Maria Sosiska

The presence of the Nahuatl language and its current significance in the
culture of Mexico

Nahuatl is the ancient language of the Aztecs, and it has been spoken in central Mexico
since at least the seventh century CE. Although the Spanish conquest led to the fall of the Aztec
Empire and caused a demographic collapse of the native population, Nahuatl managed to remain
present in the Mesoamerian societies. This essay will investigate the history and the presence of
Nahuatl, focusing on the regions of Mexico. It will also discuss its current significance in the
Mexican culture, as well as its current challenges and prospects for the future.

Nahuatl is a language belonging to the Uto-Aztecan language family. Despite an initial

dispute over its origin, in late 20th century linguists agreed that the Uto-Aztecan language family
has its roots in the southwestern part of United States and northwestern Mexico1. Speakers of the
Proto-Nahuan language migrated to Mesoamerica around AD 5002. Before reaching the Mexican
Plateau, pre-Nahuan groups are believed to have spent a period of time in contact with other pre-
colombian languages, such as the Corachol, Cora and Huichol of northwestern Mexico. However, it
was not until the beginning of the 7th century that Nahuatl really began to crystalize. First Nahuatl
speakers were probably the people of the Toltec culture of Tula. By the 11th century, Nahuatl was
dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, with settlements including Azcapotzalco,
Colhuacan and Cholula.
One of the last migrations to the Valley of Mexico were the Mexica people, also known as
the Aztecs. They settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco were they founded their capital
Tenochtitlan. The Mexicas soon began to subjugate surrounding tribes. Their political and linguistic
influence rapidly extended into Central America, making Nahuatl a lingua franca among merchants
and elites in Mesoamerica3. With the growth of Tenochtitlan, the city became the largest urban
center in Central America, attracting speakers of Nahuatl from diverse regions. This eventually gave
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.
Immediately after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, Nahuatl was displaced as the

1 T. Kaufman, The history of the Nawa language group from the earliest times to the sixteenth century, Norton, New
York 2001, p. 21.
2 J. Justeson, Historical linguistics and pre-columbian Mesoamerica, Princeton University Press, New Jersey 2009,
p. 34.
3 R. M. Carmack, The Quich Mayas of Utatln: The Evolution of a Highland Guatemala Kingdom, Norman,
University of Oklahoma 1981, p. 142143.
dominant regional language. However, what mainly devastated the Nahuatl language was the
extremely high mortality of Native Americans in Mesoamerica during the colonial period.
In 1570 King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of
the colonies of New Spain. This was because the king believed that opening up for Nahuatl will
facilitate the communication, colonization and christianization in this region4. Thus, during the 16th
and 17th centuries, Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language. King Philip II's decision was
significant in the history of Nahuatl in Mexico, because it allowed and inspired Spanish
missionaries to study and document the language. By learning and translating Nahuatl, the
Europeans got a possibility to get to know the Nahua culture better and see it from a completely
different perspective5. It was also during this period that the famous Florentine Codex was written
by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagn. The Florentine Codex, originally titled as "Historia
general de las Cosas de Nueva Espaa" (The universal history of the things of New Spain) was an
ethnographic research study documenting the culture, society, economics and the history of the
Aztec peoplen but also a very precise dictionary, translating the Nahuatl vocabulary into Spanish.
Furthermore, the Florentine Codex provided explanation of the cultural origins of all the words.
This was to help friars and others to learn Nahuatl and to understand the cultural context of the
language. The codex has been described as one of the most remarkable accounts of a non-Western
culture ever composed6.
Until the ending of the 17th century, the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained
relatively stable. A great deal of autonomy was permitted by the Spanish in the local administrations
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. Furthermore, Spanish missionaries
would even teach Nahuatl to Indians living as far south as Honduras and El Salvador7. However,
this approach changed radically when Charles II issued a decree in 1696, banning the use of any
language other than Spanish throughout the Spanish Empire. The situation worsened even more
when another decree was issued in 1770, calling for elimination of the indigenous languages in the
Spanish colonies. This excluded Classical Nahuatl as a literary language, which was an attempt to
surpress the independence rebellions that were constantly growing in Latin America8.
Even after Mexico gained its independence in 1821 Nahuatl continued to be surpressed.
After the war, the alphabetic writing of Nahuatl disappeared as an official medium for
documentation and communication. The new succession of the government did not make any

4 J. Surez, The Mesoamerian Indian Languages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, p. 51.
5 Ibidem, p. 81.
6 H. B. Nicholson, Fray Bernardino De Sahagn: A Spanish Missionary in New Spain 1529-1590, University of
Colorado Press, Colorado 2002, p. 43.
7 J. Justeson, Historical linguistics..., op. cit., p. 68.
8 Ibidem, p. 72.
important advances toward integrating indigenous communities into the rest of the Mexican society,
and so the writing stopped to link Nahua people and their communities to each other within and
between regions where the language was spoken9. This caused the communities to became more
and more isolated from each other, increasing the differences between regional linguistic variants.
In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. One hundred years later, this proportion
had fallen to 1.49%10.

The map below shows the number of Nahuatl speakers per state in Mexico according to
the 7th General Census of Population and Housing of INEGI in the year of 200011:

By looking at this map, one can clearly see how the largest concentrations of Nahuatl
speakers are mainly found in the states were the Aztec Empire ruled before the Spanish conquest.
These regions include the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potos, and Guerrero.
Significant amount of Nahuatl speakers are also found in the State of Mexico, Morelos, and the
Federal District, with smaller communities in Michoacn and Durango. The situation of Nahuatl
looks much worse in states lcoated further away - during the 20th century Nahuatl became extinct in
the states of Jalisco and Colima. However, Nahuatl speaking communities exist today in all states in
9 J. Olko, Empire, Colony, and Globalization. A Brief History of the Nahuatl Language, Colloquia humanistica,
Warsaw 2013, p. 6.
10 Instituto Nacional de Estadsticas, Geografia e Informtica, Perfil sociodemogrfica de la populacin hablante de
nhuatl, XII Censo General de Poblacin y Vivienda, Aguascalientes, Mexico 2000, p. 63.
11 Ibidem, p. 68.
Mexico. This is because of internal migration within the country.
According to the 2000 census issued by INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadstica y
Geografa), Nahuatl is today spoken by approximately 1.45 million people. Around 198,000 of them
are monolingual, which corresponds to 14.9% people speaking Nahuatl only. Studies have also
shown that there are more females than males among the Nahuatl monolinguals. Females make up
about 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, speaking both Nahuatl and Spanish12.
The 20th century was a period of big surpression of Nahuatl. Until around the mid 1980's,
educational policies in Mexico focused on hispanicization (sometimes also called
castellanizacin) of the indigenous communities. This meant teaching merely Spanish to all
Mexican students, and discouraging the use of any pre-colombian languages13. As a result, today
there is no group of Nahuatl speakers having attained general literacy in Nahuatl, while their
literacy rate in Spanish also remains much lower than the national average. Although the
hispanicization did not succeed completely, and Nahuatl managed to pass on to the next generation,
the amount of speakers is now significantly smaller. Some dialects have already become extinct
within the last few decades of the 20th century14.
It was not until the 1990's that the approach to Nahuatl saw radical changes, and the
Mexican government policies began to open up to indigenous and linguistic rights.
Domestic pressures such as such indigenous social movements and political agitation by the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation, as well as developments of accords in the international
rights arena, eventually led to legislative reforms. Decentralized government agencies like National
Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and Instituto Nacional de Lenguas
Indgenas (INALI) were created, with the aim of promoting and protecting indigenous communities
and their languages. A particularily significant moment was the recognition of all the country's
indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as "national languages" by the federal Ley General de
Derechos Lingsticos de los Pueblos Indgenas (General Law on the Language Rights of the
Indigenous Peoples) in 2003 . This gave the indigenous people the right to use their languages in all
spheres of public and private life. This law also granted access to compulsory, bilingual and
intercultural education15.

12 Ibidem, p. 71.
13 J. Surez, The Mesoamerian ..., op. cit., p. 92.
14 K. Rolstad, Language death in Central Mexico: The decline of Spanish-Nahuatl bilingualism and the new bilingual
maintenance programs, The Bilingual Review, Berlin 2002, p 25.
15 Ibidem, p 33.
 Although the popularity of Nahuatl is decreasing, the language still holds a significant
position in the Mexican culture. One of the obvious examples is its influence on the Spanish
language. Mexican Spanish has incorporated many so called nhuatlismos, which are Nahuatl
words or parts of the Nahuatl grammar. Idioms such as overuse of the diminutives and reverential
language have been proven by researchers to be of Mexica influence. Also, words ending with the
absolutive suffix "-tl" in Nahuatl, thought to be difficult for Spanish speakers to pronounce at the
time of colonization, evolved in Spanish into a "-te" ending (e.g. axolotl = ajolote). Thus, a Spanish
word for an animal, plant, food or home appliance widely used in Mexico ending with "-te" is
highly likely to have a Nahuatl origin16.
Apart from Nahuatl's influence on Spanish, Nahuatl also had and has an influence on the
Mexican culture. An example of this is the fact that after the Mexican Revolution, the intellectuals
encouraged Mexicans to speak in Nahuatl in order to forge a new national identity, based on pride
in a mythologized version of Mexicos indigenous past17. Also, by speaking and promoting Nahuatl,
Mexicano communities feel more connected and united not only to their indigenous past, but also to
eachother18. An example of this are the Balsas Nahuas, an indigenous community living along the
Balsas river basin in the state of Guerrero, one of the most marginalized and poor states of the
country.
The Balsas Nahuas are known for their succesfull production and marketing of different
crafts, selling them in several locations all over the world. Given the relatively low agricultural
productivity of the region of Guerrero, this enablines Balsas Nahuas to generate an considerable
economic wealth. The continuous production of crafts for the tourist market has been a successful
integration of Nahuas cultural legacy, rather than destroying it. The commerce within Balsas's
communities themselves mainly occurs in Nahuatl19. This fact has abided for a strong sense of
ethnolinguistic unity, preventing internal Mexicano dialectal fragmentation and creating an
awareness of Mexicano instrumental and ethnic values.
This awereness and sense of unity has been crucial is several culturas aspects, with some of
these developing further into political ones. This was for instance the case of the successful
movement of resistance against the construction of the long-term planned hydroelectric San
Tetelcingo dam in the state of Guerrero. When the Mexican government spoke about activating this
project, the indigenous organizations reacted stating that that they would even fight with their lives

16 J. Surez, The Mesoamerian ..., op. cit., p. 41.

17 P. Guillermo, A New Mexican Nationalism? Indigenous Rights, Constitutional Reform and the Conflicting
Meanings of Multiculturalism, Oxford Press, London 2006, p. 301.
18 Ibidem, p. 305.
19 C. Good, Haciendo la Lucha. Arte y Comercio Nahuas de Guerrero, Fondo de Cultura Econmica, Mexico 1988, p.
57.
to maintain their ancestral territory and impede the construction of the Tetelcingo dam20. This led
to the conformation of a local opposing organization, the Consejo de Pueblos Nahuas del Alto
Balsas (CPNAB), still active to date. The protest showed to be succefull, and for the first time in
Mexican history an indigenous movement against the Mexican State project of constructing a dam
had succeeded21. This fact is showing the strong connection that exists in these indigenous
connections, which is stronly increased by the fact that they can communicate in their own, separate
language. The threat of displacement by the construction of the dam has also privileged and
paradoxically toughened the awareness of Mexicano's severability. This has also encouraged a
number of minority groups within different nation states to fight for their human and linguistic
rights. This type of reinvention of ethnic identity plays therefore a crucial role in vindicating
modern basic communities demands, such as the right to ancestral territory and education in the
mother tongue.
Lastly, Nahuatl plays an important role in the way that the indigenous communities are
perceived by the rest of Mexico, including the Mexican government. The government does not
categorize its citizens by ethnicity, but by language22. This is not always correct, as the INEGI's
decennial census contains biased information. Statistical information recorded about the Nahuas
deals only with speakers of the Nahuatl language. It does therefore not include the unknown
numbers of people of Nahua ethnicity that have decided to abandon the language and now speak
only Spanish. Furthermore, some Nahuas, though bilingual in Nahuatl and Spanish, seek to avoid
widespread anti-indigenous discrimination by declining to self-identify as Nahua in INEGI's census.
This is caused by the negative stereotype of indigenous people which is present in Mexico until
today.
Despite various projects to keep Nahuatl alive as a language, its future is full of challeges.
The biggest threat to Nahuatl is the fact that many of its speakers simply prefer to speak in Spanish,
frequently due to practical reasons. An example of this is the fact that Nahuatl and other indigenous
languages lack the huge and crucial repository of works about any topic to be found in libraries and
online. They are however available in Spanish and in all the major world languages. Indigenous
people must have access to these kind of materials if they are to be educated for successful
participation in the rest of the society, especially when taking under consideration the constantly
growing globalization and multiculturalism in the world23.
Although the Mexican bilingual education has grown recently, its goal of replacing

20 J. A. Farfn, Language revitalization, maintenance and development in Mexico: the case of the Nahuatl language,
Linguapax, Barcelona 2002, p. 6.
21 Ibidem, p. 7.
22 M. Krauss, The condition of Native North American languages: The need for realistic assessment and action,
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, New York 1998, p. 98.
23 J. Olko, Empire, Colony, ..., op. cit., p. 24.
indigenous languages with Spanish has not changed24. This is to a big extent caused by the fact that
the Mexican elementary education is highly centralized. The materials and curricula are produced
almost exclusively by the federal Secretary of Education. Traditionally individual teachers do not
participate in curriculum development, but are trained as technicians who are supposed to
implement the ready-made material to their students. The preparation of bilingual teachers mostly
occurs in Spanish, and the teachers are not encouraged to participate in innovating curriculum
development and research in the language spoken by their students.
This system is particularly harmful for indigenous languages, as textbooks are only
produced for a limited amount of their variants25. However, not all Nahua speak the Classical
Nahuatl. There is a large amount of dialects and variants that strongly differ from each other, both in
speach and in writing. Thus, in situations where these materials are distributed in communities that
speak another variant, they become useless. Moreover, bilingual teachers are sometimes given jobs
in communities that speak variants and even languages different from their own as there is lack of
teachers that would speak in those variants. These issues cause many school to encourge Spanish
among the students and to stop speaking their native language at school.

In conclusion, the presence of Nahuatl in Mexico is still quite vivid in the central regions of
the country. Although the survival of Nahuatl as a whole is not imminently endangered, the survival
of its different dialects certainly is. The language has an important influence in the culture of
Mexico when shaping the national identity and cultural divisions in the Mexican society. By being
able to communicate in their own language, the ethnolinguistic features enhance a cultural unity
between the Nahuas, but also an isolation from the non-indigenous population of Mexico.
Lastly, the progress towards institutionalizing Nahuatl and securing linguistic rights for its
speakers has grown significantly throughout the last thirty years. However, the pace of this progress
might be too slow, which rises serious concerns. Apart from all the work that is being put in order to
promote Nahuatl, the only people that can actually decide about Nahuatl's future are the Nahua
people themselves, and whether or not they will have the will to keep their ancient language alive.

24 T. McCarty, Schooling, resistance, and American Indian languages, International Journal of the Sociology of
Language, New York 1998, p. 84.
25 Ibidem, p. 86.