. This was the first published account of the apparitions of our Lady of Guadalupe, which, together with the Virgin of Remedios, completed the construction of criollo identity. Both Franciscans and Jesuits followed a policy of deliberate and conscious syncretism, an adoption and adaptation of pre-Hispanic religious symbols, beliefs, and practices to the new Christian order. They differed widely, however, in their methodology. The Franciscans sought to retain what was “innocent” in such practices as songs and dances. Despite official opposition to syncretism, the Franciscans was more open and receptive than they were willing to admit. “In spite of the declarations of principle by the first evangelizers in the sense of an absolute rejection of any compromise with paganism and of a deliberate will definitively to eradicate it, in fact there were implicit negotiations between natives and missionaries.” (p. 39).The author refers to the second age as the “Jesuit offensive.” This meant a wholehearted embrace of pre-Hispanic culture (including the attempt to restore the Nahuatl language to its pristine purity). The Jesuits apparently believed that by the 1570s idolatry was no longer a threat and so was not a question of retaining what was merely “innocent.” Whereas the Franciscan juxtaposed the two cultural/ belief systems, the Jesuits combined them. The mendicants sought to keep the republics of natives and Europeans separate, the Jesuits saw a more unified republic that was predominantly mestizo. The mendicants sought to remove the pagan elements from the pre-Hispanic symbols, while the Jesuits accepted them in their entirety and articulated them directly with Christianity. They deliberately sought to appropriate the mythic indigenous past, including such symbols as the nopal, the eagle killing the serpent, and the tuna/heart. They formed a new complex, starting from their idolatrous content: the cross, thorns, cochineal, blood. This process was aided and hastened by the growing identification of the city of Mexico with the entire viceroyalty.The book is solidly researched, but the author’s narrow focus causes her to overlook certain important factors. She omits certain things such as the alternativa and the idea that criollo identity may have originated within the mendicant orders, the first area in which there was overt conflict between the peninsulars and the “sons of the land.” This reviewer believes that she overstates the conscious nature of the syncretism, mistaking it for what was really triumphalism. Much of what the author presents is hypothesis and supposition, often preceded by such words as es probable (p. 136), podemos pensar (p. 88), no parece arriesgado atribuir (p. 96). More troubling is a consistent mistranslation of Nahuatl terms (pp. 53, 54, 71, 91, 130, 150) or erroneous assertions about them (teotl and xan, on p. 53). The book has no systematic or analytical index.In spite of these criticisms, this is a challenging book, defining criollo identity from a point of view that North American scholars have too often neglected.

Hegemony and Identity: The Chicano Hybrid in Francisco X. Alarcón's Snake Poems

Snake Poems renegotiates power relations between the discourse of Spanish imperialism and Aztec poetic practice. Alarcón's extended poem enacts a process of ethnic, cultural, and spiritual identification through a confrontation between texts—Alarcón's original poems, passages of commentary from the Spanish Inquisitor Hernando Ruíz de Alarcón's treatise on Aztec spells and invocations, and the Aztec spells themselves in the original Náhuatl, the Aztec language. Each of these three layers of text represents a unique and competing people, ideology, and culture, and it is the clash and the hybrid fusion of these distinct discourses that Alarcón the poet stages in Snake Poems. Ironically, Alarcón the Inquisitor's Treatise functions today as a window onto Aztec ritual and belief, despite its original purpose to stamp out such rituals and beliefs. Alarcón the poet turns the Inquisitor's text against itself and thereby reappropriates and recreates the power of Aztec song as an antidote to Anglo-American imperialism. Through the reappropriation of the transformative poetic vision of the Aztecs, the Chicano becomes the embodiment of the Aztec poetic trope of difrasismo, the suspended unity of conqueror and conquered, of violation and renewal, of flower and song.

Food of the Gods: Cure for Humanity? A Cultural History of the Medicinal and Ritual Use of Chocolate

The medicinal use of cacao, or chocolate, both as a primary remedy and as a vehicle to deliver other medicines, originated in the New World and diffused to Europe in the mid 1500s. These practices originated among the Olmec, Maya and Mexica (Aztec). The word cacao is derived from Olmec and the subsequent Mayan languages (kakaw); the chocolate-related term cacahuatl is Nahuatl (Aztec language), derived from Olmec/Mayan etymology. Early colonial era documents included instructions for the medicinal use of cacao. The Badianus Codex (1552) noted the use of cacao flowers to treat fatigue, whereas the Florentine Codex (1590) offered a prescription of cacao beans, maize and the herb tlacoxochitl (Calliandra anomala) to alleviate fever and panting of breath and to treat the faint of heart. Subsequent 16th to early 20th century manuscripts produced in Europe and New Spain revealed >100 medicinal uses for cacao/chocolate. Three consistent roles can be identified: 1) to treat emaciated patients to gain weight; 2) to stimulate nervous systems of apathetic, exhausted or feeble patients; and 3) to improve digestion and elimination where cacao/chocolate countered the effects of stagnant or weak stomachs, stimulated kidneys and improved bowel function. Additional medical complaints treated with chocolate/cacao have included anemia, poor appetite, mental fatigue, poor breast milk production, consumption/tuberculosis, fever, gout, kidney stones, reduced longevity and poor sexual appetite/low virility. Chocolate paste was a medium used to administer drugs and to counter the taste of bitter pharmacological additives. In addition to cacao beans, preparations of cacao bark, oil (cacao butter), leaves and flowers have been used to treat burns, bowel dysfunction, cuts and skin irritations.

Nahuatl Language at Yale, June 21‐August 13, 1999

Yearning for a challenge or taste of the exotic and anxious to get your anthropological feel wet, or simply desirous of keeping up your skills? Opportunities to gather expertise in actual research settings abound. Watch this column for ideas on ways to enhance your career and have something to really write home about this summer.

Small languages and small language communities 30

This article reports on the sociolinguistic situation of towns in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, where the Nahuatl language known locally as Mexicano is spoken by a rapidly diminishing group of speakers. Ongoing ethnographic research in the indigenous region that skirts the Malinche (Malintsi) volcano in Central Mexico on language shift and linguistic ideology shows varying degrees of language retention and shift. Here I focus on the nature of code restriction to particular social spheres, contrasting language use contexts that are intimate, sometimes with more power-laden ones, locally viewed as public. I consider the types of contexts in which Mexicano and Spanish are spoken, including the disjuncture that can occur when private, intimate family languages are brought into the institutional, public sphere such as schooling for language revitalization purposes.

The First American Valentine: Nahua Courtship and Other Aspects of Family Structuring in Mesoamerica

By juxtaposing Classic European and Mesoamerican mythohistories about court ship and family beginnings, it is possible to perceive how, at the same time, the Nahua (Aztec) "family" might be construed as a paradigm for empire. However, the Nahuatl language lacks a term for family, and therefore Western applications of the concept simply have no place in Nahua America. Instead, indigenous sociopolitical institutions must be appreciated in their own right. Thus, by exam ining the ancient histories by the Nahuas themselves, we discern how desire, gender complementarity, marriage, fertility, and children as aspects of household are also critical functions of Aztec religion and state.

We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico.

Historians are concerned today that the Spaniards' early accounts of their first experiences with the Indians in the Americas should be balanced with accounts from the Indian perspective. We People Here reflects that concern, bringing together important and revealing documents written in the Nahuatl language in 16th century Mexico. James Lockhart's superior translation combines contemporary English with the most up-to-date, nuanced understanding of Nahuatl grammar and meaning. The foremost Nahuatl conquest account is Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex. In this monumental work, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun commissioned Nahuas to collect and record in their own language accounts of the conquest of Mexico; he then added a parallel Spanish account that is part summary, part elaboration of the Nahuatl. Now, for the first time, the Nahuatl and Spanish texts are together in one volume with en face English translations and reproductions of the copious illustrations from the Codex. Also included are five other Nahua conquest texts. Lockhart's introduction discusses each one individually, placing the narratives in context.

On Whorf's Law and Related Questions of Aztecan Phonology and Etymology

Previous articleNext article No AccessOn Whorf's Law and Related Questions of Aztecan Phonology and EtymologyAlexis Manaster RamerAlexis Manaster Ramer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by International Journal of American Linguistics Volume 62, Number 2Apr., 1996 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/466285 Views: 15Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1996 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Fernando O. de Carvalho A Comparative Reconstruction of Proto-Purus (Arawakan) Segmental Phonology, International Journal of American Linguistics 87, no.11 (Jan 2021): 49–108.https://doi.org/10.1086/711607William R. Fowler, Geoffrey G. McCafferty Comments on Kaufman and Justeson: “The History of the Word for Cacao in Ancient Mesoamerica”, Ancient Mesoamerica 21, no.22 (Jul 2011): 415–441.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536111000186

On Uto-Aztecan studies: A reply to William L. Merrill

I wish to thank MTSR for providing a context for conversations on the Uto Aztecan project This project may have potential interest to the general study of religion because using a language family other than Indo-European as the unit of analysis could bring new insights to comparative mythology My reply to Professor Merrill (Merrill 1996) will be brief since we are in basic agreement on fundamental matters, and further developments at least for my part must await a more detailed analysis of the Hopi material Con cerning the latter, Merrill is completely correct in concluding that further work must build on in-depth investigation of the topics raised in my paper Furthermore, comparative study will also entail the need for scholars to build up competence in two or more Uto-Aztecan languages and cultures And in this respect it is evident from Merrill's insightful comments that he is well on the way to attaining such a competence I am therefore grateful for the com parative dimension in Merrill's criticisms as well as his astute reformulations and contributions to the Hopi material In the following I will restrict my comments to matters of more theoret ical interest Fowler and Merrill are probably correct in their statement that the complex symbolic scheme that the Hopis associate with their directional symbolism is linked to processes of emerging social complexity and is there fore probably not a proto-Uto-Aztecan characteristic Moreover, as Merrill points out, the gendering of the universe is no more distinctive among the Uto-Aztecan peoples than anywhere else in the world, and the apparent un even conceptualization of gender in relation to cosmological principles among disparate Uto-Aztecan peoples suggests too that this avenue of investigation will not bring us far It would, however, be a major advancement if we could arrive at such a conclusion However, I am not as yet convinced Gender and cosmology do not necessarily need to be stated in terms of deities Careful attention to all of the characters in Uto-Aztecan mythology as well as ritual and ordinary behaviour should lead us to useful conclusions If not, then there are many other themes to pursue

“Today there is no respect”

“Today there is no respect”

Oral History in the Americas

There was a period when the historical craft in Latin America was based primarily on oral sources. In the sixteenth century, Iberian chroniclers, conquerors, and priests sought to reconstruct the indigenous past to gain knowledge useful for colonization and conversion. Although their aims were not scholarly, these Europeans recorded much history based on oral testimonies from survivors of the large civilizations of Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. In particular, they collected information about social, economic, and religious traditions. The classic example is Bernardino de Sahaguin's Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva Espana, first published in 1665. A Franciscan friar, Sahaguin relied primarily on the accounts of numerous indigenous informants, which he transcribed in the original Nahuatl language and then translated into Spanish. There is also a rich literature on the conquest and colonization that, although colored by the cultural assumptions of sixteenth-century Europeans, provides important information about the major Indian civilizations. Representative examples are Bernal Diaz del Castillo's Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espana (1568) and Pedro Cieza de Leon's Crdnica delPerfi (1553). Oral history, during the colonial era, was primarily an instrument of colonization, a transitional tool used by Europeans while they created their own records and traditions.1 In the nineteenth century, the descendants of the original colonizers, now prominent revolutionary leaders of new Latin American nations, used oral testimonies to build national identity and history. They sought to justify their break from the colonial past and to rationalize their position of leadership by developing histories that relied heavily on interviews with leaders of the independence movement in the first

Nahuatl Imprints in the Huntington Collections

Less than thirty years after the Spanish conquest of Central Mexico in 1521, the printing of books in both monolingual Nahuatl (Aztec) and bilingual Spanish/Nahuatl editions was thriving. The prestige which precontact Nahuas attached to their codices, painted on native figbark paper, was transferred early in the colonial period to alphabetical writing in Nahuatl on European-style paper. Both types of books, Nahuatl and Spanish/Nahuatl, would continue to appear until Mexican Independence in 1821. There are over 110 extant colonial Mexican imprints in the Nahuatl language,1 many of them to be found in the Huntington collections. While there are reprints, or modified re-editions, of earlier texts, the number of original works in the most widely spoken indigenous language of Mesoamerica can be counted in the dozens, almost all of them associated with the church. Those of most importance to contemporary scholars tend to cluster in a period defined by two imprints. That period opens with the earliest securely dated Nahuatl-language book, a Dominican doctrinal of 1548 entitled Doctrina Christiana en lengua Espanola y Mexicana; it closes in 1645 with the most sophisticated colonial grammar of any Native American language, that by the Jesuit Father Horacio Caro-chi, Arte de la lengva Mexicana.2 These imprints and others like them have been little studied. The lack of attention given to them is a direct result of the state of scholarship in the field of colonial American studies. Until recently the main avenue of approach to the many Native American peoples was through the records left by their European colonizers; thus, the linguistic, cultural, and historical sensibilities developed by scholars studying those peoples were honed in great measure on writings in French, English, Spanish, and

The Solar Christ in Nahuatl Doctrinal Texts of Early Colonial Mexico

The friars who ministered to the Nahua (Aztec) Indians incorporated into their Nahuatl teachings Old World symbolism which used the sun as a metaphor or type for Christ. The solar Christ had different connotations in Nahuatl because of differences between Christian and Nahua views of cosmology, morality, history, and the symbolism of sun and light. Indians today view Christ as a solar deity; Christian teaching may be one source of this identification. The Mendicant friars who converted the Indians of Mexico to Christianity after the Spanish Conquest left behind a large corpus of Christian doctrinal literature in Nahuatl and other Mesoamerican languages. These texts include sermons, catechisms, biblical excerpts, dialogues, hagiography, meditations, hymns, and confession manuals. They were written by friars conversant in the native languages, in collaboration with indigenous students who were educated in Spanish and Latin and who had considerable influence on the native-language texts. Because of their dominantly European content, these texts have received relatively little attention from ethnohistorians more interested in the indigenous side of Indian-Spanish contact. Thus these texts constitute a largely unexploited ethnohistorical resource of great value for interpreting colonial culture, particularly in regard to religion but also to language, political and social relations, and other aspects of Indian life. They provide a useful guide to the acculturative pressures operating upon native ideology. They may also help to establish more continuity between the indigenous beliefs and practices recorded in sixteenth-century ethnographic descriptions and those observed by ethnographers in the present. The doctrinal corpus is dominated by texts in the Nahuatl (Aztec) language. This extensive body of Nahua-Christian literature reveals precisely how Christianity was presented to the Nahuas, how Christian conEthnohistory 35:3 (Summer 1988). Copyright ? by the American Society for Ethnohistory. ccc ooI4-I8o0/88/$i.5o. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.133 on Fri, 17 Jun 2016 05:27:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Solar Christ in Nahuatl Doctrinal Texts cepts were translated and explained, and what elements of indigenous belief were carried over by the friars into what was, in effect, a Nahuatl interpretation of Christianity. Christian concepts picked up new meanings and symbolic associations as they were translated into Nahuatl; at the same time, the new contexts and modes of expression characteristic of Christian preaching began to influence the meanings of Nahuatl terms. Analysis of this hybrid literature helps to illuminate the true character of the so-called spiritual conquest. Christian doctrine was Nahuatized in the process of its accommodation to native categories of language and thought just as Christian personages and Christian rites took the place of the indigenous ones that most closely resembled them. This paper examines the treatment of one motif, Christ as the sun, in the colonial Mexican literature, and analyzes this motif in light of its Old World origins and its New World cultural setting. The use of this motif in the Nahuatl doctrinal writings of three prominent friars, the Franciscans fray Bernardino de Sahagun and fray Juan Bautista and the Augustinian fray Juan de la Anunciacion, is discussed. The Solar Christ in the Old World and the New The Christ-sun is by no means a common theme in the colonial literature, but it illustrates some interesting aspects of the translation process, including the very sensitive issue of idolatry. It is the sort of identification that one might expect the friars to avoid in the interest of preventing idolatry. Alternatively, the fact that they did use it might be seen as an attempt at planned syncretism, the fostering of identifications between indigenous and Christian figures as an easy way to bring the Indians into the church. In reality, though, the friars were neither so conscientious nor so crafty. They were simply employing an Old World motif, translating its terminology into Nahuatl and using it in traditional contexts. Formal Christian teaching did not necessarily contradict the Nahuas' own interpretations of Christianity; the difference between Old World and Nahua Christianity lay in the articulation of their respective worldviews and the way that metaphors operated within them. It is widely known that present-day Mesoamerican Indians view Christ as a solar deity (see, for example, Gossen 1974; Hunt 1977; Taggart I983; Vogt I969). This identification may look like a survival of indigenous solar worship, but in fact the identification was not inconsistent with sixteenth-century Christianity. For Christ to become identified with the sun was a logical response given the structure and character of the indigenous worldview; the argument here is not that the friars were responsible for this identification but only that theirs was one voice active in the intercultural dialogue within which this identification originated. 235 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.133 on Fri, 17 Jun 2016 05:27:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Where is Terabithia?

Where is Terabithia? Katherine Paterson When I returned from Japan in 1962, I went to New York City to study at Union Seminary there. I had every intention of returning to Japan after my year at Union was over, but in February a young minister from a church in Buffalo came to Union for a continuing education program. In my weekly letter home, I made the mistake of mentioning that I had met such a person. At this point I had had exactly one very public, and as far as I was concerned, very casual lunch with the fellow, but my mother at once leaped to the most drastic conclusion possible under the circumstances. She rushed to tell her best friend the dreadful thing that had occurred. Katherine had gotten herself involved with a preacher from Buffalo. "Why, Mary," said Helen, "that's lovely. If Katherine marries him she'll stay in this country. She won't be going back to Japan all by herself." The text was written in 1583 by the monk Fray Bernardino Sahagun and is one of the first books printed in this hemisphere. Until now it has never been translated from the original Nahuatl, the Aztec language. In 1523, two years after Cortez's military victory, monks were sent from Spain to consolidate the conquest of Mexico. And this they did. In the next five years, one million Aztecs were converted to Christianity; in twenty years there nine million converts. Bereft of their gods, which the Spaniards had toppled from the pyramids and demolished, the Indians turned to the monks and embraced the new religion with fervor. But they missed the elaborate processions and ceremonies that had accompanied the old Aztec religion. To fill this gap, the monks introduced miracle plays, of which The Spirit Child is one. It is the story of the Nativity. In it are the volcanoes, which the Aztecs believed to be the entrances to Hell before Jesus was born. And when Jesus was born, three suns shone over Tenochtitlan, the capitol of Mexico. Mary went to Bethlehem on foot. There was no donkey for her to ride, for prior to the coming of the Spaniards, the only domestic animals the Aztecs had were dogs and turkeys, and in 1583, when the text was written, the Indians were forbidden to ride the horses, mules, and donkeys introduced by the Spaniards on pain of death. In conclusion, I would like to quote from a book on Chinese painting—The Tao of Painting, by Mai Mai Sze: " . . . the literal aim of painting [was the magic that] happened when skill with brush could transmit the spirit to silk or paper." This is what I am trying to do. "But," replied my mother, "I've been to Japan. I've never been to Buffalo." I share this story with you to indicate the weird brand of parochialism that existed, and perhaps still exists, in my family. We're forever put off by people that find exotic the places we call home, whether they are in upper Jiangsu Province or Northern Shikoku or Southeast Virginia. But the idea of leaving home and heading for a place called Buffalo, New York, seems on a par with Columbus setting sail west for East India. Let me remind you that it was not that John was either Presbyterian or a pastor that bothered my mother. She herself had been married to a Presbyterian pastor for thirty nine years. It wasn't even the actual city of Buffalo that she was objecting to. She'd never been to Buffalo. What was bothering her was the idea of Buffalo, which conjured up vague visions of snow and ice, but which she couldn't really picture. Buffalo was simply not real to her. [End Page 153] Flannery O'Connor, whose words about writing have meant a great deal to me, has said that fiction is "incarnational." By "incarnational" we mean that somehow the word or the idea has taken on flesh, has become physical, actual, real, We mean that the abstract idea can be perceived by way of the senses. This immediately makes fiction different from other kinds of stories. The fairy...

The Aztlan Migrations of the Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?

This article examines one of the major themes of central Mexican native history-the Aztlan migrations-and attempts to establish its historical validity. Two independent sets of historical accounts are analyzed, revealing considerable consistency and agreement. First, narrative accounts of Prehispanic history concur in the relative arrival order of three major contingents of Nahuatl speaking immigrants: an early Basin or Mexico contingent, followed by one settling the surrounding valleys, and finally the Mexica. Second, arrival dates from diverse local histories throughout the highlands corroborate this tripartite ordering and provide calendar dates for the arrival of the Aztlan migrants. The resulting historical reconstruction is supported by current work in Mesoamerican historical linguistics and by available archaeological data. The various Nahuatl speaking peoples of central Mexico encountered by Cortes in 1519 traced their ancestry to one or both of two semi-mythical places in northern Mexico. According to written and oral native histories, their ancestors had migrated south from either Aztlan or Chicomoztoc several centuries before the Spanish conquest. Although the bulk of the extant information on these migrations pertains to the Mexica, the politically and economically dominant group in 1519, the Mexica in fact represent only the last of a series of migrating peoples said to have settled in the Basin of Mexico and adjacent valleys. In the sixteenth century, the inclusion of these various groups in lists of migrants from Aztlan and/or Chicomoztoc served to reinforce and validate their identities (Davies 1980:85f). Although it is often the case that such accounts of tribal or ethnic origins belong more to the realm of mythology than history (see for example Brown 1973), there are two strong a priori reasons for attributing a large measure of historical validity to the Aztlan chronicles. First, central Mexican native history is notable for its attention to chronology and record-keeping (Nicholson 1955, 1971), and the migration accounts are presented in the historical as opposed to the ritual or patently mythological portions of indigenous accounts. Second, Mesoamerican historical linguistics has established that the Nahuatl language is not native to central Mexico, but was carried south from a north Mexican hearth in the final centuries of the Prehispanic era. Since the Aztlan migrants were Nahuatl speaking, an association between the historical and linguistic movements is likely. Given the general historical plausability of the Aztlan migrations, this article attempts to determine: (1) how reliable are the native sources on the migrations? (2) who were the migrating groups? (3) when did they arrive in central Mexico? Mesoamerica is the only area of the New World in which indigenous cultures developed written historical records prior to the arrival of Europeans. Within Prehispanic Mesoamerica, four independent traditions of written history evolved-the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec and Nahuatl traditions (Marcus 1976). The Nahuatl written histories of central Mexico are the best documented and most understood corpus of the four, due to the efforts of Spanish and native

La alfabetización de la lengua nahuatl

Summary The alphabetization of the Nahuatl language represents the first European experiment in the transformation of an American language into a literary language, an experiment realized in a fashion parallel to the first studies of the European vernaculars. This alphabetization was realized in a long process from the earliest contacts to the middle of the 17th century. It is possible to discern at least three stages. The first corresponds to the period which immediately folows the conquest (1523–1547). All efforts were concentrated at the time on the learning of the language, a learning without precedent, resulting in its being cast in the Procrustian bed of the orthographic conventions of Castillian. The goal was not proper alphabetization. The second stage (1547–1595) corresponds to a period in the deepening of the knowledge of Nahuatl, a process reflected in the first ‘artes’ or treatises and vocabularies. This improved knowledge of the language led to the realization that a more appropriate orthography was required. The third and final stage in the alphabetization of Nahuatl (1595–1673) is characterized by linguistic research which no doubt has its antecedents in the investigation of other ‘exotic’ languages and which is aimed at an improved analysis of this language of Mexico. The orthographic endeavours are now directed toward a reform of the writing system which includes the introduction of new characters in an attempt to capture the phonological particularities of Nahuatl. From this history of the long process of alphabetization, it is evident that a detailed analysis of the phonological descriptions and the orthographic principles conserved in the treatises until 1673 not only allows us to appreciate the achievements of these early linguists but also provides us with valuable information about the phonological system of classical Nahuatl as well as of Castillian of the period.

Grammar of the Mexican (Nahuatl) Language (1571)

Grammar of the Mexican (Nahuatl) Language (1571)

Rules of the Aztec Language: Classical Nahuatl Grammar. Arthur J. O. AndersonGrammatical Examples, Exercises, and Review for Use with Rules of the Aztec Language. Arthur J. O. Anderson

<i>Rules of the Aztec Language: Classical Nahuatl Grammar</i>. Arthur J. O. Anderson<i>Grammatical Examples, Exercises, and Review for Use with Rules of the Aztec Language</i>. Arthur J. O. Anderson