Nahuatl#Stylistics

{{Main|Nahuan languages}}

File:Nahuatl per Kaufman (2001).svg

As a language label, the term Nahuatl encompasses a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects within the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.{{Sfn|Pharao Hansen|2024|p=5–6}} The Mexican {{langr|es|Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas}} (Indigenous Languages Institute) recognizes 30 individual varieties within the "language group" labeled Nahuatl.{{sfn|INALI|2008|pp=10–37}}{{cite web |title=Catálogo de las Lenguas Indígenas Nacionales |url=https://www.inali.gob.mx/clin-inali/ |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas |access-date=29 December 2024 |language=es}} The Ethnologue recognizes 28 varieties with separate ISO codes.{{Ethnologue 27 subgroup |family=Nahuatl |number=3952}} Sometimes Nahuatl is also applied to the Nawat language of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Regardless of whether Nahuatl is considered to refer to a dialect continuum or a group of separate languages, the varieties form a single branch within the Uto-Aztecan family, descended from a single Proto-Nahuan language. Within Mexico, the question of whether to consider individual varieties to be languages or dialects of a single language is highly political.{{sfn |Pharao Hansen |2013}}

In the past, the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs has been called Aztecan. From the 1990s onward, the alternative designation Nahuan has been frequently used instead, especially in Spanish-language publications. The Nahuan (Aztecan) branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions: General Aztec and Pochutec.{{harvnb |Canger |1988 |pages=42–43}}; {{harvnb |Dakin |1982 |page=202}}; {{harvnb |INALI |2008 |page=63}}; {{harvnb |Suárez |1983 |page=149}}

General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages.{{harvnb |Canger |2000 |page=385}}: "General Aztec is a generally accepted term referring to the most shallow common stage, reconstructed for all present-day Nahuatl varieties; it does not include the Pochutec dialect." Pochutec is a scantily attested language, which became extinct in the 20th century,{{sfn|Boas|1917}}{{sfn|Knab|1980}} and which Campbell and Langacker classify as being outside general Aztec. Other researchers have argued that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery.{{harvnb |Canger |Dakin |1985 |page=360}}; {{harvnb |Dakin |2001 |pages=21–22}}

Nahuatl denotes at least Classical Nahuatl, together with related modern languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil in this group is debated among linguists. Lyle Campbell classified Pipil as separate from the Nahuatl branch within general Aztecan,{{sfn|Campbell|1997}} whereas dialectologists such as Una Canger, Karen Dakin, Yolanda Lastra, and Terrence Kaufman have preferred to include Pipil within the General Aztecan branch, citing close historical ties with the eastern peripheral dialects of General Aztec.{{harvnb |Dakin |2001 |pages=21–22}}; {{harvnb |Kaufman |2001}}

Current subclassification of Nahuatl rests on research by {{harvcoltxt|Canger|1980}}, {{harvcoltxt|Canger|1988}} and {{harvcoltxt|Lastra de Suárez|1986}}. Canger introduced the scheme of a Central grouping and two Peripheral groups, and Lastra confirmed this notion, differing in some details. {{harvcoltxt|Canger|Dakin|1985}} demonstrated a basic split between Eastern and Western branches of Nahuan, considered to reflect the oldest division of the proto-Nahuan speech community. Canger originally considered the central dialect area to be an innovative subarea within the Western branch, but in 2011, she suggested that it arose as an urban koiné language with features from both Western and Eastern dialect areas. {{harvcoltxt|Canger|1988}} tentatively included dialects of La Huasteca in the Central group, while {{harvcoltxt|Lastra de Suárez|1986}} places them in the Eastern Periphery, which was followed by {{harvcoltxt|Kaufman|2001}}.

While Nahuatl is the most commonly used name for the language in English, native speakers often refer to the language as {{lang|nah|mexicano}}, or some cognate of the term {{lang|nah|mācēhualli}}, meaning 'commoner'. The word Nahuatl is derived from the word {{lang|nah|nāhuatlahtōlli}} {{IPA|nah|naːwat͡ɬaʔˈtoːliˀ|}} ('clear language').{{Sfn|Launey|2011|p=xvii}} While it dates to the early colonial period at least, it is not used by all speakers and is new to many communities.{{Sfn|Pharao Hansen|2024|p=7–8}} Linguists commonly identify localized dialects of Nahuatl by adding as a qualifier the name of the village or area where that variety is spoken.

The language was formerly called Aztec because it was spoken by the Central Mexican peoples known as Aztecs ({{IPA|nah|asˈteːkaḁ}}). Now, the term Aztec is rarely used for modern Nahuan languages, but linguists' traditional name of Aztecan for the branch of Uto-Aztecan that comprises Nahuatl, Pipil, and Pochutec is still in use (although some linguists prefer Nahuan). Since 1978, the term General Aztec has been adopted by linguists to refer to the languages of the Aztecan branch excluding the Pochutec language.{{sfn|Canger|2000|page=385}}

Nahuatl came to be identified with the politically dominant {{lang|nah|mēxihcah}} {{IPA|nah|meːˈʃiʔkaḁ|}} ethnic group, and consequently the Nahuatl language has been called {{lang|nah|mēxihcacopa}} {{IPA|nah|meːʃiʔkaˈkopaˀ|}} (literally 'in the manner of Mexicas'){{Sfn|Pharao Hansen|2024|p=7–8}}{{sfn|Launey|1992|p=116}} or {{lang|nah|mēxihcatlahtolli}} 'Mexica language'. The language is now called mexicano by many of its native speakers, a term dating to the early colonial period and usually pronounced the Spanish way, with {{IPAblink|h}} or {{IPAblink|x}} rather than {{IPAblink|ʃ}}.{{Sfn|Pharao Hansen|2024|p=7–8}}{{sfn|Hill|Hill|1986|pp=90–93}}

Many Nahuatl speakers refer to their language with a cognate derived from {{lang|nah|mācēhualli}}, the Nahuatl word for 'commoner'.{{Sfn|Pharao Hansen|2024|p=7–8}} One example of that is the Nahuatl spoken in Tetelcingo, Morelos, whose speakers call their language {{lang|es|mösiehuali}}.{{harvnb|Tuggy|1979}} The Pipil people of El Salvador refer to their language as Nāwat. The Nahuas of Durango call their language {{lang|es|Mexicanero}}.{{sfn|Canger|2001}} Speakers of Nahuatl of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec call their language {{lang|nah|mela'tajtol}} ('the straight language').{{sfn|Wolgemuth|2002}}

{{Main|History of Nahuatl}}

On the issue of geographic origin, the consensus of linguists during the 20th century was that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in the southwestern United States.{{harvnb|Canger|1980|page=12}}; {{harvnb|Kaufman|2001|page=1}} Evidence from archaeology and ethnohistory supports the thesis of a southward diffusion across the North American continent, specifically that speakers of early Nahuan languages migrated from Aridoamerica into central Mexico in several waves. But recently, the traditional assessment has been challenged by Jane H. Hill, who proposes instead that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in central Mexico and spread northwards at a very early date.{{sfn|Hill|2001}} This hypothesis and the analyses of data that it rests upon have received serious criticism.{{sfn|Merrill|Hard|Mabry|Fritz|2010}}{{sfn|Kaufman|Justeson|2009}}

The proposed migration of speakers of the Proto-Nahuan language into the Mesoamerican region has been placed at sometime around AD 500, towards the end of the Early Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.{{sfn|Justeson|Norman|Campbell|Kaufman|1985|page=passim}}{{sfn|Kaufman|2001|pages=3–6,12}}{{sfn|Kaufman|Justeson|2007}} Before reaching the Mexican Plateau, pre-Nahuan groups probably spent a period of time in contact with the Uto-Aztecan Cora and Huichol of northwestern Mexico.{{sfn|Kaufman|2001|pages=6,12}}

The major political and cultural center of Mesoamerica in the Early Classic period was Teotihuacan. The identity of the language(s) spoken by Teotihuacan's founders has long been debated, with the relationship of Nahuatl to Teotihuacan being prominent in that enquiry.{{harvnb|Cowgill|1992|pages=240–242}}; {{harvnb|Pasztory|1993}} It was presumed by scholars during the 19th and early 20th centuries that Teotihuacan had been founded by Nahuatl-speakers of, but later linguistic and archaeological research tended to disconfirm this view. Instead, the timing of the Nahuatl influx was seen to coincide more closely with Teotihuacan's fall than its rise, and other candidates such as Totonacan identified as more likely.{{harvnb|Campbell|1997|page=161}}; {{harvnb|Justeson|Norman|Campbell|Kaufman|1985}}; {{harvnb|Kaufman|2001|pages=3–6,12}} In the late 20th century, epigraphical evidence has suggested the possibility that other Mesoamerican languages were borrowing vocabulary from Proto-Nahuan much earlier than previously thought.{{harvnb|Dakin| Wichmann|2000}}; {{harvnb|Macri|2005}}; {{harvnb|Macri|Looper|2003}}; {{harvnb|Cowgill|2003|page=335}}; {{harvnb|Pasztory|1993}}

In Mesoamerica the Mayan, Oto-Manguean and Mixe–Zoque languages had coexisted for millennia. This had given rise to the Mesoamerican language area. After the Nahuas migrated into the Mesoamerican cultural zone, their language likely adopted various areal traits,{{harvnb|Dakin|1994}}; {{harvnb|Kaufman|2001}} which included relational nouns and calques added to the vocabulary, and a distinctly Mesoamerican grammatical construction for indicating possession.

A language which was the ancestor of Pochutec split from Proto-Nahuan (or Proto-Aztecan) possibly as early as AD 400, arriving in Mesoamerica a few centuries earlier than the bulk of Nahuan speakers. Some Nahuan groups migrated south along the Central American isthmus, reaching as far as Nicaragua. The critically endangered Pipil language of El Salvador is the only living descendant of the variety of Nahuatl once spoken south of present-day Mexico.{{harvnb|Fowler|1985|page=38}}; {{harvnb|Kaufman|2001}}

During the 7th century, Nahuan speakers rose to power in central Mexico. The people of the Toltec culture of Tula, which was active in central Mexico around the 10th century, are thought to have been Nahuatl speakers. By the 11th century, Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, with settlements including Azcapotzalco, Colhuacan and Cholula rising to prominence. Nahua migrations into the region from the north continued into the Postclassic period. The Mexica were among the latest groups to arrive in the Valley of Mexico; they settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco, subjugated the surrounding tribes, and ultimately an empire named Tenochtitlan. Mexica political and linguistic influence ultimately extended into Central America, and Nahuatl became a lingua franca among merchants and elites in Mesoamerica, such as with the Maya Kʼicheʼ people.{{sfn|Carmack|1981|pages=142–143}} As Tenochtitlan grew to become the largest urban center in Central America and one of the largest in the world at the time,{{Cite book |last=Levy |first=Buddy |title=Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs |publisher=Bantam |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-553-38471-0 |page=106}} it attracted speakers of Nahuatl from diverse areas giving birth to an urban form of Nahuatl with traits from many dialects. This urbanized variety of Tenochtitlan is what came to be known as Classical Nahuatl as documented in colonial times.{{sfn|Canger|2011}}

With the arrival of the Spanish in 1519, Nahuatl was displaced as the dominant regional language, but remained important in Nahua communities under Spanish rule. Nahuatl was documented extensively during the colonial period in Tlaxcala, Cuernavaca, Culhuacan, Coyoacan, Toluca and other locations in the Valley of Mexico and beyond. In the 1970s, scholars of Mesoamerican ethnohistory have analyzed local-level texts in Nahuatl and other Indigenous languages to gain insight into cultural change in the colonial era via linguistic changes, known at present as the New Philology.{{sfn|Lockhart|1992}} Several of these texts have been translated and published either in part or in their entirety. The types of documentation include censuses, especially one early set from the Cuernavaca region,{{sfn|Hinz|1983}}{{sfn|Cline|1993}} town council records from Tlaxcala,{{sfn|Lockhart|Berdan|Anderson|1986}} as well as the testimony of Nahua individuals.{{sfn|Cline|León-Portilla|1984}}

As the Spanish had made alliances with Nahuatl-speaking peoples—initially from Tlaxcala, and later the conquered Mexica of Tenochtitlan—Nahuatl continued spreading throughout Mesoamerica in the decades after the conquest. Spanish expeditions with thousands of Nahua soldiers marched north and south to conquer new territories. Jesuit missions in what is now northern Mexico and the southwestern United States often included a barrio of Tlaxcaltec soldiers who remained to guard the mission.{{sfn|Jackson|2000}} For example, some fourteen years after the northeastern city of Saltillo was founded in 1577, a Tlaxcaltec community was resettled in a separate nearby village, San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala, to cultivate the land and aid colonization efforts that had stalled in the face of local hostility to the Spanish settlement.{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2005 |title=Saltillo, Coahuila |encyclopedia=Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México |publisher=INAFED, Secretaría de Gobernación |url=http://www.e-local.gob.mx/work/templates/enciclo/coahuila/mpios/05030a.htm |access-date=2008-03-28 |edition=online version at E-Local |language=es |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070520133556/http://www.e-local.gob.mx/work/templates/enciclo/coahuila/mpios/05030a.htm |archive-date=20 May 2007 |author=INAFED (Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal) |url-status=dead}}. The Tlaxcaltec community remained legally separate until the 19th century. Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala with the help of tens of thousands of Tlaxcaltec allies, who then settled outside of modern Antigua Guatemala.{{sfn|Matthew|2012}}

File:The Florentine Codex- Life in Mesoamerica IV.tiff, featuring Nahuatl written using the Latin alphabet]]

As a part of their efforts, missionaries belonging to several religious orders—principally Jesuits, as well as Franciscan and Dominican friars—introduced the Latin alphabet to the Nahuas. Within twenty years of the Spanish arrival, texts in Nahuatl were being written using the Latin script.{{harvnb|Lockhart|1991|page=12}}; {{harvnb|Lockhart|1992|pages=330–331}} Simultaneously, schools were founded, such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in 1536, which taught both Indigenous and classical European languages to both Native Americans and priests. Missionaries authored of grammars for Indigenous languages for use by priests. The first Nahuatl grammar, written by Andrés de Olmos, was published in 1547–3 years before the first grammar in French, and 39 years before the first one in English. By 1645, four more had been published, authored respectively by Alonso de Molina (1571), Antonio del Rincón (1595),{{sfn|Rincón|1885}} Diego de Galdo Guzmán (1642), and Horacio Carochi (1645).{{sfn|Carochi|1645}} Carochi's is today considered the most important colonial-era grammar of Nahuatl.{{sfn|Canger|1980|page=14}} Carochi has been particularly important for scholars working in the New Philology, such that there is a 2001 English translation of Carochi's 1645 grammar by James Lockhart.{{sfn|Carochi|2001}} Through contact with Spanish the Nahuatl language adopted many loan words, and as bilingualism intensified, changes in the grammatical structure of Nahuatl followed.{{sfn|Olko|Sullivan|2013}}

In 1570, King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies.{{harvnb|Suárez|1983|page=165}} This led to Spanish missionaries teaching Nahuatl to Amerindians living as far south as Honduras and El Salvador. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language; a large corpus dating to the period remains extant. They include histories, chronicles, poetry, theatrical works, Christian canonical works, ethnographic descriptions, and administrative documents. The Spanish permitted a great deal of autonomy in the local administration of Indigenous towns during this period, and in many Nahuatl-speaking towns the language was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. A large body of Nahuatl literature was composed during this period, including the Florentine Codex, a twelve-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún; {{lang|es|Crónica Mexicayotl}}, a chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc; {{lang|es|Cantares Mexicanos}}, a collection of songs in Nahuatl; a Nahuatl-Spanish/Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by Alonso de Molina; and the {{lang|nah|Huei tlamahuiçoltica}}, a description in Nahuatl of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.{{sfn|Suárez|1983|pages=140–41}}

Grammars and dictionaries of Indigenous languages were composed throughout the colonial period, but their quality was highest in the initial period.{{sfn|Suárez|1983|page=5}} The friars found that learning all the Indigenous languages was impossible in practice, so they concentrated on Nahuatl. For a time, the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained relatively stable, but in 1696, Charles II of Spain issued a decree banning the use of any language other than Spanish throughout the Spanish Empire. In 1770, another decree, calling for the elimination of the Indigenous languages, did away with Classical Nahuatl as a literary language. Until the end of the Mexican War of Independence in 1821, the Spanish courts admitted Nahuatl testimony and documentation as evidence in lawsuits, with court translators rendering it in Spanish.{{sfn|Cline|Adams|MacLeod|2000}}

Throughout the modern period the situation of Indigenous languages has grown increasingly precarious in Mexico, and the numbers of speakers of virtually all Indigenous languages have dwindled. While the total number of Nahuatl speakers increased over the 20th century, Indigenous populations have become increasingly marginalized in Mexican society. In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. By 2000, this figure had fallen to 1.49%. Given the process of marginalization combined with the trend of migration to urban areas and to the United States, some linguists are warning of impending language death.{{sfn|Rolstad|2002|page=passim.}} At present Nahuatl is mostly spoken in rural areas by an impoverished class of Indigenous subsistence agriculturists. According to the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), as of 2005 51% of Nahuatl speakers are involved in the farming sector and 6 in 10 Nahuatl-speakers who work receive no wages or less than the minimum wage.{{sfn|INEGI|2005|pages=63–73}}

For most of the 20th century, Mexican educational policy focused on the Hispanicization of Indigenous communities, teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of Indigenous languages.{{sfn|Suárez|1983|page=167}} As a result, one scholar estimated in 1983 that there was no group of Nahuatl speakers who had attained general literacy (that is, the ability to read the classical language) in Nahuatl,{{sfn|Suárez|1983|page=168}} and Nahuatl speakers' literacy rate in Spanish also remained much lower than the national average.{{sfn|INEGI|2005|page=49}} Nahuatl is spoken by over 1 million people, with approximately 10% of speakers being monolingual. As a whole, Nahuatl is not considered to be an endangered language; however, during the late 20th century several Nahuatl dialects became extinct.{{harvnb|Lastra de Suárez|1986}}, {{harvnb|Rolstad|2002|page=passim}}

The 1990s saw radical changes in Mexican policy concerning Indigenous and linguistic rights. Developments of accords in the international rights arenaSuch as the 1996 adoption at a world linguistics conference in Barcelona of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, a declaration which "became a general reference point for the evolution and discussion of linguistic rights in Mexico" {{harvnb|Pellicer|Cifuentes|Herrera|2006|page=132}} combined with domestic pressures (such as social and political agitation by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and Indigenous social movements) led to legislative reforms and the creation of decentralized government agencies like the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) with responsibilities for the promotion and protection of Indigenous communities and languages.{{sfn|Pellicer|Cifuentes|Herrera|2006|pages=132–137}}

In particular, the federal Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ['General Law on the Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples', promulgated 13 March 2003] recognizes all the country's Indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as national languages and gives Indigenous people the right to use them in all spheres of public and private life. In Article 11, it grants access to compulsory intercultural bilingual education.{{Cite web |year=n.d. |title=Presentación de la Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos |url=http://www.inali.gob.mx/ind-leyes.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317120048/http://www.inali.gob.mx/ind-leyes.html |archive-date=17 March 2008 |access-date=2008-03-31 |website=Difusión de INALI |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas, Secretaría de Educación Pública |language=es}} Nonetheless, progress towards institutionalizing Nahuatl and securing linguistic rights for its speakers has been slow.{{sfn|Olko|Sullivan|2013}}

{{Main|Nahuan languages|Nahua peoples}}

File:Nahuatl map labeled.svg

Today, a spectrum of Nahuan languages are spoken in scattered areas stretching from the northern state of Durango to Tabasco in the southeast. Pipil,{{harvnb|Campbell|1985}} the southernmost Nahuan language, is spoken in El Salvador by a small number of speakers. According to IRIN-International, the Nawat Language Recovery Initiative project, there are no reliable figures for the contemporary numbers of speakers of Pipil. Numbers may range anywhere from "perhaps a few hundred people, perhaps only a few dozen".{{sfn|IRIN|2004}}

According to the 2000 census by INEGI, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1.45 million people, some 198,000 (14.9%) of whom are monolingual.{{sfn|INEGI|2005|page=35}} There are many more female than male monolinguals, and women represent nearly two-thirds of the total number. The states of Guerrero and Hidalgo have the highest rates of monolingual Nahuatl speakers relative to the total Nahuatl speaking population, at 24.2% and 22.6%, respectively. For most other states the percentage of monolinguals among the speakers is less than 5%. This means that in most states more than 95% of the Nahuatl speaking population are bilingual in Spanish.{{sfn|INEGI|2005}} According to one study, how often Nahuatl is used is linked to community well-being, partly because it is tied to positive emotions.{{Cite journal |last1=Olko |first1=Justyna |last2=Lubiewska |first2=Katarzyna |last3=Maryniak |first3=Joanna |last4=Haimovich |first4=Gregory |last5=de la Cruz |first5=Eduardo |last6=Cuahutle Bautista |first6=Beatriz |last7=Dexter-Sobkowiak |first7=Elwira |last8=Iglesias Tepec |first8=Humberto |year=2022 |orig-date=2021 |title=The positive relationship between Indigenous language use and community-based well-being in four Nahua ethnic groups in Mexico |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34672647/ |journal=Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=132–143 |doi=10.1037/cdp0000479 |issn=1099-9809 |pmid=34672647|doi-access=free }}

The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Guerrero. Significant populations are also found in the State of Mexico, Morelos, and the Federal District, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Nahuatl became extinct in the states of Jalisco and Colima during the 20th century. As a result of internal migration within the country, Nahuatl speaking communities exist in all states in Mexico. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the United States has resulted in the establishment of small Nahuatl speaking communities in the United States, particularly in California, New York, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.{{sfn|Flores Farfán|2002|page=229}}

Nahuan languages are defined as a subgroup of Uto-Aztecan by having undergone a number of shared changes from the Uto-Aztecan protolanguage (PUA). The table below shows the phonemic inventory of Classical Nahuatl as an example of a typical Nahuan language. In some dialects, the {{IPA|/t͡ɬ/}} phoneme, which was common in Classical Nahuatl, has changed into either {{IPA|/t/}}, as in Isthmus Nahuatl, Mexicanero and Pipil, or into {{IPA|/l/}}, as in Michoacán Nahuatl.{{sfn|Sischo|1979|page=passim}} Many dialects no longer distinguish between short and long vowels. Some have introduced completely new vowel qualities to compensate, as is the case for Tetelcingo Nahuatl. Others have developed a pitch accent, such as Nahuatl of Oapan, Guerrero.{{sfn|Amith|1989}} Many modern dialects have also borrowed phonemes from Spanish, such as {{IPA|/β, d, ɡ, ɸ/}}.{{harvnb|Flores Farfán|1999}}

{{col-begin}}

{{col-2}}

{{col-end}}

• * The glottal phoneme, called the saltillo, occurs only after vowels. In many modern dialects it is realized as a {{IPA|[h]}}, but in others, as in Classical Nahuatl, it is a glottal stop {{IPA|[ʔ]}}.{{sfn|Pury-Toumi|1980}}

In many Nahuatl dialects vowel length contrast is vague, and in others it has become lost entirely. The dialect spoken in Tetelcingo (nhg) developed the vowel length into a difference in quality:Pittman, R. S. (1961). [https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/12/51/01/125101723596609868748824645947858422472/nhg_Phonemes.pdf The Phonemes of Tetelcingo (Morelos) Nahuatl]. In B. F. Elson & J. Comas (Eds.), A William Cameron Townsend en el vigésimoquinto aniversario del Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (pp. 643–651). Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.

Most varieties have relatively simple patterns of allophony. In many dialects, the voiced consonants are devoiced in word-final position and in consonant clusters: {{IPA|/j/}} devoices to a palato-alveolar sibilant {{IPA|/ʃ/}},{{sfn|Launey|1992|p=16}} {{IPA|/w/}} devoices to a glottal fricative {{IPA|[h]}} or to a labialized velar approximant {{IPA|[ʍ]}}, and {{IPA|/l/}} devoices to a fricative {{IPA|[ɬ]}}. In some dialects, the first consonant in almost any consonant cluster becomes {{IPA|[h]}}. Some dialects have productive lenition of voiceless consonants into their voiced counterparts between vowels. The nasals are normally assimilated to the place of articulation of a following consonant. The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate {{IPA|[t͡ɬ]}} is assimilated after {{IPA|/l/}} and pronounced {{IPA|[l]}}.{{sfn|Launey|1992|page=26}}

Classical Nahuatl and most of the modern varieties have fairly simple phonological systems. They allow only syllables with maximally one initial and one final consonant.{{Harvnb|Aguilar|2013}}, citing {{Harvnb|Andrews|2003}}, {{Harvnb|Bedell|2011}}, {{Harvnb|Brockway|1963}}, and {{Harvnb|Goller|Goller|Waterhouse|1974}}

Consonant clusters occur only word-medially and over syllable boundaries. Some morphemes have two alternating forms: one with a vowel i to prevent consonant clusters and one without it. For example, the absolutive suffix has the variant forms -tli (used after consonants) and -tl (used after vowels).{{sfn|Launey|1992|pages=19–22}} Some modern varieties, however, have formed complex clusters from vowel loss. Others have contracted syllable sequences, causing accents to shift or vowels to become long.{{harvnb|Sischo|1979|page=312}} and {{harvnb|Canger|2000}} for a brief description of these phenomena in Michoacán and Durango Nahuatl, respectively.

Most Nahuatl dialects have stress on the penultimate syllable of a word. In Mexicanero from Durango, many unstressed syllables have disappeared from words, and the placement of syllable stress has become phonemic.{{sfn|Canger|2001|page=29}}

{{further|Classical Nahuatl grammar}}

The Nahuatl languages are polysynthetic and agglutinative, making extensive use of compounding, incorporation and derivation. Various prefixes and suffixes can be added to a root to form very long words—individual Nahuatl words can constitute an entire sentence.{{sfn|Launey|1999}}

The following verb shows how the verb is marked for subject, patient, object, and indirect object:

{{interlinear|indent=3

|ni- mits- teː- tla- makiː -lti -s

|I- you- someone- something- give -CAUS -FUT

|"I shall make somebody give something to you"All examples given in this section and these subsections are from {{harvnb|Suárez|1983|pages=61–63}} unless otherwise noted. Glosses have been standardized. (Classical Nahuatl)}}

The Nahuatl noun has a relatively complex structure. The only obligatory inflections are for number (singular and plural) and possession (whether the noun is possessed, as is indicated by a prefix meaning 'my', 'your', etc.). Nahuatl has neither case nor gender, but Classical Nahuatl and some modern dialects distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns. In Classical Nahuatl the animacy distinction manifested with respect to pluralization, as only animate nouns could take a plural form, and all inanimate nouns were uncountable (as the words bread and money are uncountable in English). Now, many speakers do not maintain this distinction and all nouns may take the plural inflection.{{sfn|Hill|Hill|1980}} One dialect, that of the Eastern Huasteca, has a distinction between two different plural suffixes for animate and inanimate nouns.{{sfn|Kimball|1990}}

In most varieties of Nahuatl, nouns in the unpossessed singular form generally take an absolutive suffix. The most common forms of the absolutive are -tl after vowels, -tli after consonants other than l, and -li after l. Nouns that take the plural usually form the plural by adding one of the plural absolutive suffixes -tin or -meh, but some plural forms are irregular or formed by reduplication. Some nouns have competing plural forms.{{sfn|Launey|1992|pages=27–28}}

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Singular noun:

{{interlinear|indent=3|kojo -tl|coyote -ABS|"coyote" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Plural animate noun:

{{interlinear|indent=3|kojo -meʔ|coyote -PL|"coyotes" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Plural animate noun with reduplication:

{{interlinear|indent=3|/koː~kojo-ʔ/|PL~coyote-PL|"coyotes" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

Nahuatl distinguishes between possessed and unpossessed forms of nouns. The absolutive suffix is not used on possessed nouns. In all dialects, possessed nouns take a prefix agreeing with number and person of its possessor. Possessed plural nouns take the ending -{{IPA|/waːn/}}.{{sfn|Launey|1992|pages=88–89}}

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Absolutive noun:

{{interlinear|indent=3|kal -li|house -ABS|"house" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Possessed noun:

{{interlinear|indent=3|no- kal|my- house|"my house" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Possessed plural:

{{interlinear|indent=3|no- kal -waːn|my- house -PL|"my houses" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

Nahuatl does not have grammatical case but uses what is sometimes called a relational noun to describe spatial (and other) relations. These morphemes cannot appear alone but must occur after a noun or a possessive prefix. They are also often called postpositions{{harvnb|Hill|Hill|1986}} re Malinche Nahuatl or locative suffixes.{{harvnb|Launey|1992}} Chapter 13 re classical Nahuatl In some ways these locative constructions resemble and can be thought of as locative case constructions. Most modern dialects have incorporated prepositions from Spanish that are competing with or that have completely replaced relational nouns.{{sfn|Suárez|1977|pages=passim}}

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Uses of relational noun/postposition/locative -pan with a possessive prefix:

{{interlinear|indent=3|no-pan|my-in/on|"in/on me" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

{{interlinear|indent=3|iː-pan|its-in/on|"in/on it" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

{{interlinear|indent=3|iː-pan kal-li|its-in house-ABS|"in the house" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Use with a preceding noun stem:

{{interlinear|indent=3|kal-pan|house-in|"in the house" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Noun compounds are commonly formed by combining two or more nominal stems or combining a nominal stem with an adjectival or verbal stem.{{sfn|Launey|1999|page=passim}}

Nahuatl generally distinguishes three persons, both in the singular and plural numbers. In at least one modern dialect, the Isthmus-Mecayapan variety, there has come to be a distinction between inclusive ("us, including you") and exclusive ("us, but not you") forms of the first person plural:{{sfn|Wolgemuth|2002}}

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First person plural pronoun in Classical Nahuatl:

• {{IPA|tewaːntin}} 'we'

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First person plural pronouns in Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuat:

• nejamēn ({{IPA|[nehameːn]}}) 'We, but not you' (= me & them)
• tejamēn ({{IPA|[tehameːn]}}) 'We along with you' (= me & you & them){{sfn|Wolgemuth|2002|page=35}}

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Much more common is an honorific/non-honorific distinction, usually applied to second and third persons but not first.

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Non-honorific forms:

• {{IPA|ˈtewaːtl}} "you sg."
• {{IPA|ameˈwaːnt͡sin}} "you pl."
• {{IPA|ˈyewatl}} "he/she/it"

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Honorific forms

• {{IPA|teˈwaːt͡sin}} "you sg. honorific"
• {{IPA|amewaːnˈt͡sit͡sin}} "you pl. honorific"
• {{IPA|yeˈwaːt͡sin}} "he/she honorific"

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Nahuatl has a vigesimal (base-20) numbering system. The base values are {{lang|nah|cempōhualli}} (1 × 20), {{lang|nah|centzontli}} (1 × 400), {{lang|nah|cenxiquipilli}} (1 × 8,000), {{lang|nah|cempōhualxiquipilli}} (1 × 20 × 8,000 = 160,000), {{lang|nah|centzonxiquipilli}} (1 × 400 × 8,000 = 3,200,000) and {{lang|nah|cempōhualtzonxiquipilli}} (1 × 20 × 400 × 8,000 = 64,000,000). The {{lang|nah|ce(n/m)}} prefix at the beginning means 'one' (as in 'one hundred' and 'one thousand') and is replaced with the corresponding number to get the names of other multiples of the power. For example, {{lang|nah|ome}} (2) × {{lang|nah|pōhualli}} (20) = {{lang|nah|ompōhualli}} (40), {{lang|nah|ome}} (2) × {{lang|nah|tzontli}} (400) = {{lang|nah|ontzontli}} (800). The {{lang|nah|-li}} in {{lang|nah|pōhualli}} (and {{lang|nah|xiquipilli}}) and the {{lang|nah|-tli}} in {{lang|nah|tzontli}} are grammatical noun suffixes that are appended only at the end of the word; thus {{lang|nah|pōhualli}}, {{lang|nah|tzontli}} and {{lang|nah|xiquipilli}} compound together as {{lang|nah|pōhualtzonxiquipilli}}.{{sfn|Andrews|2003|pp=307–313}}{{sfn|Thomas|1902|pp=866, 882–885}}

The Nahuatl verb is quite complex and inflects for many grammatical categories. The verb is composed of a root, prefixes, and suffixes. The prefixes indicate the person of the subject, and person and number of the object and indirect object, whereas the suffixes indicate tense, aspect, mood and subject number.{{sfn|Suárez|1983|page=61}}

Most Nahuatl dialects distinguish three tenses: present, past, and future, and two aspects: perfective and imperfective. Some varieties add progressive or habitual aspects. Many dialects distinguish at least the indicative and imperative moods, and some also have optative and prohibitive moods.

Most Nahuatl varieties have a number of ways to alter the valency of a verb. Classical Nahuatl had a passive voice (also sometimes defined as an impersonal voice{{sfn|Canger|1996}}), but this is not found in most modern varieties. However the applicative and causative voices are found in many modern dialects.{{sfn|Suárez|1983|page=81}} Many Nahuatl varieties also allow forming verbal compounds with two or more verbal roots.{{harvnb|Suárez|1983|page=62}}

The following verbal form has two verbal roots and is inflected for causative voice and both a direct and indirect object:

{{interlinear|indent=3|ni- kin- tla- kwa- ltiː- s- neki|I- them- something- eat- CAUS- FUT- want|"I want to feed them" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

Some Nahuatl varieties, notably Classical Nahuatl, can inflect the verb to show the direction of the verbal action going away from or towards the speaker. Some also have specific inflectional categories showing purpose and direction and such complex notions as "to go in order to" or "to come in order to", "go, do and return", "do while going", "do while coming", "do upon arrival", or "go around doing".{{sfn|Launey|1992|pages=207–210}}

Classical Nahuatl and many modern dialects have grammaticalised ways to express politeness towards addressees or even towards people or things that are being mentioned, by using special verb forms and special "honorific suffixes".{{sfn|Suárez|1977|page=61}}

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Familiar verbal form:

{{interlinear|indent=3|ti-mo-tlaːlo-a|you-yourself-run-PRS|"you run" (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Honorific verbal form:

{{interlinear|indent=3|ti-mo-tlaːlo-tsino-a|you-yourself-run-HON-PRS|"You run" (said with respect) (Classical Nahuatl)}}

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Many varieties of Nahuatl have productive reduplication. By reduplicating the first syllable of a root a new word is formed. In nouns this is often used to form plurals, e.g. {{IPA|/tlaːkatl/}} 'man' → {{IPA|/tlaːtlaːkah/}} 'men', but also in some varieties to form diminutives, honorifics, or for derivations.{{sfn|Launey|1992|page=27}} In verbs reduplication is often used to form a reiterative meaning (i.e. expressing repetition), for example in Nahuatl of Tezcoco:

• /{{IPA|wetsi}}/ 'he/she falls'
• /{{IPA|we:-wetsi}}/ 'he/she falls several times'
• /{{IPA|weʔ-wetsi-ʔ}}/ 'they fall (many people)'{{sfn|Peralta Ramírez|1991}}

Some linguists have argued that Nahuatl displays the properties of a non-configurational language, meaning that word order in Nahuatl is basically free.{{sfn|Baker|1996|page=passim.}}{{harvnb|Pharao Hansen|2010}} Nahuatl allows all possible orderings of the three basic sentence constituents. It is prolifically a pro-drop language: it allows sentences with omission of all noun phrases or independent pronouns, not just of noun phrases or pronouns whose function is the sentence subject. In most varieties independent pronouns are used only for emphasis. It allows certain kinds of syntactically discontinuous expressions.

Michel Launey argues that Classical Nahuatl had a verb-initial basic word order with extensive freedom for variation, which was then used to encode pragmatic functions such as focus and topicality.{{sfn|Launey|1992|pages=36–37}} The same has been argued for some contemporary varieties.

{{interlinear|indent=3

|newal no-nobia

|I my-fiancée

|"My fiancée" (and not anyone else's) (Michoacán Nahuatl){{harvnb|Sischo|1979|page=314}}}}

It has been argued, most prominently by the linguist Michel Launey, that Classical Nahuatl syntax is best characterised by "omnipredicativity", meaning that any noun or verb in the language is in fact a full predicative sentence.{{harvnb|Launey|1994}}; {{harvnb|Andrews|2003}}. This interpretation aims to account for some of the language's peculiarities, for example, why nouns must also carry the same agreement prefixes as verbs, and why predicates do not require any noun phrases to function as their arguments. For example, the verbal form {{lang|nah|tzahtzi}} means 'he/she/it shouts', and with the second person prefix {{lang|nah|titzahtzi}} it means 'you shout'. Nouns are inflected in the same way: the noun {{lang|nah|conētl}} means not just 'child', but also 'it is a child', and {{lang|nah|ticonētl}} means 'you are a child'. This prompts the omnipredicative interpretation, which posits that all nouns are also predicates. According to this interpretation, a phrase such as {{lang|nah|tzahtzi in conētl}} should not be interpreted as meaning just 'the child screams' but, rather, 'it screams, (the one that) is a child'.{{harvnb|Launey|1994}}, {{harvnb|Launey|1999|pages=116–18}}

Nearly 500 years of intense contact between speakers of Nahuatl and speakers of Spanish, combined with the minority status of Nahuatl and the higher prestige associated with Spanish has caused many changes in modern Nahuatl varieties, with large numbers of words borrowed from Spanish into Nahuatl, and the introduction of new syntactic constructions and grammatical categories.{{harvnb|Canger|Jensen|2007}}

For example, a construction like the following, with several borrowed words and particles, is common in many modern varieties (Spanish loanwords in boldface):

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|pero āmo tēchentenderoa lo que tlen tictoah en mexicano.|c1=The words pero, entender, lo que, and en are all from Spanish. The use of the suffix -oa on a Spanish infinitive like entender, enabling the use of other Nahuatl verbal affixes, is standard. The sequence lo que tlen combines Spanish lo que 'what' with Nahuatl tlen (also meaning 'what') to mean (what else) 'what'. en is a preposition and heads a prepositional phrase; traditionally Nahuatl had postpositions or relational nouns rather than prepositions. The stem mexihka, related to the name mexihko, 'Mexico', is of Nahuatl origin, but the suffix -ano is from Spanish, and it is probable that the whole word mexicano is a re-borrowing from Spanish back into Nahuatl.

|but not they-us-understand-PL that which what we-it-say in Nahuatl

|"But they don't understand what we say in Nahuatl" (Malinche Nahuatl){{sfn|Hill|Hill|1986|page=317}}}}

In some modern dialects basic word order has become a fixed subject–verb–object, probably under influence from Spanish.{{sfn|Hill|Hill|1986}} Other changes in the syntax of modern Nahuatl include the use of Spanish prepositions instead of native postpositions or relational nouns and the reinterpretation of original postpositions/relational nouns into prepositions.{{sfn|Suárez|1977}} In the following example, from Michoacán Nahuatl, the postposition -ka meaning 'with' appears used as a preposition, with no preceding object:

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|ti-ya ti-k-wika ka tel

|you-go you-it-carry with you

|"are you going to carry it with you?" (Michoacán Nahuatl)}}

In this example from Mexicanero Nahuatl, of Durango, the original postposition/relational noun -pin 'in/on' is used as a preposition. Also, {{lang|es|porque}}, a conjunction borrowed from Spanish, occurs in the sentence.

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|amo wel kalaki-yá pin kal porke ʣakwa-tiká im pwerta

|not can he-enter-PAST in house because it-closed-was the door

|"He couldn't enter the house because the door was closed" (Mexicanero Nahuat){{sfn|Canger|2001|page=116}}}}

Many dialects have also undergone a degree of simplification of their morphology that has caused some scholars to consider them to have ceased to be polysynthetic.{{sfn|Hill|Hill|1986|pages=249–340}}

{{See also|Words of Nahuatl origin|Nahuatlismo}}

File:Tomatillo.jpg was called {{lang|nah|tōmatl}}; the latter is the source for the English word tomato.]]

Many Nahuatl words have been borrowed into the Spanish language, most of which are terms designating things Indigenous to the Americas. Some of these loans are restricted to Mexican or Central American Spanish, but others have entered all the varieties of Spanish in the world. A number of them, such as chocolate, tomato and avocado have made their way into many other languages via Spanish.{{sfn|Haugen|2009}}

For instance, in English, two of the most prominent are undoubtedly chocolateWhile there is no real doubt that the word chocolate comes from Nahuatl, the commonly given Nahuatl etymology {{IPA|/ʃokolaːtl/}} 'bitter water' no longer seems to be tenable. {{harvnb|Dakin|Wichmann|2000}} suggest the correct etymology to be {{IPA|/tʃikolaːtl/}} – a word found in several modern Nahuatl dialects. and tomato (from Nahuatl {{lang|nah|tōmatl}}). Other common words are coyote (from Nahuatl {{lang|nah|coyōtl}}), avocado (from Nahuatl {{lang|nah|āhuacatl}}) and chile or chili (from Nahuatl {{lang|nah|chilli}}). The word chicle is also derived from Nahuatl {{lang|nah|tzictli}} 'sticky stuff, chicle'. Some other English words from Nahuatl are: Aztec (from {{lang|nah|aztēcatl}}); cacao (from Nahuatl {{lang|nah|cacahuatl}} 'shell, rind');{{harvnb|Dakin|Wichmann|2000}} ocelot (from {{lang|nah|ocēlotl}}).{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2000 |title=ocelot |encyclopedia=The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |location=Boston, MA |url=https://archive.org/details/americanheritage0000unse_a1o7 |access-date=7 August 2019 |editor-last=Pickett |editor-first=Joseph P. |edition=4th |format=online version |isbn=978-0-395-82517-4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070824200546/http://www.bartleby.com/61/21/D0422100.html |archive-date=24 August 2007 |display-editors=etal |url-status=dead}} In Mexico many words for common everyday concepts attest to the close contact between Spanish and Nahuatl – so many in fact that entire dictionaries of {{lang|es|mexicanismos}} (words particular to Mexican Spanish) have been published tracing Nahuatl etymologies, as well as Spanish words with origins in other Indigenous languages. Many well known toponyms also come from Nahuatl, including Mexico (from the Nahuatl word for the Aztec capital {{lang|nah|Mēxihco}}), Guatemala (from {{lang|nah|Cuauhtēmallān}}), and Nicaragua (from {{lang|nah|Nicānāhuac}}).The Mexica used the word for the Kaqchikel capital Iximche in central Guatemala, but the word was extended to the entire zone in colonial times; see {{harvnb|Carmack|1981|page=143}}.{{Cite web |title=Nahuatl Dictionary: Letter N Words List|url=https://www.vocabulario.com.mx/nahuatl/diccionario_nahuatl_n.html}}{{Cite web|url=https://etimologias.dechile.net/?Nicaragua|title= Etymology of Nicaragua}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.mined.gob.ni/biblioteca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Libro-Toponimia-Octubre-2022.pdf|title= Nicaraguan place names}}

{{Main|Nahuatl orthography}}

{{See also|Aztec writing|Aztec codices}}

File:Aztecwriting.jpg|left]]

Traditionally, Pre-Columbian Aztec writing has not been considered a true writing system, since it did not represent the full vocabulary of a spoken language in the way that the writing systems of the Old World or the Maya Script did. Therefore, generally Aztec writing was not meant to be read, but to be told. The elaborate codices were essentially pictographic aids for memorizing texts, which include genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists. Three kinds of signs were used in the system: pictures used as mnemonics (which do not represent particular words), logograms which represent whole words (instead of phonemes or syllables), and logograms used only for their sound values (i.e. according to the rebus principle).{{sfn|Lockhart|1992|pages=327–329}}

However, epigrapher Alfonso Lacadena has argued that by the eve of the Spanish invasion, one school of Nahua scribes, those of Tetzcoco, had developed a fully syllabic script which could represent spoken language phonetically in the same way that the Maya script did.{{sfn|Lacadena|2008}} Some other epigraphers have questioned the claim, arguing that although the syllabicity was clearly extant in some early colonial manuscripts (hardly any pre-Columbian manuscripts have survived), this could be interpreted as a local innovation inspired by Spanish literacy rather than a continuation of a pre-Columbian practice.{{sfn|Whittaker|2009}}

The Spanish introduced the Latin script, which was used to record a large body of Aztec prose, poetry and mundane documentation such as testaments, administrative documents, legal letters, etc. In a matter of decades pictorial writing was completely replaced with the Latin alphabet.{{sfn|Lockhart|1992|pages=330–335}} No standardized Latin orthography has been developed for Nahuatl, and no general consensus has arisen for the representation of many sounds in Nahuatl that are lacking in Spanish, such as long vowels and the glottal stop.{{harvnb|Canger|2002|pages=200–204}} The orthography most accurately representing the phonemes of Nahuatl was developed in the 17th century by the Jesuit Horacio Carochi, building on the insights of another Jesuit in Antonio del Rincon.{{sfn|Smith-Stark|2005}} Carochi's orthography used two different diacritics: a macron to represent long vowels and a grave for the {{lang|es|saltillo}}, and sometimes an acute accent for short vowels.{{sfn|Whorf|Karttunen|Campbell|1993}} This orthography did not achieve a wide following outside of the Jesuit community.{{sfn|McDonough|2014|page=148}}{{sfn|Bierhorst|1985|page=xii}}

File:Mexikatlahtoltlahkwilolli.png

When Nahuatl became the subject of focused linguistic studies in the 20th century, linguists acknowledged the need to represent all the phonemes of the language. Several practical orthographies were developed to transcribe the language, many using the Americanist transcription system. With the establishment of Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas in 2004, new attempts to create standardized orthographies for the different dialects were resumed; however to this day there is no single official orthography for Nahuatl. Apart from dialectal differences, major issues in transcribing Nahuatl include:

• whether to follow Spanish orthographic practice and write {{IPA|/k/}} with c and qu, {{IPA|/kʷ/}} with cu and uc, {{IPA|/s/}} with c and z, or s, and {{IPA|/w/}} with hu and uh, or u.
• how to write the saltillo phoneme (in some dialects pronounced as a glottal stop {{IPA|[ʔ]}} and in others as an {{IPA|[h]}}), which has been spelled with j, h, ꞌ (apostrophe), or a grave accent on the preceding vowel, but which traditionally has often been omitted in writing.
• whether and how to represent vowel length, e.g. by double vowels or by the use of macrons.

In 2018, Nahua peoples from 16 states in the country began collaborating with INALI creating a new modern orthography called {{lang|nah|Yankwiktlahkwilolli}},{{Cite web |title=Tlahkwiloltlanawatilli (Normas de escritura) |url=https://www.gob.mx/inali/es/articulos/tlahkwiloltlanawatilli-normas-de-escritura?idiom=es}} designed to be the standardized orthography of Nahuatl in the coming years.{{Cite web |title=Lingüistas y especialistas coinciden en la importancia de normalizar la escritura de la lengua náhuatl |url=https://www.gob.mx/cultura/prensa/linguistas-y-especialistas-coinciden-en-la-importancia-de-normalizar-la-escritura-de-la-lengua-nahuatl?tab=}}{{Cite web |date=21 December 2018 |title=Nawatl, mexkatl, mexicano (náhuatl) |url=http://realin.upnvirtual.edu.mx/index.php/fonologia-y-alfabetos/nawatl-nahuatl-morelos}} The modern writing has much greater use in the modern variants than in the classic variant, since the texts, documents and literary works of the time usually use the Jesuit one.{{sfn|Wright Carr|2016}}

{{Main|Mesoamerican literature}}

Among the Indigenous languages of the Americas, the extensive corpus of surviving literature in Nahuatl dating as far back as the 16th century may be considered unique.{{sfn|Canger|2002|page=300}} Nahuatl literature encompasses a diverse array of genres and styles, the documents themselves composed under many different circumstances. Preconquest Nahua had a distinction between {{lang|nah|tlahtolli}} 'speech' and second {{lang|nah|cuicatl}} 'song', akin to the distinction between prose and poetry.{{sfn|León-Portilla|1985|page=12}}{{sfn|Karttunen|Lockhart|1980}}

Nahuatl {{lang|nah|tlahtolli}} prose has been preserved in different forms. Annals and chronicles recount history, normally written from the perspective of a particular {{lang|nah|altepetl}} (local polity) and often combining mythical accounts with real events. Important works in this genre include those from Chalco written by Chimalpahin, from Tlaxcala by Diego Muñoz Camargo, from Mexico-Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc and those of Texcoco by Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Many annals recount history year-by-year and are normally written by anonymous authors. These works are sometimes evidently based on pre-Columbian pictorial year counts that existed, such as the Cuauhtitlan annals and the Anales de Tlatelolco. Purely mythological narratives are also found, like the "Legend of the Five Suns", the Aztec creation myth recounted in Codex Chimalpopoca.{{sfn|Bierhorst|1998}}

One of the most important works of prose written in Nahuatl is the twelve-volume compilation generally known as the Florentine Codex, authored in the mid-16th century by the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún and a number of Nahua speakers.{{Cite web |title=Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España por el fray Bernardino de Sahagún: el Códice Florentino – Visor – Biblioteca Digital Mundial |url=https://www.wdl.org/es/item/10096/view/1/1/ |access-date=2020-02-01 |website=www.wdl.org}} With this work Sahagún bestowed an enormous ethnographic description of the Nahua, written in side-by-side translations of Nahuatl and Spanish and illustrated throughout by color plates drawn by Indigenous painters. Its volumes cover a diverse range of topics: Aztec history, material culture, social organization, religious and ceremonial life, rhetorical style and metaphors. The twelfth volume provides an Indigenous perspective on the conquest. Sahagún also made a point of trying to document the richness of the Nahuatl language, stating:

{{quote|This work is like a dragnet to bring to light all the words of this language with their exact and metaphorical meanings, and all their ways of speaking, and most of their practices good and evil.{{sfn|Sahagún|1950–1982|pages=part I:47}}}}

Nahuatl poetry is principally preserved in two sources: the {{lang|es|Cantares Mexicanos}} and the {{lang|es|Romances de los señores de Nueva España}}, both collections of Aztec songs written down in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some songs may have been preserved through oral tradition from pre-conquest times until the time of their writing, for example the songs attributed to the poet-king of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl. Karttunen and Lockhart identify more than four distinct styles of songs, e.g. the {{lang|nah|icnocuicatl}} ('sad song'), the {{lang|nah|xopancuicatl}} ('song of spring'), {{lang|nah|melahuaccuicatl}} ('plain song') and {{lang|nah|yaocuicatl}} ('song of war'), each with distinct stylistic traits.{{sfn|Karttunen|Lockhart|1980}} Aztec poetry makes rich use of metaphoric imagery and themes and are lamentation of the brevity of human existence, the celebration of valiant warriors who die in battle, and the appreciation of the beauty of life.{{sfn|León-Portilla|1985|pages=12–20}}

The Aztecs distinguished between at least two social registers of language: the language of commoners ({{lang|nah|macehuallahtolli}}) and the language of the nobility ({{lang|nah|tecpillahtolli}}). The latter was marked by the use of a distinct rhetorical style. Since literacy was confined mainly to these higher social classes, most of the existing prose and poetical documents were written in this style. An important feature of this high rhetorical style of formal oratory was the use of parallelism,{{sfn|Bright|1990|page=passim.}} whereby the orator structured their speech in couplets consisting of two parallel phrases. For example:

• {{lang|nah|ye maca timiquican}}
• 'May we not die'
• {{lang|nah|ye maca tipolihuican}}
• 'May we not perish'{{sfn|Bright|1990|page=440}}

Another kind of parallelism used is referred to by modern linguists as difrasismo, in which two phrases are symbolically combined to give a metaphorical reading. Classical Nahuatl was rich in such diphrasal metaphors, many of which are explicated by Sahagún in the Florentine Codex and by Andrés de Olmos in his Arte.{{sfn|Olmos|1993}} Such {{lang|es|difrasismos}} include:Examples given are from Sahagún 1950–82, vol. VI, ff. 202V-211V

• {{lang|nah|in xochitl, in cuicatl}}
• 'The flower, the song' – meaning 'poetry'
• {{lang|nah|in cuitlapilli, in atlapalli}}
• 'the tail, the wing' – meaning 'the common people'
• {{lang|nah|in toptli, in petlacalli}}
• 'the chest, the box' – meaning 'something secret'
• {{lang|nah|in yollohtli, in eztli}}
• 'the heart, the blood' – meaning 'cacao'
• {{lang|nah|in iztlactli, in tencualactli}}
• 'the drool, the spittle' – meaning 'lies'

• Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana{{snd}}a Spanish–Nahuatl dictionary
• Vocabulario trilingüe{{snd}}dictionary of Spanish, Latin, and Nahuatl

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• {{Cite thesis |last=Aguilar |first=Andrés Ehecatl |title=Phonological description of Huasteca Nahuatl from Chicontepec, Veracruz |publisher=California State University, Northridge |page=25 |year=2013 |hdl=10211.2/3997}}
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• {{Cite journal |last=Brockway |first=Earl |year=1963 |title=The Phonemes of North Puebla Nahuatl |journal=Anthropological Linguistics |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=14–18 |issn=0003-5483 |jstor=30022406}}
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• {{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=Lyle |author-link=Lyle Campbell |title=The Pipil Language of El Salvador |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |year=1985 |isbn=978-3-11-010344-1 |series=Mouton Grammar Library |volume=1 |location=Berlin}}
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• {{Cite book |last=Canger |first=Una |author-link=Una Canger |title=Five Studies Inspired by Náhuatl Verbs in -oa |publisher=The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen; distributed by C.A. Reitzels Boghandel |year=1980 |isbn=978-87-7421-254-6 |series=Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague |volume=XIX}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Canger |first=Una |author-link=Una Canger |year=1988 |title=Nahuatl dialectology: A survey and some suggestions |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=28–72 |doi=10.1086/466074 |jstor=1265112 |oclc=1753556 |s2cid=144210796}}
• {{Cite book |last=Canger |first=Una |author-link=Una Canger |url=https://archive.org/details/contentexpressio00engb |title=Content, expression and structure: studies in Danish functional grammar |publisher=John Benjamins |year=1996 |isbn=978-1-55619-381-1 |editor-last=Engberg-Pedersen |editor-first=Elisabeth |location=Amsterdam |pages=[https://archive.org/details/contentexpressio00engb/page/n17 1]–15 |chapter=Is there a passive in nahuatl |display-editors=etal |url-access=limited }}
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• {{Cite book |last=Canger |first=Una |author-link=Una Canger |title=Mexicanero de la Sierra Madre Occidental |publisher=El Colegio de México |year=2001 |isbn=978-968-12-1041-0 |series=Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México |volume=24 |location=México D. F. |language=es}}
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• {{Cite journal |last=Canger |first=Una |author-link=Una Canger |year=2011 |title=El nauatl urbano de Tlatelolco/Tenochtitlan, resultado de convergencia entre dialectos, con un esbozo brevísimo de la historia de los dialectos |url=https://www.academia.edu/attachments/10258752/download_file?request_id=15724dc6b |journal=Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl |pages=243–258 }}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Canger |first1=Una |last2=Dakin |first2=Karen |year=1985 |title=An inconspicuous basic split in Nahuatl |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=358–361 |doi=10.1086/465892 |s2cid=143084964}}
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• {{Cite book |last=Carmack |first=Robert M. |url=https://archive.org/details/quichemayasofuta0000carm |title=The Quiché Mayas of Utatlán: The Evolution of a Highland Guatemala Kingdom |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-8061-1546-7 |series=Civilization of the American Indian |volume=155 |location=Norman }}
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• {{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bookoftributesea0000unse |title=The Book of Tributes |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center Nahuatl Studies Series |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-87903-082-7 |editor-last=Cline |editor-first=Sarah |url-access=registration }}
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• {{Cite book |title=The Testaments of Culhuacan |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center |year=1984 |isbn=978-0-87903-502-0 |editor-last=Cline |editor-first=Sarah |location=Los Angeles |editor-last2=León-Portilla |editor-first2=Miguel}}
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• {{Cite book |last=Dakin |first=Karen |url=https://www.academia.edu/6893686 |title=La evolución fonológica del Protonáhuatl |publisher=Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas |year=1982 |isbn=978-968-5802-92-5 |location=México D .F. |language=es }}
• {{Cite book |last=Dakin |first=Karen |title=Investigaciones lingüísticas en Mesoamérica |publisher=Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas |year=1994 |isbn=978-968-36-4055-0 |editor-last=MacKay |editor-first=Carolyn |series=Estudios sobre Lenguas Americanas |volume=1 |location=México D. F. |pages=3–86 |language=es |chapter=El náhuatl en el yutoazteca sureño: algunas isoglosas gramaticales y fonológicas |editor-last2=Vázquez |editor-first2=Verónica}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Dakin |first1=Karen |last2=Wichmann |first2=Søren |year=2000 |title=Cacao and Chocolate: A Uto-Aztecan Perspective |url=http://email.eva.mpg.de/~wichmann/CacaoChocolate.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Ancient Mesoamerica |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=55–75 |doi=10.1017/S0956536100111058 |oclc=88396015 |s2cid=162616811 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408235509/http://email.eva.mpg.de/~wichmann/CacaoChocolate.pdf |archive-date=8 April 2008 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Dakin |first=Karen |title=Avances y balances de lenguas yutoaztecas |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, UNAM |year=2001 |isbn=978-970-18-6966-6 |chapter=Estudios sobre el náhuatl}}
• {{Cite book |last=Flores Farfán |first=José Antonio |title=Cuatreros Somos y Toindioma Hablamos. Contactos y Conflictos entre el Náhuatl y el Español en el Sur de México |publisher=Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social |year=1999 |isbn=978-968-496-344-3 |location=Tlalpán D. F. |language=es}}
• {{Cite book |last=Flores Farfán |first=José Antonio |url=http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/ILAC/ILAC_24.pdf |title=Indigenous Languages across the Community |publisher=Center for Excellence in Education, Northern Arizona University |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-9670554-2-8 |editor-first=Barbara Jane |editor-last=Burnaby |series=Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Stabilizing Indigenous Languages (7th, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 11–14 May 2000) |location=Flagstaff |pages=225–236 |chapter=The Use of Multimedia and the Arts in Language Revitalization, Maintenance, and Development: The Case of the Balsas Nahuas of Guerrero, Mexico |editor-last2=Reyhner |editor-first2=John Allan }}
• {{Cite book |last=Flores Farfán |first=José Antonio |url=https://archive.org/details/mexicanindigenou00hida |title=Mexican Indigenous Languages at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |year=2006 |isbn=978-3-11-018597-3 |editor-last=Hidalgo |editor-first=Margarita G. |series=Contributions to the sociology of language |volume=91 |location=Berlin |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mexicanindigenou00hida/page/n312 301]–324 |chapter=Intervention in indigenous education. Culturally-sensitive materials for bilingual Nahuatl speakers |url-access=limited }}
• {{Cite journal |last=Fowler |first=William R. Jr. |year=1985 |title=Ethnohistoric Sources on the Pipil Nicarao: A Critical Analysis |journal=Ethnohistory |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=37–62 |doi=10.2307/482092 |jstor=482092 |oclc=62217753}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Francis |first=Norbert |year=2016 |title=Prospects for indigenous language bilingualism in Mexico: A reassessment |journal=Language Problems and Language Planning |volume=40 |pages=269–286 |doi=10.1075/lplp.40.3.04fra}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Goller |first1=Theodore R. |last2=Goller |first2=Patricia L. |last3=Waterhouse |first3=Viola G. |year=1974 |title=The Phonemes of Orizaba Nahuatl |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=126–131 |doi=10.1086/465295 |s2cid=142992381}}
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• {{Cite journal |last1=Hill |first1=J. H. |last2=Hill |first2=K. C. |year=1980 |title=Mixed grammar, purist grammar, and language attitudes in modern Nahuatl |journal=Language in Society |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=321–348 |doi=10.1017/S0047404500008241 |s2cid=145068130}}
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• {{Cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Jane H. |title=Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of Syncretic Language in Central Mexico |last2=Hill |first2=Kenneth C. |publisher=University of Arizona Press |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-8165-0898-3 |location=Tucson}}
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• {{Cite journal |date=14 January 2008 |title=Catálogo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales: Variantes lingüísticas de México con sus autodenominaciones y referencias geoestadísticas |url=http://www.inali.gob.mx/pdf/CLIN_completo.pdf |journal=Diario Oficial de la Federación |language=es |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) |volume=652 |issue=9 |pages=22–78 (first section),1–96 (second section),1–112 (third section) |oclc=46461036 |ref={{sfnref|INALI|2008}} }}
• {{Cite book |url=http://www.inegi.gob.mx/prod_serv/contenidos/espanol/bvinegi/productos/censos/poblacion/poblacion_indigena/Hablantes_Nahuatl.pdf |title=Perfil sociodemográfica de la populación hablante de náhuatl |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, Geografia e Informática (INEGI) |year=2005 |isbn=978-970-13-4491-0 |edition=Publicación única |series=XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000 |location=Aguascalientes |language=es |ref={{sfnref|INEGI|2005}} |access-date=2008-12-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081002122317/http://www.inegi.gob.mx/prod_serv/contenidos/espanol/bvinegi/productos/censos/poblacion/poblacion_indigena/Hablantes_Nahuatl.pdf |archive-date=2 October 2008 |url-status=dead }}
• {{Cite web |publisher=Iniciativa para la Recuperación del Idioma Náhuat (IRIN) |ref={{sfnref|IRIN|2004}} |year=2004 |title=The Nawat Language Recovery Initiative |url=http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~mward/irin/index.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100520015837/http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~mward/irin/index.htm |archive-date=20 May 2010 |access-date=2008-03-31 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Robert H. |title=From Savages to Subjects: Missions in the History of the American Southwest |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-7656-0597-9 |series=Latin American Realities |location=Armonk, NY}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Justeson |first1=John S. |url=https://archive.org/details/foreignimpactonl0000unse |title=The Foreign Impact on Lowland Mayan Language and Script |last2=Norman |first2=William M. |last3=Campbell |first3=Lyle |last4=Kaufman |first4=Terrence |publisher=Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-939238-82-8 |series=Middle American Research Institute Publications |volume=53 |location=New Orleans |url-access=registration }}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Karttunen |first1=Frances |author-link=Frances Karttunen |last2=Lockhart |first2=James |author-link2=James Lockhart (historian) |year=1980 |title=La estructura de la poesía nahuatl vista por sus variantes |journal=Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl |language=es |volume=14 |pages=15–64 |issn=0071-1675 |oclc=1568281}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Kaufman |first1=Terrence |author-link=Terrence Kaufman |last2=Justeson |first2=John |year=2009 |title=Historical linguistics and pre-columbian Mesoamerica |journal=Ancient Mesoamerica |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=221–231 |doi=10.1017/S0956536109990113 |s2cid=163094506}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Kaufman |first1=Terrence |author-link=Terrence Kaufman |last2=Justeson |first2=John |year=2007 |title=Writing the history of the word for cacao in ancient Mesoamerica |journal=Ancient Mesoamerica |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=193–237 |doi=10.1017/s0956536107000211 |s2cid=163097273 |doi-access=free}}
• {{Cite web |last=Kaufman |first=Terrence |author-link=Terrence Kaufman |year=2001 |title=The history of the Nawa language group from the earliest times to the sixteenth century: some initial results |url=http://www.albany.edu/anthro/maldp/Nawa.pdf |access-date=2007-10-07 |website=Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica |version=Revised March 2001 |archive-date=19 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119013512/https://www.albany.edu/anthro/maldp/Nawa.pdf |url-status=dead }}
• {{Cite journal |last=Kimball |first=G. |year=1990 |title=Noun pluralization in Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=196–216 |doi=10.1086/466150 |s2cid=145224238}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Knab |first=Tim |year=1980 |title=When Is a Language Really Dead: The Case of Pochutec |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=230–233 |doi=10.1086/465658 |oclc=1753556 |s2cid=145202849}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Lacadena |first=Alfonso |year=2008 |title=Regional scribal traditions: Methodological implications for the decipherment of Nahuatl writing |url=http://mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/804/PARI0804.pdf |journal=The PARI Journal |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=1–23 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Langacker |first=Ronald W |author-link=Ronald W. Langacker |title=Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 1: An Overview of Uto-Aztecan Grammar |publisher=Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of Texas at Arlington |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-88312-070-5 |series=Summer Institute of Linguistics publications in linguistics |volume=56 |location=Dallas}}
• {{Cite book |last=Lastra de Suárez |first=Yolanda |author-link=Yolanda Lastra |title=Las áreas dialectales del náhuatl moderno |publisher=Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas |year=1986 |isbn=978-968-837-744-4 |series=Serie antropológica |volume=62 |location=México, D .F. |language=es}}
• {{Cite book |last=Launey |first=Michel |title=Introduction à la langue et à la littérature aztèques, vol. 1: Grammaire |publisher=L'Harmattan |year=1979 |isbn=978-2-85802-107-9 |series=Série ethnolinguistique amérindienne |location=Paris |language=fr}}
• {{Cite book |last=Launey |first=Michel |title=Introduction à la langue et à la littérature aztèques, vol. 2: Littérature |publisher=L'Harmattan |year=1980 |isbn=978-2-85802-155-0 |series=Série ethnolinguistique amérindienne |location=Paris |lang=fr,nah}}
• {{Cite book |last=Launey |first=Michel |title=Introducción a la lengua y a la literatura náhuatl |publisher=National Autonomous University of Mexico, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas |year=1992 |isbn=978-968-36-1944-0 |location=México D. F. |language=es}}
• {{Cite book |last=Launey |first=Michel |title=Une grammaire omniprédicative: Essai sur la morphosyntaxe du nahuatl classique |publisher=CNRS Editions |year=1994 |isbn=978-2-271-05072-4 |location=Paris |language=fr}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Launey |first=M. |year=1999 |title=Compound nouns vs. incorporation in classical Nahuatl |journal=STUF – Language Typology and Universals |volume=52 |issue=3–4 |pages=347–364 |doi=10.1524/stuf.1999.52.34.347 |s2cid=170339984}}
• {{Cite book |last=Launey |first=Michel |title=An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-521-73229-1 |translator-last=Mackay |translator-first=Christopher}}
• {{Cite book |last=León-Portilla |first=Miguel |author-link=Miguel León-Portilla |title=Los manifiestos en náhuatl de Emiliano Zapata. |publisher=Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas |year=1978 |location=Cuernavaca |language=es |oclc=4977935}}
• {{Cite book |last=León-Portilla |first=Miguel |author-link=Miguel León-Portilla |title=Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 3: Literatures |publisher=University of Texas Press |others=Victoria Reifler Bricker |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-292-77577-0 |editor-last=Edmonson |editor-first=Munro S. |location=Austin |pages=7–43 |chapter=Nahuatl literature |editor-last2=Andrews |editor-first2=Patricia A.}}
• {{Cite book |last=Lockhart |first=James |author-link=James Lockhart (historian) |title=Nahuas and Spaniards: Postconquest Mexican History and Philology |publisher=Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-8047-1953-7 |series=UCLA Latin American studies |volume=76}}
• {{Cite book |last=Lockhart |first=James |author-link=James Lockhart (historian) |title=The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-8047-1927-8}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Lockhart |first1=James |title=The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala, 1545–1627 |last2=Berdan |first2=Frances F. |last3=Anderson |first3=Arthur J. O. |publisher=University of Utah Press |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-87480-253-5}}: {{Cite journal |last=Macri |first=Martha J. |year=2005 |title=Nahua loan words from the early classic period: Words for cacao preparation on a Río Azul ceramic vessel |journal=Ancient Mesoamerica |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=321–326 |doi=10.1017/S0956536105050200 |oclc=87656385 |s2cid=162422341}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Macri |first1=Martha J. |last2=Looper |first2=Matthew G. |year=2003 |title=Nahua in ancient Mesoamerica: Evidence from Maya inscriptions |journal=Ancient Mesoamerica |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=285–297 |doi=10.1017/S0956536103142046 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |oclc=89805456 |s2cid=162601312}}
• {{Cite book |last=Matthew |first=Laura E. |title=Memories of conquest: Becoming Mexicano in colonial Guatemala |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=2012}}
• {{Cite book |last=McDonough |first=K. S. |title=The Learned Ones: Nahua Intellectuals in Postconquest Mexico |publisher=University of Arizona Press |year=2014}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Merrill |first1=W. L. |last2=Hard |first2=R. J. |last3=Mabry |first3=J. B. |last4=Fritz |first4=G. J. |last5=Adams |first5=K. R. |last6=Roney |first6=J. R. |last7=Macwilliams |first7=A. C. |year=2010 |title=Reply to Hill and Brown: Maize and Uto-Aztecan cultural history |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=107 |issue=11 |pages=E35–E36 |bibcode=2010PNAS..107E..35M |doi=10.1073/pnas.1000923107 |pmc=2841871 |doi-access=free}}
• {{Cite book |last=Olmos |first=Fray Andrés de |author-link=Andrés de Olmos |title=Arte de la lengua mexicana: concluido en el Convento de San Andrés de Ueytlalpan, en la provincia de la Totonacapan que es en la Nueva España, el 1^o. de enero de 1547, 2 vols. |title-link=Arte para aprender la lengua mexicana |publisher=Ediciones de Cultura Hispánica, Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana |others=Ascensión León-Portilla and Miguel León-Portilla (introd., transliteration, and notes) |year=1993 |isbn=978-84-7232-684-2 |location=Madrid |language=es |type=Facsimile edition of original MS. |oclc=165270583 |orig-year=1547 MS.}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Olko |first1=J. |last2=Sullivan |first2=J. |year=2013 |title=Empire, Colony, and Globalization. A Brief History of the Nahuatl Language |journal=Colloquia Humanistica |issue=2 |pages=181–216}}
• {{Cite book |last=Pasztory |first=Esther |title=Latin American horizons: a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 11th and 12th October 1986 |publisher=Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-88402-207-7 |editor-last=Don Stephen Rice |location=Washington D.C. |pages=113–146 |chapter=An Image Is Worth a Thousand Words: Teotihuacan and the Meanings of Style in Classic Mesoamerica}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Pellicer |first1=Dora |url=https://archive.org/details/mexicanindigenou00hida |title=Mexican Indigenous Languages at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century |last2=Cifuentes |first2=Bábara |last3=Herrera |first3=Carmen |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |year=2006 |isbn=978-3-11-018597-3 |editor-last=Hidalgo |editor-first=Margarita G. |series=Contributions to the Sociology of Language |volume=91 |location=Berlin |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mexicanindigenou00hida/page/n138 127]–168 |chapter=Legislating diversity in twenty-first century Mexico |url-access=limited }}
• {{Cite journal |last=Peralta Ramírez |first=Valentin |year=1991 |title=La reduplicación en el náhuatl de Tezcoco y sus funciones sociales |journal=Amerindia |volume=16 |pages=20–36 |lang=es}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Pharao Hansen |first=Magnus |year=2010 |title=Polysynthesis in Hueyapan Nahuatl: The Status of Noun Phrases, Basic Word Order, and Other Concerns |url=https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/164113523/hansen2010.pdf |journal=Anthropological Linguistics |volume=52 |issue=3 |pages=274–299 |doi=10.1353/anl.2010.0017 |s2cid=145563657 }}
• {{Cite conference |last=Pharao Hansen |first=Magnus |year=2013 |title=Nahuatl in the Plural: Dialectology and Activism in Mexico |url=https://www.academia.edu/5174860 |conference=The Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association |access-date=18 December 2014 |archive-date=9 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220409135615/https://www.academia.edu/5174860 |url-status=dead }}
• {{cite book |last1=Pharao Hansen |first1=Magnus |title=Nahuatl Nations: language revitalization and semiotic sovereignty in indigenous Mexico |date=2024 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York, NY |isbn=9780197746158 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197746158.001.0001}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Pury-Toumi |first=S. D. |year=1980 |title=Le saltillo en nahuatl |journal=Amerindia. Revue d'Ethnolinguistique Amérindienne Paris |language=fr |volume=5 |pages=31–45}}
• {{Cite book |last=Rincón |first=Antonio del |author-link=Antonio del Rincón |url=http://storage.lib.uchicago.edu/pres/2005/pres2005-033.pdf |title=Arte mexicana compuesta por el padre Antonio Del Rincón de la compañia de Jesus: Dirigido al illustrissimo y reverendissimo s. Don Diego Romano obispo de Tlaxcallan, y del consejo de su magestad, &c. En Mexico en casa de Pedro, Balli. 1595 |publisher=Oficina tip. de la Secretaría de fomento |year=1885 |edition=Reprinted 1885 under the care of Antonio Peñafiel |location=México D. F. |language=es |oclc=162761360 |orig-year=1595 }}
• {{Cite journal |last=Rolstad |first=Kellie |year=2002 |title=Language death in Central Mexico: The decline of Spanish-Nahuatl bilingualism and the new bilingual maintenance programs |journal=The Bilingual Review/La revista bilingüe |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=3–18 |issn=0094-5366 |oclc=1084374 |jstor=25745734}}
• {{Cite book |last=Sahagún |first=Bernardino de |author-link=Bernardino de Sahagún |title=Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, 13 vols. |title-link=Florentine Codex |publisher=School of American Research and the University of Utah Press |others=Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson (eds., trans., notes and illus.) |year=1950–1982 |isbn=978-0-87480-082-1 |edition=translation of Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España |volume=I–XII |location=Santa Fe |oclc=276351 |orig-year=ca. 1540–85}}
• {{Cite book |last=Sahagún |first=Bernardino de |author-link=Bernardino de Sahagún |title=Primeros Memoriales |title-link=Primeros Memoriales |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |others=Thelma D. Sullivan (English trans. and paleography of Nahuatl text), with H.B. Nicholson, Arthur J. O. Anderson, Charles E. Dibble, Eloise Quiñones Keber, and Wayne Ruwet (completion, revisions, and ed.) |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-8061-2909-9 |series=The Civilization of the American Indians Series vol. 200, part 2 |location=Norman |orig-year=ca.1558–61}}
• {{Cite book |last=Sischo |first=William R. |title=Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 2: Modern Aztec Grammatical Sketches |publisher=Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-88312-072-9 |editor-last=Langacker |editor-first=Ronald W. |editor-link=Ronald W. Langacker |series=Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics |volume=56 |location=Dallas |pages=307–380 |chapter=Michoacán Nahual}}
• {{Cite book |last=Smith-Stark |first=T. C. |title=Missionary Linguistics II/Lingüística misionera II: Orthography and Phonology. Selected papers from the Second International Conference on Missionary Linguistics |publisher=John Benjamins |year=2005 |editor-last=Zwartjes |editor-first=O. |volume=109 |chapter=Phonological description in New Spain |editor-last2=Altman |editor-first2=C.}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Suárez |first=Jorge A. |year=1977 |title=La influencia del español en la estructura gramatical del náhuatl |journal=Anuario de Letras. Revista de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras |language=es |volume=15 |pages=115–164 |issn=0185-1373 |oclc=48341068}}
• {{Cite book |last=Suárez |first=Jorge A. |url=https://archive.org/details/mesoamericanindi0009suar |title=The Mesoamerian Indian Languages |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-521-22834-3 |series=Cambridge Language Surveys }}
• {{Cite book |last=Sullivan |first=Thelma D. |title=Compendium of Náhuatl Grammar |publisher=University of Utah Press |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-87480-282-5 |editor-last=Miller |editor-first=Wick R. |edition=English translation of Compendio de la gramática náhuatl |location=Salt Lake City |translator-last=Sullivan |translator-first=Thelma D. |editor-last2=Karen Dakin |translator-last2=Stiles |translator-first2=Neville}}
• {{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Cyrus |title=Nineteenth annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897–1898 |date=1902 |publisher=Bureau of American Ethnology |pages=853–955 |chapter=Numeral systems of Mexico and Central America |hdl=10088/91700 |hdl-access=free}}
• {{Cite book |last=Tuggy |first=David H. |title=Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 2: Modern Aztec Grammatical Sketches |publisher=Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-88312-072-9 |editor-last=Ronald Langacker |editor-link=Ronald Langacker |series=Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics |volume=56 |location=Dallas |pages=1–140 |chapter=Tetelcingo Náhuatl}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Voegelin |first1=Charles F. |title=Typological and Comparative Grammar of Uto-Aztecan I: Phonology |last2=Florence M. Voegelin |last3=Kenneth L. Hale |author-link3=Kenneth L. Hale |publisher=Waverly Press |year=1962 |series=Indiana University publications in anthropology and linguistics, Memoir 17 |volume=28 |location=Baltimore |type=Supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Whittaker |first=G. |year=2009 |title=The Principles of Nahuatl Writing |url=http://whp.uoregon.edu/dictionaries/nahuatl/whittakernahuatlwriting.pdf |journal=Göttinger Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft |volume=16 |pages=47–81 |access-date=22 December 2014 |archive-date=8 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210108230025/http://whp.uoregon.edu/dictionaries/nahuatl/whittakernahuatlwriting.pdf |url-status=dead }}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Whorf |first1=Benjamin Lee |author-link=Benjamin Whorf |last2=Karttunen |first2=Frances |last3=Campbell |first3=Lyle |year=1993 |title=Pitch Tone and the 'Saltillo' in Modern and Ancient Nahuatl |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=59 |issue=2 |pages=165–223 |doi=10.1086/466194 |oclc=1753556 |s2cid=144639961}}
• {{Cite web |last=Wimmer |first=Alexis |year=2006 |title=Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique |url=http://sites.estvideo.net/malinal/nahuatl.page.html |access-date=2008-02-04 |language=fr,nah |format=online version, incorporating reproductions from Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine [1885], by Rémi Siméon }}
• {{Cite book |last=Wolgemuth |first=Carl |url=http://www.sil.org/mexico/nahuatl/istmo/G027a-GramNahIst-nhx.htm |title=Gramática Náhuatl (melaʼtájto̱l): de los municipios de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz |publisher=Instituto Lingüístico de Verano |others=Sharon Stark and Albert Bickford (online eds.) |year=2002 |isbn=978-968-31-0315-4 |edition=2nd |location=México D. F. |format=PDF |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080419090734/http://www.sil.org/mexico/nahuatl/istmo/G027a-GramNahIst-nhx.htm |archive-date=19 April 2008 |url-status=dead }}
• {{cite book |last1=Wright Carr |first1=David Charles |date=2016 |title=Lectura del Náhuatl |publisher=INALI |isbn=978-607-8407-21-7 |edition=revised |url=https://site.inali.gob.mx/publicaciones/libro_lectura_nahuatl/pdf/lectura_del_nahuatl.pdf |access-date=12 January 2025 |language=es}}

{{Refend}}

• de Molina, Fray Alonso: Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana y Mexicana y Castellana. [1555] Reprint: Porrúa México 1992
• Karttunen, Frances, An analytical dictionary of Náhuatl. Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1992
• Siméon, Rémi: Diccionario de la Lengua Náhuatl o Mexicana. [Paris 1885] Reprint: México 2001

• Carochi, Horacio. Grammar of the Mexican Language: With an Explanation of its Adverbs (1645) Translated by James Lockhart. Stanford University Press. 2001.
• Lockhart, James: Nahuatl as written: lessons in older written Nahuatl, with copious examples and texts, Stanford 2001
• Sullivan, Thelma: Compendium of Nahuatl Grammar, Univ. of Utah Press, 1988.
• Campbell, Joe and Frances Karttunen, Foundation course in Náhuatl grammar. Austin 1989
• Launey, Michel. Introducción a la lengua y a la literatura Náhuatl. México D.F.: UNAM. 1992 (Spanish); An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl [English translation/adaptation by Christopher Mackay], 2011, Cambridge University Press.
• Andrews, J. Richard. Introduction to Classical Nahuatl University of Oklahoma Press: 2003 (revised edition)

• Ronald W. Langacker (ed.): Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 2: Modern Aztec Grammatical Sketches, Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics, 56. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington, pp. 1–140. {{ISBN|0-88312-072-0}}. OCLC 6086368. 1979. (Contains studies of Nahuatl from Michoacan, Tetelcingo, Huasteca and North Puebla)
• Canger, Una. Mexicanero de la Sierra Madre Occidental, Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México, No. 24. México D.F.: El Colegio de México. {{ISBN|968-12-1041-7}}. OCLC 49212643. 2001 (Spanish)
• Campbell, Lyle. The Pipil Language of El Salvador, Mouton Grammar Library (No. 1). Berlin: Mouton Publishers. 1985. {{ISBN|0-89925-040-8}}. OCLC 13433705.
• Wolgemuth, Carl. Gramática Náhuatl (melaʼtájto̱l) de los municipios de Mecayapan y Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz, 2nd edition. 2002. {{in lang|es}}

• The Nahua Newsletter: edited by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies of the Indiana University (Chief Editor Alan Sandstrom)
• Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl: special interest-yearbook of the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas (IIH) of the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Ed.: Miguel León Portilla
• [http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/etexts/nahuatl/index.shtml A Catalogue of Pre-1840 Nahuatl Works Held by The Lilly Library] from The Indiana University Bookman No. 11. November 1973: 69–88.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160505135614/http://www.ailla.utexas.org/search/collection.html?c_id=158 Collection of Nahuatl of the Sierra Nororiental de Puebla, Mexico of Jonathan Amith], containing recordings in Nahuatl by native speakers and transcriptions, from the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America.
• Barnstone, Willis (2003). Literatures of Latin America: From Antiquity to Present. Princeton: Prentice Hall.

{{InterWiki|code=nah}}

{{Incubator|nci|language=Classical Nahuatl}}

{{Incubator|nch|language=Central Huastec Nahuatl}}

{{Incubator|nhn|language=Central Nahuatl}}

{{Incubator|ppl|language=Pipil}}

{{Incubator|nlv|language=Orizaba Nahuatl}}

{{Wiktionary|nahuatl}}

• [https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/ Online Nahuatl Dictionary – Wired Humanities Projects, University of Oregon]

{{Languages of Mexico}}

{{Uto-Aztecan languages}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Indigenous languages of Mexico

Category:Agglutinative languages

Category:Mesoamerican languages

Category:Polysynthetic languages

Category:Uto-Aztecan languages

Category:Verb–subject–object languages