Classical Nahuatl language
| Classical Nahuatl | |
|---|---|
| Nāhuatlahtōlli | |
| Pronunciation | [naːwat͡ɬaʔˈtoːɬːi] |
| Native to | Mexico |
| Region | Aztec Empire |
| Era | split into modern dialects by the 15th century |
|
Uto-Aztecan languages
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | clas1250 |
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. During the subsequent centuries it was largely displaced by Spanish and evolved into some of the modern Nahuan languages in use today (other modern dialects descend more directly from other 16th-century variants.) Although classified as an extinct language, Classical Nahuatl has survived through a multitude of written sources transcribed by Nahua peoples and Spaniards in the Latin script.
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.
Stress generally falls on the penultimate syllable. The one exception is the vocative case suffix -e, which was used only by men, where stress falls on the final syllable, e.g. Cuāuhtliquetzqui (a name, meaning "Eagle Warrior"), but Cuāuhtliquetzqué "Hey, Cuauhtliquetzqui!"
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. strengths) (ngths = /ŋkθs/).
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