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.

• 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.

• 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

Name (with links to more details on some)	Ethnologue entries
Central Nahuatl	nhn
Central Huasteca Nahuatl	nch
Central Puebla Nahuatl	ncx
Classical Nahuatl	nci
Coatepec Nahuatl	naz
Durango Nahuatl	nln
Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl	nhe
Guerrero Nahuatl	ngu
Highland Puebla Nahuatl	azz
Huaxcaleca Nahuatl	nhq
Cosoleacaque Nahuatl (Isthmus Nahuatl)	nhk
Nahuatl of Mecayapan and Tatahuicapan, Veracruz (Isthmus Nahuatl)	nhx
Pajapan Nahuatl (Isthmus Nahuatl)	nhp
Michoacán Nahuatl	ncl
Morelos Nahuatl [auf Deutsch] [Ika mejikano]	nhm
Nahuatl of Northern Oaxaca	nhy
Northern Puebla Nahuatl	ncj
Ometepec Nahuatl	nht
Orizaba Nawatl (Zongolica Nahuatl)	nlv
Santa María la Alta Nahuatl	nhz
Sierra Negra Nahuatl	nsu
Southeastern Puebla Nahuatl	npl
Tabasco Nahuatl	nhc
Temascaltepec Nahuatl	nhv
Mösiehuali (Tetelcingo Nahuatl)	nhg
Tlamacazapa Nahuatl	nuz
Western Huasteca Nahuatl	nhw
Nahuatl of Zacatlán, Ahuacatlán and Tepetzintla [auf Deutsch] [ica mehcanoh]	nhi

• 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)

• primers
• books of traditional stories and other native-authored literature, including:
  • Stories in Guerrero Nahuatl
• Puede hablar el náhuatl (Guerrero Nahuatl)
• In Lacal Hual Quincajcahuac Ixolomes (The Man Who Abandoned His Children, in Michoacán Náhuatl)
• 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

• technical articles, including:
  • La incorporacion de sustantivos en el náhuatl (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)
  • Third person participant reference and zero anaphora in Isthmus Nahuatl (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)
  • Some not so sanquine discourse particles in Southeastern Puebla Nahuatl narratives (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)
• doctoral dissertations

• Confusion about the name “Huasteco”
• Explanation of the confusion of names of Mexican indigenous languages
• The Nahuatl family is part of the Uto-Aztecan stock
• Other sites about Nahuatl
• Nahuatl bibliography
• Ethnologue listing
• Population statistics by language family

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