What is the literature of Nahuatl like?
Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Indigenous languages of the Americas), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl). The Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an excellent early sample of literary Nahuatl.
What are the abstract nouns in Nahuatl?
Abstract Nouns. In Nahuatl abstract nouns derived from verbs normally simply add - liztli or -iztli to the verb stem: nemi = to live, nemïztli = living; cochi = to sleep; cochiliztli = sleeping; tlazohtla = to love, tlazohtlaliztli = love; miqui = to die, miquiliztli/miquiztli = death.
Is Classical Nahuatl the same as Aztec?
Classical Nahuatl is one of the Nahuan languages within the Uto-Aztecan family. It is classified as a central dialect and is most closely related to the modern dialects of Nahuatl spoken in the valley of Mexico in colonial and modern times.
What are the notation conventions in Nahuatl grammar?
Jordan: Nahuatl Grammar Notes, revised 060110, page 1 Notation Conventions # = shows a word boundary when compulsory (e.g., a final i is shown as i#). - = sign that shows where an affix attaches to another element.
What is the Nahuatl language?
Classical Nahuatl is one of the Nahuan languages within the Uto-Aztecan family. It is classified as a central dialect and is most closely related to the modern dialects of Nahuatl spoken in the valley of Mexico in colonial and modern times. It is probable that the Classical Nahuatl documented by 16th- and 17th-century written sources represents a particularly prestigious sociolect. That is to say, the variety of Nahuatl recorded in these documents is most likely to be more particularly representative of the speech of Aztec nobles ( pīpiltin ), while the commoners ( mācēhualtin) spoke a somewhat different variety.
What is the most extensive Nahuatl language?
Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Indigenous languages of the Americas), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl ). The Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an early sample of literary Nahuatl.
How many consonants are there in Nahuatl?
Maximally complex Nahuatl syllables are of the form CVC; that is, there can be at most one consonant at the beginning and end of every syllable. In contrast, English, for example, allows up to three consonants syllable-initially and up to four consonants to occur at the end of syllables (e.g. str e ngths) ( ngths = /ŋkθs/ ). Consonant clusters are only allowed word-medially, Nahuatl uses processes of both epenthesis (usually of /i/) and deletion to deal with this constraint.
Where is Nahuatl spoken?
Classical Nahuatl (also known simply as Aztec or Nahuatl) is any of the variants of Nahuatl, spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a lingua franca at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Overview
Sources
• Aguilar, Andrés Ehecatl (2013). Phonological description of Huasteca Nahuatl from Chicontepec, Veracruz (Thesis). California State University, Northridge. p. 25. doi:10.211.2/3997.
• Andrews, J. Richard (2003). Introduction to classical Nahuatl (Rev. ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3452-9.
Classification
Classical Nahuatl is one of the Nahuan languages within the Uto-Aztecan family. It is classified as a central dialect and is most closely related to the modern dialects of Nahuatl spoken in the valley of Mexico in colonial and modern times. It is probable that the Classical Nahuatl documented by 16th- and 17th-century written sources represents a particularly prestigious sociolect. That is to say, the variety of Nahuatl recorded in these documents is most likely to be more particularly rep…
Phonology
Stress generally falls on the penultimate syllable. The one exception is the vocative suffix (used by men) -é, which is added to the end of a word and is always stressed, e.g. Cuāuhtliquetzqui (a name, meaning "Eagle Warrior"), but Cuāuhtliquetzqué "O Cuauhtliquetzqui!"
When women use the vocative, the stress is shifted to the final syllable without adding any suffix. Oquichtli means "man", and oquichtlí means "O man!"
Writing system
At the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec writing used mostly pictograms supplemented with a few ideograms. When needed, it also used syllabic equivalences ; Diego Durán recorded how the tlacuilos could render a prayer in Latin using this system but it was difficult to use. The writing system was adequate for keeping such records as genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists, but it could not represent a full vocabulary of spoken language in the way that the wr…
Literature
Nahuatl literature is extensive (probably the most extensive of all Indigenous languages of the Americas), including a relatively large corpus of poetry (see also Nezahualcoyotl). The Huei tlamahuiçoltica is an early sample of literary Nahuatl.
A bilingual dictionary with Spanish, Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana, was first published in 1611 and is "the most important and most frequently reprinted Spanish work o…
See also
• Aztec codices
• List of extinct languages of North America
• Mesoamerican language area
External links
Media related to Classical Nahuatl language at Wikimedia Commons
• "Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana, y mexicana. : En que se contienen las palabras, preguntas, y respuestas mas co[m]munes, y ordinarias que se suelen offrecer en el trato, y communicacion entre Españoles, é Indios". World Digital Library. Retrieved 2013-05-23.