Nahuatl
Language · official in 1 country
The name Nahuatl comes from nāhuatlahtōlli, "clear language", though many speakers call their language Mexicano. It was the language of the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century AD, and Spanish missionaries wrote it in Latin letters. A Mexican law of 2003 recognises it as a national language, with the same standing as Spanish in its regions.
The language on record
- Own name
- Nawatlahtolli
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Aztecan (Nahuan)
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Nahuatl is official
Mexico holds the one record. Nahuatl's standing there is regional: the 2003 language rights law makes it a national language wherever it is spoken, on a par with Spanish.
Official beside Nahuatl
About Nahuatl
What speakers call Nahuatl
The English name rests on a Classical Nahuatl word, and it is new to many communities. Many speakers say Mexicano, a term from the early colonial period, or a word built on mācēhualli, "commoner": in Tetelcingo, Morelos, the language is mösiehuali. The Nahuas of Durango call theirs Mexicanero, and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec it is mela'tájtol, "the straight language". The older English name, Aztec, is now rarely used for the modern varieties, although linguists still call the branch Aztecan.
Nahuatl is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages. Some varieties are not mutually intelligible, and those around the Valley of Mexico stay closest to the classical form.
How Nahuatl became a written language
Aztec writing before the conquest combined pictures that served as memory aids with logograms, some of them used as rebus signs. It was meant to be told more than read, and the Mexican epigrapher Alfonso Lacadena's claim that the scribes of Tetzcoco had a fully syllabic script is disputed. Within decades of the conquest the Latin alphabet replaced the pictures. Chronicles and poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries fixed a literary form now called Classical Nahuatl, and a royal decree of 1570 made Nahuatl the official language of the colonies of New Spain.
No single spelling has ever won. The Jesuit Horacio Carochi's 17th-century system marked long vowels with a macron and the saltillo with a grave accent, but few outside his order followed it. Writers still disagree over whether to spell /k/ as c and qu, how to write the saltillo and whether to mark vowel length. In 2018 Nahuas from 16 states began work with the national institute for Indigenous languages on a standard orthography called Yankwiktlahkwilolli.
What the language rights law gave Nahuatl
The General Law on the Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, promulgated on 13 March 2003, made Nahuatl and the other Indigenous languages of Mexico national languages and gave speakers the right to use them in public and private life. Article 11 grants access to intercultural bilingual education. For most of the 20th century schools had taught only Spanish. The share of Mexicans speaking Nahuatl fell from over 5% in 1895 to 1.49% in 2000, when the census counted about 1.45 million speakers, 14.9% of them monolingual.
Speakers live mostly in Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí and Guerrero, and migration has carried small communities to every Mexican state and to the United States. Avocado, chocolate, coyote and tomato reached English from Nahuatl through Spanish.
Common questions
Questions about Nahuatl
Is Nahuatl the language of the Aztecs?
Yes. It was the language of the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, and English once called it Aztec. The modern varieties descend from the same language, and none is identical to Classical Nahuatl.
Does Nahuatl have an official spelling?
Not yet. The Jesuit system of the 17th century never spread, and in 2018 Nahua communities began building a standard called Yankwiktlahkwilolli with Mexico's Indigenous languages institute.
How many people spoke Nahuatl in 2000?
The 2000 census counted about 1.45 million speakers, 1.49% of Mexico's population, down from over 5% in 1895. Some 198,000 of them spoke no Spanish, and nearly two-thirds of those were women.
What English words come from Nahuatl?
Avocado, chayote, chili, chipotle, chocolate, coyote, peyote, axolotl and tomato, among others, all by way of Spanish. The country names Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua also derive from Nahuatl.