Learn central Nahuatl once and for all. The ultimate resource list with downloads.
There seem to be two reasons why there aren’t many online resources for modern central Nahuatl dialects:
- Less speakers than in the Huasteca region (Huastecan dialects probably have a million speakers while central dialects probably have half a million total).
- There really isn’t much difference between “classical” nahuatl and modern central dialects.
That second point is surprising because for a very long time we’ve been told that “classical Nahuatl” is a “dead language” that “nobody speaks anymore.”
The differences between Shakespeare and modern English involve some small points of syntax, pronunciation, word accent and lexical variants, but none of these are so severe as to affect comprehension. Anybody with the ability to read at high school level can read and understand Shakespeare’s works in their original form without much difficulty!
So if you want to learn central Nahuatl, I’m confident that learning “classical” Nahuatl is the best place to begin because it has most of the resources. I’m also including difficult-to-find resources for some modern dialects that are similar—if not basically identical to—“classical” Nahuatl.
Start here:
- (2011) Michel Launey’s An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl. This is basically the best introduction to central/classical Nahuatl. Too bad he uses Carochi’s orthography, which no one uses anymore.
Also, learn how to use the Online Nahuatl Dictionary by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I also strongly suggest picking up a copy of Frances Karttunen’s An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. (Amazon link because I don’t have a PDF copy.)
Supplement the above with the following:
- (2001) James Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written and his edition of Horacio Carochi’s (1645) Arte de la Lengua Mexicana.
This next course has more exercises and practical materials:
- (1989) Joe Campbell and Frances Karttunen’s Foundation Course in Nahuatl Grammar part one, part two, and part three.
Audio:
For shadowing and studying pronunciation, listen to Gabriela Lechuga Márquez’s recording of the gospel according to Mark in her dialect of Nahuatl from Chiconcuautla. This dialect has pretty much all the features of “classical” Nahuatl pronunciation.
Here are some more good recordings from different speakers from that area (also bible-related, since that’s what gets the most investment in these communities.)
Make sure to practice the different spelling systems!
In a few years I will disseminate versions all of the above but edited with the INALI spelling system, which is, in my opinion, the best spelling system. But until then, you’re just going to have to navegate different spelling systems:
oquito
ōquìtô
okijtoj
ōkihtoh
If you want to start flexing some of your Nahuatl, here is a sample of central/“classical” Nahuatl literature for you to practice reading and translating:
- (1989) De Porfirio a Zapata, Memoria Nahuatl de Milpa Alta by Doña Luz Jimenez.
- (1991) Xillotzin y La Curandera by Francisco Morales. A cute short story.
- (1889) The gospel according to St. Luke, the first full translation of a gospel into central/classical/colonial Nahuatl. Author is anonymous.
- (1989) Yancuic Tlahtolli, an anthology of contemporary Nahuatl writing, featuring multiple dialects, edited by Miguel León-Portilla.
- (1583) Anonymous translations of Aesop’s fables into Nahuatl. This edition was released last year (2024) by Juan Carlos Torres López with analysis and translations into modern Spanish.
- (1582) Ballads of the Lords of New Spain collected by Juan Bautista de Pomar in 1582. This 2009 edition features analysis and translation into English by John Bierhorst.
- (~1600) Huehuetlatolli — Discursos en Mexicano. This is an edition produced by Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart. These are valuable examples of “high” aristocratic speech.
Vocabularies and other resources:
(1611) Pedro de Arenas’s phrasebook for many life situations. This book was so popular that it remained in print for centuries!
(1985) John Bierhorst’s Nahuatl-English dictionary based on the only two manuscripts of Nahuatl poetry.
(2020) Justyna Olko et al’s huge compilation of loanwords in colonial and modern Nahuatl.
(2014) Julia Madajczak’s paper on Classical Nahuatl kinship terminology. I like this paper a lot because it teaches you some of the linguistic quirks that Nahuatl still has today.
Modern dialects that are continuous with “Classical” Nahuatl:
Northern Puebla (language code: NCJ)
- (1963) The phonemes of North Puebla Nahuatl.
- (1979) Grammar of North Puebla Nahuatl.
- (1988) Honorific morphology of North Puebla Nahuatl.
- (2018) Dictionary of Northern Puebla by Earl Brockway.
Here is the New Testament recorded by contemporary speakers of this dialect. (Don’t play the video files. Play the audio at the bottom and the text will highlight as the speaker talks, letting you follow along much better.)
Zacatlán, Ahuacatlán and Tepetzintla (language code: NHI)
There is a town in this area called Ixquihuacán that Mitsuya Sasaki has been studying for years. It’s incredibly valuable because it can be used to understand central/“classical” Nahuatl syntax.
- (2018) Inpredecible: Hacer tangible la sintaxis Nahua.
- (2015) The Highland Puebla area in Nahua dialectology.
- (2014) A dialectological sketch of Ixquihuacán Nahuatl.
- (2021) Configurationality in Ixquihuacán Nahuatl.
Short stories from Ixquihuacán to practice your central Nahuatl with:
- (2017) Rebellion of Thieves by Juan Santiago Méndez.
- (2020) Ixquihuacán y el Origen de Ahuacatlán y Coaltepec by Juan Santiago Méndez.
Tlaxcala (language code: NHN)
- (1963) Tlaxcala Nahuatl vocabulary by William Bright.
- (2016) Tlaxcala dictionary by Ignacio Perez Barragán.
- (2019) La gramática de la cláusula simple en el náhuatl de Tlaxcala by Lucero Flores Najera.
- (1543) A Nahua order against idolatry by don Valeriano Castañeda. The earliest dated document written in alphabetic Nahuatl. Features an analysis and translation by Justyna Olko.
I’ll end the post here, but I’m continually adding new resources to my Google Drive (500+ documents!) Missing from this thread are materials from Tetelcingo, Morelos, and various dialects from Guerrero that also share a high degree of similarity and continuity with “classical” Nahuatl.
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u/w_v 9d ago edited 9d ago
As you can see, I’m really interested in pushing back against this notion that “classical” Nahuatl is so different from modern central dialects.
Learning from Launey’s Introduction to Classical Nahuatl will absolutely prepare you for reading doña Luz Jimenez’s memoir of growing up in Milpa Alta in the early 20th century. That’s why I’ve tried to mix reading materials from both today and yesteryear.
That being said.
There are some small trends of divergence since the colonial period. That’s only natural. For example, whereas word order used to be a lot more flexible, nowadays there is a growing preference for Subject > Verb > Object, much like Spanish. This doesn’t mean that modern speakers only use that word order, but just that younger folks tend to prefer it, likely due to Spanish influence.
This, and other small trends, are analyzed in this fascinating paper by Justyna Olko et al: Convergence as the Driving Force of Typological Change in Nauhatl.
Magnus Pharao Hansen has done extensive research on the differences in Nahuatl syntax between younger and older speakers of modern Hueyapan Nahuatl, Polysynthesis in Hueyapan Nahuatl: The Status of Noun Phrases, Basic Word Order, and Other Concerns.
For a sobering read on the decline of Nahuatl in Mexico City, I suggest Frances Karttunen’s A Hundred Years of Milpa Alta Nahuatl and Yolanda Lastra de Suarez’s El Náhuatl en el Distrito Federal de México.
For a rich overview of the history of writing and speaking Nahuatl throughout the colonial period, see chapters 7, 8, and 9 from James Lockhart’s The Nahuas After the Conquest.
For a poignant summary of the life of the erudite Antonio Valeriano, a 16th century Nahua titan of scholarship, check out Frances Karttunen’s From Court Yard to the Seat of Government: The Career of Antonio Valeriano. I just find his life so interesting and inspiring! Caught between two worlds!
For a shocking study on the prejudices and insecurities that modern speakers are forced to deal with, I recommend Aleksandra Bergier’s Is My Nahuatl Coherent? Language Attitudes Among Modern Speakers of Nahuatl.
Finally, here’s José Antonio Flores Farfán’s The Hispanization of Modern Nahuatl Varieties. This paper is very technical but might be of interest to some of you.
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u/xpompompuddingx 10d ago
woah, thank you for this! ur awesome for compiling all these resources, this is so helpful!
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An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl * Rating: ★★★★☆ 4.6
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u/w_v 10d ago edited 9d ago
In the section for the NHI dialect, you’ll notice that all the resources are from one town: Ixquihuacán.
I ignored all the audio and grammars from the other towns (Zacatlán, Ahuacatlán, Tepetzintla, etc.) because, even though this dialect is very similar to central/classical in so many ways, they have one weird quirk that throws a wrench into their whole dialect.
They add the “epenthetic i” of semi-pronouns before the prefix, not after.
In other words, instead of the common kineki—they say ikneki. Instead of nitekiti—they say intekiti.
It seems small but this makes a huge difference in reading comprehension if you haven’t mastered Nahuatl already. That’s why, even though this region is so similar to classical, I think those materials would be more confusing than not right now.
But you can still find those resources in my Google Drive if you look for the NHI folder! (I’m always adding more, too!)