Nahuatl family

Nahuatl (Aztec, Mexicano)

The Nahuatl (or Nahua) languages form the southernmost family of the Uto-Aztecan stock. Nahuatl has over a million and a half speakers, more than any other family of indigenous languages in Mexico today. The name "Nahuatl" (pronounced in two syllables, ná-watl) comes from the root nahua ([nawa]) which means 'clear sound' or 'command'.

The areas marked in green on the map are the traditional Nahuatl homelands where the Nahuatl languages are still spoken today. They include parts of the Federal District (Mexico City) and of the states of Durango, México, Guerrero, Michoacán, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz. Although it does not appear on this map, the southernmost language in the family is Pipil, which is spoken in El Salvador.

Nahuatl is known world-wide because of the Aztecs, also called the "Mexica" (pronounced approximately "may-she-kah"). They lived in Mexico-Tenochtitlan (what is today the center of Mexico City) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and were the dominant civilization in Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish conquest. Because they spoke a particular kind of Nahuatl (Classical Nahuatl), both the Nahuatl family and even other individual variants are sometimes called "Aztec" or "Mexicano". (The Uto-Aztecan stock is also sometimes called Uto-Nahuatl.) And of course, it is from their capital city, México [mēxihko], that the modern country of Mexico took its name.

Common questions about Nahuatl

• Which is the correct form: Nahua, Nahuatl, Nahuat, or Nahual?
• Why does Nahuatl have such long words?
• What languages are related to Nahuatl?
• Why do so many place names in Mexico end in -tla, -pa, -ca or -cingo?

...and more...

Linguistic structure of Nahuatl

• The Nahuatl vowels
• The Nahuatl consonants
• Syllables and stress in Nahuatl
• The Nahuatl orthography

• Morelos Nahuatl alphabet
• The Orizaba Nahuatl (Nawatl) orthography
• The Mösiehuali (Tetelcingo Nahuatl) vowels and consonants with a discussion on the orthography

Specific varieties of Nahuatl

You can find on this website information about or in the following varieties of Nahuatl:

• Classical Nahuatl
• Guerrero Nahuatl
• Morelos Nahuatl [auf Deutsch] [Ika mejikano]
• Mösiehuali (Tetelcingo Nahuatl)
• Nahuatl of Mecayapan and Tatahuicapan, Veracruz (Isthmus Nahuatl)
• Nahuatl of Northern Oaxaca
• Orizaba Nawatl (Zongolica Nahuatl)
• Nahuatl of Zacatlán, Ahuacatlán and Tepetzintla [auf Deutsch] [ica mehcanoh]

Publications by the Summer Institute of Linguistics and its members

Linguistics

• dictionaries and vocabularies, including:
  -Diccionario náhuatl de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz (Isthmus Nahuatl)
• grammars and grammatical studies, including:
  -Rule-governed allomorphy can be suppletive also (a general linguistic article which includes an extended example from Tetelcingo Nahuatl)
  -Gramática náhuatl (mela'tájtol) de los municipios de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz (Isthmus Nahuatl)
  -El náhuatl y los préstamos (Isthmus Nahuatl)
  -Rasgos importantes de esta variante del náhuatl (Isthmus Nahuatl)
  -Los fonemas del náhuatl de los municipios de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz (Isthmus Nahuatl)
• analyzed texts
• courses for learning Nahuatl (two varieties)

Literacy and literature

• primers
• books of traditional stories and other native-authored literature, including:
  -Stories in Guerrero Nahuatl
• Puede hablar el náhuatl (Guerrero Nahuatl)
• Nahuatl of Mecayapan and Tatahuicapan, Veracruz (Isthmus Nahuatl): various literacy publications (3)
• Morelos Nahuatl: Alphabet book, Stories and other literacy publications (3)
• Nahuatl of Northern Oaxaca: various texts (2)
• Nahuatl of the municipalities of Zacatlán, Tepetzintla and Ahuacatlán: Picture Dictionary and varios literacy publications (9)
• New Testaments
• Old Testament summaries

Various fields

• technical articles
• doctoral dissertations

For more information:

• The Nahuatl family is part of the Uto-Aztecan stock
• Other sites about Nahuatl
• Nahuatl bibliography
• Ethnologue listing
• Population statistics by language family

The Aztec calendar that appears at the top of this page is in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.