Náhuatl language

Nahuatl
Aztec, Mexicano
Mexihcacopa, Nahuatlahtolli, Macehuallahtolli
Nahua woman from the Florentine Codex. The speech scroll indicates that she is speaking.
Native to	Mexico
Region	State of Mexico, Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Morelos, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Durango, and immigrants in United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Canada
Ethnicity	Nahua peoples
Native speakers	1.7 million (2015 census)
Language family	Uto-Aztecan Nahuan Nahuatl
Early forms	Proto-Nahuan Nahuatl
Dialects	Western Peripheral Nahuatl Eastern Peripheral Nahuatl Huasteca Nahuatl Central Nahuatl languages
Official status
Official language in	Mexico (through the General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Regulated by	Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
Language codes
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	Classical Nahuatl For modern varieties, see Nahuan languages
Glottolog	azte1234  (Aztec)
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Nahuatl (English /ˈnɑːwɑːtəl/;Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈnaːwatɬ]), known historically as Aztec, is a language or group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua peoples, most of whom live in central Mexico. All Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica.

Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE. It was the language of the Aztecs who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. During the centuries preceding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico, and its influence caused the variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan to become a prestige language in Mesoamerica. At the conquest, with the introduction of the Latin alphabet, Nahuatl also became a literary language, and many chronicles, grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in it during the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl, and is among the most studied and best-documented languages of America.