Nahuatl - An Indigenous Language of Mexico
This video is all about Nahuatl, the most widely spoken indigenous language of Mexico.
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►Consultant and voice in the Nahuatl audio samples: Regulo Castro Hernandez
► The Nahuatl dialect map is from the following textbook:
"Escribo mi lengua. Nahuatl de Guerrero" MIBES 7.
Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos, INEA.
www.cursosinea.conevyt.org.mx/...
► Major source for the content of this video:
"Lecciones para un curso del náhuatl moderno" by David Tuggy T.
scholars.sil.org/david_h_tugg...
► Full list of sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1j...
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Outro music: "January Thirteenth" by JCSD, licensed from Storyblocks.com
Hi, everyone! I hope you like this video on Nahuatl. To learn more about Nahuatl, check out the major source I used for this video: "Lecciones para un curso del náhuatl moderno", by David Tuggy T. scholars.sil.org/david_h_tuggy/es/publicaciones/nahuatl_lecciones/indice (in Spanish) Also check out my video about MEXICO: kzhead.info/sun/dLh7pNuunHquamw/bejne.html (on The GEOfocus Channel)
You are not talking about the fact that the Spaniards (specifically Andrés de Olmos) systematized the Nahuatl language (and hundreds of other indigenous languages), created a grammar, compiled its literature and made it a fully developed language of culture. Nahuatl has had a grammar since 1547, three years before the first French grammar (1550). The first grammar written in the world was that of Spanish (Castilian) in 1492; then came the Italian (1515), Portuguese (1536), French (1550), German (1573), English (1586) or Russian (1757). I am clarifying this for you to dispel a little of this black legend against the Spanish past in America and I hope to lessen a little the widespread HISPANOPHOBIA in the USA.
[11:31] This is a great explanation to know the correct meaning of one of the highest mountains in México (Iztaccihuatl = Istak + siwatl = white woman).
Nahuatl is awesome, thanks for this video!
BTW David Tuggy recently started a YT channel, and also has quite a few videos on hos daughter's channel Superholly, a fairly big (mostly) Spanish language channel (including her latest video as of the writing of this comment)
David Tuggy T is Superholly’s Father 🙌🏻
Many years ago I was employed by a school teaching English to non English-speaking kids in Dublin. One time I tried a few words of Irish (Gaeilge) on some Mexican kids. I heard one asking another "que es eso?" (what's that?). Without hesitation the other answered "es el Nahuatl de Irlanda" (it's the Irish Nahuatl). Astute kid.
Lol this made me laugh a lot 🤣, what a funny experience you had!
Btw I am mexican, from Monterrey.
😭😭😭
I love that..... Intelligent kid.
wow, this made me smile. born and raised in usa… when mom sent me to mexico for a few years we had a new kid in my 2nd grade class, he spoke dutch and the kids looked at me and said oh cool another kid that speaks english for you to play with lol. i was like that’s not english i don’t understand what he is saying. the rest of the kids said it sounds the same to us lol
I am from the far Asia and I have learned Nahuatl by myself for two years due to my great interest in mesoamerican civilization. It's absolutely interesting! But I do recommend you all to learn Classical Nahuatl. Not only because it has many study resources to be found, But also through my own observation, the intelligibility between different Nahuatl branches isn't as low as you think, because most of them stay generally the same with grammar and vocabulary . Never consider Classical Nahuatl is like Latin, and modern Nahuatl languages are like modern romance languages, they haven't been so different like that. I learned Classical Nahuatl, and I understood everything in the video very well! Also I am able to generally understand Huastec Nahuatl（the northern branch in the video）. However, the Nawat variety spoken in far El Salvador is almost not intelligible due to a lot of phonotic changes! However the Huastec branch has the largest speaking population, so it would be a good choice too.
Im so surprised by how people from so far away can be interested in a language thats from my region while here is dying, if you can at some point please come to Huasteca Potosina, look at the pictures if the waterfalls, lakes and rivers, ir is mexico's hidden gem
@@brunoandremonjarasvera8686 Para mí México es muy intrigante y estimulante. Desde mi infancia me han encantado las civilizaciones que se contaban en libros. Que sorprendido sus culturas antiguas siguen vivir después de la colonización. La región Huasteca fue el parte más norte entre mesoamerica al lado de Atlántico. Tiene paisaje maravilloso y cultura rica. Seguro que voy a visitar!
I am also very happy that someone from far away has taken such an interest! Thank you for keeping our beautiful language alive, and please see Mexico's beauty!
Actually according to science we migrated from north asia (siberia) to the americas 40 or 50,000 thousand years ago ,
@@makalribera6742 that's right xD
I am proudly indigenous Nahuatl🇲🇽
me too! Tiahui Nahuatlahtolli🇲🇽
No somos indígenas somos LAS NACIONES ORIGINARIAS DE MÉXICO.
The most powerful ruler in Nicaragua was Nahua, King Macuilmiquiztli. Proud of my Nahua heritage 💪🇳🇮
@@KingMacuilmiquiztli no somos indios, porque ese es otro país y como en aquellos tiempos no había GPS, Cristóbal Colón se equivocó. El nombre correcto es: "NACIONES ORIGINARIAS DE AMÉRICA". 🇲🇽
@@sornehdoty6691do you speak the language?
so glad you're covering a native american language! nahuatl, quechua and mapudungun are languages that definitely don't get the attention they deserve
Also none of the Mayan languages
Though I would want to add Chinanteco and Huave and Tarasco and Otomí and Zapoteco and Lacandón and Seri … all the other Mexican languages, 68 or 300 of them depending on how you count things. They are all fascinating, little though I know of most of them, and I feel jealous on their behalf when everybody gets excited about Nahuatl and Maya and leaves out the rest. (And of course languages in other parts of the world are just as beautiful and fascinating, if our taste-buds are rightly primed.)
Given that Paul is Canadian he should also cover some languages from the far north like Cree, Inuit, and Miqmac for example
@Hernando Malinche or my man chinook jargon 😔
Hellow, i from México and i speek náhuatl
Our word "chocolate" also comes from Nahuatl, from a phrase literally meaning "bitter water."
Eso es por una bebida azteca que se elaboraba con cacao, miel y chiles, era una bebida muy popular entre la nobleza ya que se consideraba que el pulque era solo para los plebeyos.
@@VENAT0RUMpa que le explicas al wey si obviamente no entiende el español 😂
@@Ocelopilli capaz sí, quien sabe
Tomate, abacate
“Bitter?!? Have you tried putting sugar in your xocolatl?”
Langfocus: I am blown away by all the languages you tackle. It is amazing! Thanks for bringing so much, and such well-constructed, information to the KZhead world.
Thank you, sir! And thanks for all of your work and materials, which I couldn’t have made this video without. I actually didn’t know you appeared in KZhead videos, but lots of people have been mentioning you and Superholly in the comments. 😎
@@Langfocus Woah, I love how you recognized this person as someone specific :O I don't know why but I got chills from it, I love this channel, you're awesome:) Same goes to David Tuggy!
@@Langfocus My favorite crossover of the year!
He's a language master mind... 🧠
This
Classical Nāhuatl truly is the most beautiful language in sound and most elegant in grammar; we really ought to cherish it and its surviving literature as much as Greek or Latin and its modern varieties deserve wider recognition.
Well said!!
Great to learn a bit more about this language from you!
Yeah it’s a really nice one
Hilbert! Well met!
Thanks, Hilbert! And great job with your channel. You obviously put a ton of effort into your videos.
@@Langfocus Many thanks for the compliment, and I may I say quite the same about your own wonderful channel! Do let me know if you'd ever be interested in working together on something in the future :)
Hi Hilbert!!
This is great. I would love to see one on Yucatec Mayan, the most widely spoken indigenous language in Mexico (if we consider the different mutually unintelligible Nahuatl dialects separate languages). What's also interesting about Yucatec Maya is that it covers a very large area (three Mexican states and parts of northern Belize and Guatemala, and it's still the same variety of Maya) the one that spans the most territory of all Mayan varieties).
@W. Redburn But this nahuatl dialects are very different to eachother not a single language also the yukatec maya he is talking about is a single language part of the mayan language family
@W. Redburn In Mexico, Nahuatl as a language encompassing many dialects (some of them mutually unintelligible) has more speakers. On the other hand, Yucatec Maya, as a single variant of Maya has more speakers than any variant of Nahuatl. Also, there are many variants of Maya spoken in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.
@W. Redburn Huasteca Náhuatl - 500,000 speakers (approx). Maya yucateco - 770,000 speakers (approx) I took Huasteca Náhuatl because is the variety most widely spoken.
@@bupirochi Not even close to that number Huastecos zapoteca totonaca Nahuatl is much higher , on the huastecos alone is close to a million
@W. Redburn . Where you getting that number from? Can you share your official number from the government a link ?
Nahuatl is coming back in a big way. I have met a considerable amount of people who not only speak the language but also teach it.
In mexico?
@@citrusblast4372 in Mexico and in California as well. My father also taught me classical nahuatl when I was young and his brothers and sisters successfully passed it down to my cousins (mostly huastec).
@@FelixGalvanArt i keep hearing about huastec nahua in this thread but i thought huastec was a maya relative
For those interested in listen to more nahuatl, I recommend search 68 Voces: Cuando Muere una Lengua: Náhuatl, a really beautiful poem about languages, readed in nahuatl. 68 voces is an project relationed to the indiginous mexican languages.
I just realized it is called 68 voices because of the 68 national languages + Spanish
I've never been so happy to follow a recommendation from a KZhead comment. Thank you for introducing me to this!
Thank you for helping us become aware of this!
Suena Chingon!
@@QuantumNoir 3:08 censored
Glad you talked about Nahuatl there's a lot of languages here in Mexico, like Mayan or Mixteco
They're languages, not dialects. Mexican say dialects to look down on Nahuatl, Maya etc. or out of ignorance.
@@jamescook2412 yeah, usually here we say dialects, already edited tho
@Weasel I can’t believe this, we also have the same issue in Philippines
@@jamescook2412 Chinese do the same thing against Chinese "dialects" when in fact they're languages as well
@@jamescook2412 Mexicans are the same as those Indigenous people,
*Langfocus nimistaskamatiliya miak ten tihteneshtiliya pan ni taishyekalisti. Na nihuechiua nahuatl, onka tamanti ten amo nikishmati, pampa miak tamanti nikihtoua ka español.* Yes, we can understand each other with other varieties of the modern Nahuatl language, only a few words change. I speak Nahuatl from the Huasteca Hidalguense region.
I wonder if the Nahuatl spoken in the furthest points is still mutually intelligible, that is, is a Nahuatl speaker from Nayarit able to understand a speaker from Tabasco? They're over 1500 kilometers apart!
@@luisorozco4370 Well, I don't know anyone from Nayarit who speaks Nahuatl, but for example, the speakers from Puebla can understand each other without much problem, as well as with the speakers from Veracruz.
Ne nitlapowa kemin nahuatl pero como tehwan ya titlapowa iga miage castellano pues ihkone amo nikagi miak modialecto
Orale ! Si.. Huastec Nahuatl is the purest form of Nahuatl. Classical nahuatl is littered with Catholic/ Indo European influence from 1600s.. I highly doubt anybody spoke Classical but Tlaxcallan missionaries. What you wrote is awesome.. Notice how none of the suffixes end in O and A , it's almost like russian. Here is the trasnaltion of what you said in cyrillic. Langfocus нимистаскаматиляа миак тен титенестлия пан ни таишьекалисти. на нинхуекиуа нахуатл , онка таманти тен амо никишмати, пампа миак таманти никитоа ка ешпанол.
@@chibiromano5631 adopting a different alphabet would be quite interesting, many did in North american native languages like Cherokee.
I love how the grammar is covered and the examples give you a basic idea of the grammar. It's fascinating how they adopted SVO from Spanish and have some similar pronunciations to Spanish.
Interesting right? The linguistic clashes, new ways of expressing with different linguistic groups. I had no idea about nahualt
i think it is really sad
icelandic name pog
@Tuscan417 correct. Languages constantly change over time, to resemble its neighbors in some way, while simultaneously becoming more different in other ways. No language has ever been immune to this process, albeit minority languages are obviously far more susceptible All you complainers who daydream about the purity of a language in some distant past? You're engaging in social construct, a fantasy
Hey friend. I can tell from your name that you're Icelandic. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that the TL sound in Nahuatl also exists in your language. Does it? Kind regards
Icelandic also has a TL sound, written as LL, so Eyjafjallajökull is pronounced Eyafyatlayökutl 😁🇮🇸🇲🇽
Cool!
Some German dialects have that too - for example you can say “Kastl” instead of “Kasten”, which means “small cupboard” instead of “cupboard”.
All the official languages (Spanish, Náhuatl, Mayan, Mixtec, etc) must be taught, analyzed and practised at national level of written, visual and oral form from Initial even Secondary.
I'm happe to hear that you're maintaining your true ethnic culture!
I’m not against learning native languages, but there are far too many for it to be possible. It’s why these languages should be taught at the regional level and I doubt that someone from Tamaulipas would care to learn huichol or someone from the Yucatán learning Nahuatl
Is this what actually happens or are you suggesting it?
@Weasel i already said that. I would like to speak teenek since it was the language of the huastecos. Mayans and Aztecs weren’t the only people. There were toltecs, people of Teotihuacán, olmecs, and Tarascans who contributed largely to mesoamerica. I’d only make Nahuatl the National language since it was more close to the lingua Franca at the time
@Weasel Should Nahuatl be teached in Baja California? I mean like...
My family speaks nahuatl, thank you for giving me more insight on their language
Do you not speak it?
@@calebf3655 nope, only know a few words, i grew up learning Spanish from them, wish they had taught me though
@@Erisarrt ¿Es desmaciado tarde para aprender?
@@Erisarrt That's so sad... Why didn't they teach you?
@@calebf3655 no creo que es tan tarde pero estoy ocupado con la escuela y ellos con el trabajo
I am Mexican, I live in Mexico City and speak Spanish as most of the people in my country. It is not common to listen to people speaking indigenous languages in the big cities, and these languages are not taught at schools. I learned by myself one of the many variants of Nahuatl and most people asked me: “What for? You will never speak Nahuatl.”
Cualtitoc. Nican tlahtolli nelli tlahtolli iMexico. Ocachi Mexicameh como tehua.
Pues es verdad, los idiomas mexicanos cada vez se pierden más, ya sea por el español, la hueva de la gente o por el nulo peso geopolítico que tienen.
That’s terrible. I get told I’m not “ Mexican” because I’m from the U.S. even though my parents are from Mexico. However I know who I am and am comfortable in my skin. One thing I asked is. If im not Mexican. Your not Mexican. We speak Spanish. Which was the language of the “ white” man. Who can and conquered and raped Mexico. For years. OUR language is this. So why doesn’t Mexico teach THEIR language? Its weird and ass backwards.
You know it’s interesting because this reminds me that my Linguistic professor told me that Mexicans, even if they don’t speak Nahuatl, use the [tl] sound in words such as “Atlas” and the phoneme is unique at least among the Spanish speaking countries.
Except that Atlas is the name of the one who held the heavens up in greek mythology, so it's a word that used in a huge part of the world. But yes, it's a phoneme used by mexicans when naming some animals, plants and places
@@Alex53Ace Asides from that a lot of names and words in Mexican Spanish comes from Náhuatl
*Yes. Spaniards pronounce Adlas, Adlántico, etc., insted of Atlas, Atlántico, like we do in Mexico.*
Excellent. I use Nahuatl a lot on my channel. I’ve also covered Mexico’s other minority languages. Thanks for the show! Adelante 🌶
hi Professor Bitto. Nice to see you on Paul's channel.
Ne in tlajtoa nahutl ni mo toca Carlos pacheco
I'm super stoked to see you here! I have watched likely every episode on your channel since finding it about 9 months ago.
@@metzli_moon thanks for your support!
The most powerful ruler in Nicaragua was Nahua, King Macuilmiquiztli. Proud of my Nahua heritage 💪🇳🇮
So interesting your video. Thanks a lot for it. You really researched the language well. As a native náhuatl de la Huasteca speaker I struggle with others variants of náhuatl. I try to find some cognates so the context let me to understand what are they speaking. Some times it's not so hard and other times really makes you to think 'what did it just said?' Well, always's a pleasure to learn others languages, it's another way to see the life.
Titlahtoa nawatlahtolli? Niyolpaki! Nimomachtia inin tlahtolli :) piyali
Piyali. Na niJaponés wan nimomachtia nawatlahtolli tleh Huasteca pan ome xiwitl ika Stanford. Ika totlamachtiliz tiktekiwiah ortografía de IDIEZ, sanpampa nikakki miak masewalmeh axkitekiwiah...
Pialli! Na niewa Finlandia pero iwan na nimomachtia nahuatlahtolli!
@@hsjoihs_linguistic kuali nimitz paleuis timo'machtis okachi in tlatoli
Can someone help me with translation of one English text into nahuatl
In South Africa there are two closely related language sub-groups with the TL sound as pronounced here, but in the Nguni languages it is usually preceded by an N, which makes it a nasalised sound (I am not a proper linguist but I think this is nasalisation). For instance; intloko (head), intloni (shame) [this is Nguni] e tla (do come); ho tlutla (to venerate), tlatsa (fill) [this is in Sotho-Tswana)
Hi Paul. Thank you for posting this. TL in Nahuatl is a sound that exists in other native North American languages, such as the one my grandparents spoke, Tlingit, which only has that phoneme (and not the voiced L). I have often suspected that there is some distant genetic relationship between those languages because of some familiar feel to Nahuatl. Now I see what looks like a cognate: siwatl in Nahuatl (woman) is shaawat in Tlingit. Fascinating.
A problem with that theory is that the "tl" in Tlingit is pronounced closer to "cl" or "kl", so "Tlingit" sounds more like "Klinkit". Also, as Paul mentioned, Nahuatl is part of the Uto-Aztecan family, and Tlingit part of the Na-Dene family, whose speakers actually migrated to the Americas separately sometime after most other natives.
Náhuatl comes from a language named "Uto-nahua". These languages were born in a radial area in Utah, so I am sure Tlingit is part (or at last has a relationship) of this family. And the people who spoke this languages even have similarities about mythology and religion :) do you speak Spanish? there is a good documentary about it but it's in Spanish. I am a náhuatl speaker (not native) so I am shoked about that siwatl word :O. Do you speak Tlingit?
To add to this - the salish languages - which is a huge language group covering a large geographic area also has the TL sound, pronounced exactly as Paul says. The St’at’imc have it twice - the T’ = TL in Nahuatl
Nahuatl and Tlingit are not believed to be related. Nahuatl is an Uto-Aztecan language, and Tlingit is part of the Na-Dené branch of the proposed Dené-Yeniseian languages. Now this is not to say that it's _impossible_ that they are related--the problem with reconstructing large language families that aren't things like Indo-European or Afro-Asiatic or Sinitic is that there aren't many written records that go very far back, which means that many proposed relations between languages in places such as the Americas are very hard to prove. But even so, the largest proposed language family for the Americas is Amerind, which specifically excludes the Na-Dené languages, and the most radical proposals for superfamilies that include the Na-Dené languages stretch more in the direction of Central Asia, rather than toward the rest of the Americas. In so far as much as there are similarities between Tlingit and Nahuatl, there's a good chance this is due to features and words gradually being exchanged between neighbouring languages rather than due to genetic relation between the languages.
@@Doorisessa if all of the Native Americans came from across the land bridge between Alaska and Russia, then it would stand to reason they all shared a language far enough back.
メキシコがスペイン語が公用語なのは知っていましたが、スペイン人が入植するより以前の現地の言葉が生き残っていたのを初めて知りました。 興味深く楽しませてもらいました。
this is a beautiful language that should be taught more in schools❤
I’m from El Salvador and most people can’t even get proper education and if they do it’s very far especially if you are native, a lot of us still stuffer generational poverty and w no education and therefore no opportunity we have no way to progress. We also still have some of these phrases in our language like aguacate and cipote.
There are many household items still referred to by their Nahuatl names in Mexico, and consequently in the United States. Even in Northern Mexico which doesn’t seem to have as many current speakers of Nahuatl. Comal, molcajete, popote, etc. are all common use loan words used by otherwise native speakers of English in the southern United States or by native speakers of Spanish in Northern Mexico.
popote is a funny one for me. my spanish teacher in high school would organize yearly trips to europe with some students during each year's spring break period. once, one of the students asked a waiter in spain for a "popote" and the waiter had no idea what she meant. my teacher often mentioned how the spaniards would refer to the class as "americans" and how they spoke weird. we at least dont use weird words like vosotros!
And many words penetrated in many languages like Xix-Tomatl (“water fat bellybutton fruit”), Xocoatl > Chocolate (bitter-flavoured water)
I remember being around Guadalajara and hearing the word "tianguis" for a market, which I later heard was from Nahuatl. Is that right?
@@slagthompson yes, it means open market without roof (street market)
or "guajolote" for turkey instead of "pavo" haha
As someone from Mexico, I gotta admit that I've always felt drawn to the Nahuatl, Zapotec and Mayan languages, but a couple of the reasons I haven't learned any of them are because of the lack of learning resources and not knowing which variety to learn. I love this video because it's the closest I've ever been to any of the indigenous languages of my country and I got to thank you for that, Paul! Keep up the good work! 🤩🙌✨
Mejor aprendes de tu cultura de los extranjeros.
A fascinating language. I have been interested in this language from seeing videos from David Tuggy and his daughter.
I had actually never seen any videos of them, but used David Tuggy’s materials as a source for this video.
Hey Paul, check "Super Holly" channel here in KZhead - it's the vblog of Tuggy's youngest daughter. Her Spanish is so damned good, in fluency, pronunciation, rythm, entonation, etc she could pass as a native speaker any day of the weak. On a few of her videos she's interviewed her dad about Nahuatl and its characteristics, pretty interesting conversations! Most of these interviews were done twice, in English and Spanish, but one or two were done only in English. You might be interested also in her videos in which she tells the story of how she learnt Spanish by brute force, being enrolled in a Mexican kindergarten without knowing a single word of Spanish, plus her experiences with (sadly) xenophobia and children's occassional cruelty towards people who are very different physically from themselves.
About "bestia" being used for horse, my dad (he's from Xalapa, just a few hours away from Orizaba) who only speaks spanish and english, told me most people referred to horses as "bestias" when he was young, but gradually the word "caballo" came to be the mos common word. People knew about the other meaning of the word "bestia" but it was rarely used, unless some more context was added, for example saying "bestias de la selva" meaning "beasts of the jungle" wouldn't be interpreted as "horses of the jungle" it would be interpreted as "wild beasts from the jungle".
Interesting, I remember back in Dominican Republic in the country side they used to call "bestia" to the female horse, the Spanish word normally used is "yegua". I have no idea why only the female was call that way.
In a number of places in México the prototypical “bestia“ is not a horse but rather a mule; a “beast of burden”, as the English phrase has it.
yay! tlaxtlaui ikniutli. thank you friend! i requested this on the mexican spanish video. as a trilingual… learn coatepec nahuatl with some guerrero nahuatl as well due to living between the two regions, mexican spanish and then english it makes me happy that younger people are learning more about nahuatl. my nahuatl is not as strong as i like it. my mother and aunt refuse to speak it outside the home unless they are super mad and it comes out lol. bro and cousins did not care to learn it. i’m in my 40s now and it’s very hard to find people that speak my specific dialect. not all nahuatl variations are intelligible. thank you for making this video happen. i still laugh when people give us a weird look when my mom will scold me in public in nahuatl lmao. peace to all my nahuatl brothers from Guerrero, Puebla, Morelos my elders would be proud to know that Nahuatl has some interest outside it’s respective regions. it was seen as a poor or inferior language and status. crazy how times have changed.
how how many nahuatl languages did you know that are intellegible with your variarety
My husband is from Guerrero!! We would love to learn his local dialect of Nahuatl.. it’s hard to find resources or that specific dialect of speaker here in the states. He’s been stateside since he was a toddler
Paul, you're great! Paul, sos fantástico, gracias por darle visualización a este idioma tan genial.
Nice video Paul thank you for taking the time to analyze such a beautiful language as Nahuatl, I'm from Mexico and I always find cool when I hear people speaking it
Nahuatl has also influenced Mexican Spanish resulting in unique ways to express certain things. For example, instead of saying "I'm late" (voy tarde), we say "it's gotten late for me" (se me hizo tarde), or "it's gotten dark for me" (se me hizo de noche) treating time as if it was some kind of entity that gets ahead of you. There's other examples like using redundant possessive, so instead of saying "Juan's house" (la casa de Juan), some people tend to say "his house of Juan's" (su casa de Juan), "the toy of my brother's" (su juguete de mi hermano), and so on
Very interesting, a cognitive influence beyond grammar
Thank you for this video! Super fascinating video. One thing is certain, Nahuatl has also influenced Mexican Spanish a lot 😊
Love this video, Paul. Also, the TL phoneme sounds similar to the 'LL' sound found in Icelandic.
And the "LL" in Welsh!
From Popocatepetl to Eyjafjallajökull
I don't think I have ever seen such a clear breakdown of a polysynthetic grammar system
Great video! For me, nahuatl it's a very complex and interesting language. Recently I rediscovered that my grand grandparents spoke Popoluca. The great majority of Mexicans doesn't spoke native languages but this languages are very close to us in our everyday routines, in the names of food, things and places.
Something interesting about the TL combination is that we pronounce them in one syllable in Latin-America (I guess because of the influence of these native languages). So when you see "Atlántico" (Atlantic) and "Atlas", we pronounce them as a-tlan-ti-co and a-tlas in LA but you will hear At-lan-ti-co and At-las in Spain.
thats something i never even was consciously aware of. pretty cool!
Esto despertó mi curiosidad! voy directo a Forvo a comparar!!!
No tenía idea. ¿Podría compartir algún video con la pronunicación europea?
Thats funny because whenever i see hispanics say nahuatl i always hear them say nahuatel or NAHUATTLE, like the tle in english "rattle" lol, they somehow get an english accent when pronouncing nahuatl
@@citrusblast4372 They don't pronounce tl correctly at the end of words, sadly. Only within words and at the beginning of words.
2 weeks ago I learned about the existence of Nahuatl by my aunts after asking about the other language that my moms side of the family sometimes speak. This video definitely helped with some more explaining on the language. I really hope I can try to learn it so I can at least relate to my family more ❤️
Such a great video of my language! Thank you for giving the importance it deserve!
The Brazilian Portuguese word for _cup_ ("xícara") comes from Nahuatl!🇧🇷🇲🇽
Não sabia
interesante
I'm glad that Langfocus is doing videos about indegonous languages like Nahuatl. it's so imported for people to learn about idegrnous cultures and appreciate them.
Especially since so many are endangered.
What perfect timing! I was just watching your Mexican vs European Spanish video last night and became interested in learning more about the Nahuatl language, and here you are!
Haven't watched it yet but already love it! As a huge fan of Mexico I'd love to learn nahuatl one day (gonna do it as soon as I have learned all the languages I'm learning now 😆). Great to see this beautiful language here on your channel, Paul.
Lol you sound like me! 😂
I was mindblown by your explanation. As a southern Mexican, I have always been surrounded by mayan speakers but I've never met a Nahautl speaker. I never thought I could be fascinated by a language spoken in my own country!
I'm really enjoying your content on indigenous languages. I'm hoping I will see more in the future. Thank you for all of your hard work!
Thank you so much for this and your many other entertaining and informative videos! I love watching them and sharing your channel! I do hope to see a video on Maya (Yucatec Mayan) somewhat soon. It is on my heart that I learn this language to be able to use it with Maya-speaking friends in Mexico! Plus it is so widely spoken! Mexico, Guatemala, Belize... and it is one of the most researched of the indigenous American languages. Plus, practically everyone has heard of the Mayans but many people don't know that these people are still around. :) I'm currently sharpening my Spanish so I can read and watch videos on Maya with ease (plus most people speak more Spanish than Mayan anyway in the communities I've been interacting with) but I know that if we got a video from you I would be able to breeze through it! Thanks again for all of the high-quality content you provide the world with! 🙏
I've been asking for this video for so long! תודה רבה
I was just looking at your channel earlier this morning wondering when a new video would be posted. And what a cool one, at that
I was literally thinking about your next upload when you uploaded this! Nice!
I am from Mexico City. I am learning Nahuatl now. I love it. I love your videos too.
The weirdest thing about the "tl" sound is that it's super easy and intuitive to make. It's the sound that Duffy Duck and Donald Duck characters abused, isn't it? ;)
Joking aside, it's even easier than that: it's almost the same sound at you find at the start of "clean", but you substitute a /t/ for the /k/ sound.
@@talideon Now that you say it I realize that the "tl" is actually no unique sound, it's literally just t+l, but slightly less "disciplined" and so slightly different, but not different enough to be considered a different phoneme. How swishy it becomes depends largely also on the vowel following it. And if there's none, it kinda falls apart as way. /tlee/ is easy to make sound clead, whereas /tly/ swishes up.
@@amjan How familiar are you with the IPA?
@@amjan It's more that the unvoiced stop devoices the /l/, which leaves you with a lateral fricative, /ɬ/.
Thank you for all your effort to make these videos possible.
"Chicolatl" / chocolate, my favorite one because it was a gift from the gods indeed :p Thanks for the video, I'm always fascinated about Nahuatl phonetic. The grammar part was very clear and interesting as well.
Loved the video! also loved that you used David Tuggy as a source, he's very smart and kind
It seems a lot of people know him from his videos with his daughter, but I had never seen them (or heard of her channel) until people started commenting about it. I just found his materials while digging for sources on Orizaba Nahuatl (to match the variety spoken by the guy who did the audio samples). But it's cool that so many people know who he is!
I find it very interesting that many of the consonants in this language were used in constructing the Klingon language.
It would be awesome if Paul does a video on Klingon since it was made into an actual language 😁
It's my second year taking Huasteca Nahuatl under IDIEZ, and I was amazed that I could understand so much of the varieties presented in this video. To note some differences, Huasteca Nahuatl lacks the o- prefix that Classical Nahuatl also has, and I'm also completely unfamiliar with the "amo" vs. "mach" distinction in Orizaba. That said, I'm pretty accustomed to most of the aspects mentioned, and it was nice to understand what the sentences mean before the translation comes up. Such is the joy of language learning!
i took a semester of nahuatl my professor was from IDIEZ too!
Classical nahuatl is the incorrect nahuatl or less pure version it has lots of indo european influence. Most of the stems and suffixes have latin o-a and they use their grammar. Huastec is a more accurate version.
can you show us more diferences examples between huastecan nahuatl and the variarity showed here?
Thank you for the dedicated work that you and your channel do.
It’s my pleasure. 👍🏻
I took some nahuatl courses in college and it is very difficult. Partly because its words differ so much from the European languages we're more used to and also because some varieties retain some degree of agglutinaton that was even greater in classical nahuatl.
Which college is that? I don't know if any colleges in my area that even offers such courses. What's even more difficult I can imagine is finding a native speaker that you can continuously communicate with (really that's the fastest way to get used to any language).
@@kenrose2523 It was in UNAM (Mexicós National University). I visited some Nahuatl-speaking communities and manages to hold some basic-level conversations, but without spending longer time immersed in the language and culture, it is very difficult to make significant progress, as you said.
@@eomguel9017 Excellent to hear, furthermore I assume there's not much of an economy in villages/communities so support yourself while being immersed is also challenging. Nonetheless, if it is one of your passions go for it. I myself want to learn Roman Latin for a fanfiction that I'm writing; at least Nahuatl is still somewhat spoken. Where do you find a native speaker for a language as virtually dead? Lol.
You have the coolest channel! You bring so much love and attention to the lesser known languages and it’s super cool. I have one gripe, as a Texan, with this video. Y’all is in standard English… at least OUR standard English😂🤠
I've been waiting for you to do this one for a while lol - never suggested it but in my heart I knew you'd eventually do it. I'm actually trying to make a conlang with some features pulled from Nahuatl, so it's nice to have yet another source. :)
Excelente la atención que le das a los idiomas indígenas. Saludos desde México!
Love your videos Paul. Thanks for featuring languages that I know little (or nothing) about.
This tl sound exists as a fricative in Cymru, i.e. Welsh. But it is heavier there. Especially in the north.
I agree! Although the ll is more often heard at the beginning of a word then at the end, maybe?
@@Ravenesque I Think so. I did try to learn Welsh for a month. I think Llewellyn is the only word - a name actually - that I know which has ll in the middle. On the other hand Llyn is also a word so that is probably 2 words put togrther.
@@PewPewPlasmagun I need to tell you about a place called Llangollen :)
@katerpudy what u are thinking of is just called Llanfairfechan by the locals lol
@@Ravenesque Ah! Well be that as it may.
Did you know that the "tl" sound also exists in Icelandic? It occurs in some consonant clusters like ll, tl and rl.
And also in our language, the Rungus language, from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
it's also in Tlingit of Alaska, icelandic is actually related to the Algonquin/ Iriquosi languges tho just like Finnish-Sami is.
@@chibiromano5631 Uhm. No, Icelandic is a northern germanic language. Absolutely no relation to any native North American languages.
@@Swooper86 no relation to Sami or the Finic? not even genetically? Why does Bjork look Sami if she is pure Icelandic? Like obviously, I know lots of 'germano' vikings went over there to iceland at one time, but wasn't there a group already there? I know for sure that Finnish is related to Iriqouis, there is 1st person accounts detailing this. But I heard that Sami made it to Iceland, and if they made it to iceland they made it to NE US and that would explain the commonality Finnish-Sami has to Iriqouis.
@@chibiromano5631 Absolutely zero, different language family (Icelandic is Indo-European, Finnish and Sami are Finno-Ugric). No genetic connection either. Epicanthic folds are a rare but known mutation that sometimes occurs among Northern Europeans, Björk happens to have them.
I was waiting for you to cover this, thank you!
yay you're back! and with a video on my favorite language no less
Please do an episode on either Yucatec Maya or K'iche'! Purepecha and Mixtec would also be welcome.
Thanks Paul for such interesting and informative video about a language spoken on my Country México wich I didn't know much about it.
Had been waiting for this! Thanks 👍👍
What a fascinating language! Thank you for this incredibly concise, sharp intro. Loved it!
Negative markers in Nahuatl, "amo" and "mach", are similar to those in Quechua, "ama" and "manan". Words formation are similar in these two languages too, since both are agglutinative and use many independent suffixes.
As far as I read almost every indigenous american language is agglutinative.
Peruvian here. In quechua, "ama" is for prohibitions, like: *Ama ripunalla haqayta. (Please don't go there. ) *Ama q'illa. (Don''t lie. ) *Amataq waqyariwayá. (Don't dare to call me.) Meanwhile "mana" basically means no *Manapuni / Manapunitaq (Never) *Nawa simita rimayta mana atinichu. (I can't speak nawatl language.) *Mana, manapunitaq haqayta risaqmi. (No, I won't go there never ever). *Mana kawallunchu ushanmi chayqa (That's not a horse, it's a sheep) 5:06 It's interesting posessives go before the base word. your-WORD [moWORD] but in Quechua is WORD-your [WORD(ni)yki] mamataytayki (your parents), wasiyki (your house) 3:32 TL sound sounds tricky to pronounce,,,,, 13:00 It's interesting to see how loan words changes into different languages. LL is lost?!
@@noncat3218 , qué variante del Quechua hablas ?
@@jaymearnao6760 Qullaw (Collao)
Thank you for doing a major Indigenous American language, Paul! Hope to see more in the future :)
I started Learning this language because I wanted to connect more with my roots and be able to speak a dialect because it's interesting and fun. I hace some far family members that speak mixteco and it sounds really nice.
I’ve recently gotten interested in Nahuatl and you end up making this vid. Perfect timing!
I‘d love to see more videos on Native American languages
Absolutely loved this video. As a Mexican, now I am more interested in learning this beautiful language. 🤓
Fascinating topic! I've always been interested in Aztec culture so I was curious about the language. And I love the construction of the words with prefixes and suffixes, it seems very logical.
thnx, very good as usually :-) unknowingly, i used quite some nahuatl grammar features in one of my conlangs. later on, i've met and for 3 yrs worked with a mexican colleague here in czechia (i am chemist) , who was proud of being of indigenous origin, she gave me some source books on nahuatl and let me listen to it. marvelous experience for a language lover 🥰
wow, avocado and guacamole come from the same classical nahuatl root? amazing!
As well as Chia, like that commercial "chi-chi-chi-chia"
Awesome video! I absolutely agree, Nahuatl is fascinating and surpisingly simple at the same time. I took four semesters of it in Uni. I believe it was a central variety spoken in a couple of villages in the Alto Balsas valley in Guerrero, it did have that glottal stop at the end! My teacher was a Linguist and Anthrolopogist who did several years of field research there (still does I believe). Sadly I'm really rusty since there isn't much use for it here in Germany, but I should definitely try to get back into it!
He estado esperando este video por años.
A fascinating language from a fascinating culture! Well researched!! 👍👍 Great work Paul.
As a Mexican from the central part of Mexico, I've been wanting to learn (central) Náhuatl for a while I've met indigenous people who speak it, it is actually very common to find them, selling artesanías, a lot of them even speak English (I live in Morelos, Cuernavaca is somehow touristic) I love how it sounds but I also know it is very difficult to learn, now I see why I thinks maybe my knowledge of Japanese, Russian and German might help with the weird structure, the way they mix everything and make just "one word"... I can only wonder Fortunately they teach Náhuatl at the school where I studied the languages i speak I haven't started because I don't feel ready yet 😅
Do it !
Sería en el CELE? Es bueno?
@@feuersturmfeuersturm2481 justo estudié en el CELE, mi experiencia fue con japonés, portugués, italiano y alemán Mi profa de japo era mexicana pero fue de la primera generación que aprendió de un profe japonés, los demás eran de sus respectivos países, y los 4 fueron de los mejores profesores que pude tener (lamentablemente el de alemán falleció, las de japo e italiano se jubilaron, la brasileña sigue ahí, creo) Sé que enseña ahí un profe de Náhuatl que sabe bastante y que enseña bien, una amiga mía estuvo en clases pero fueron en línea (pinshi pandemia) y dijo que no las disfrutó tanto
I'm Otomi from Edo Mex, same langauge background as you. I used Cyrillic to leaern Nahutl and it rapidly improved my ability to leaern so much of it fast. My dad spoke Otomi so I think it helped me learn Russian faster. For some reason Russian was super easy for me, i learned it in like 4 months and I think its because there might be some connection .. Central Russian have haplogroup Q which is the Native American gene, so that could explain, and also the NA DENE langauge family. But Japanese is also included too. I'm busy working on Masters program, but after i'm done I will learn Japanese and Tlingit and the Dene langauges. Also, Classical Nahuatl is not the pure Nahuatl , its Latanized. The real Nahautl must have sounded like Tlingit. Proof is MICHOCAN and MICHIGAN, they both mean the same thing, another weird thing is that Japanese has a word for this same meaning in MIZUMIKAN (lake settleemtn). I also know that Turkish has CHAPULTEPEC too , CHAPUL- Grasshopper/Raider TEPEK- Hill. Also, in Russia there is a TULA , the russians don't know what it means but it predates Mongol invasion and the Russ. Russia also has SOCHI , Russia which means fields . ..nahuatl has XOCHTLI(sochi) which means flower. I think at one time Central Asia was linked to Alaska and British Colombia and Nahuatl were originally from Washington like the Ojibwe and the Hopi. Somebody at unam told me that SEATTLE means CE-ATL (ONE RIVER), a reference to the Mizoula flood. Se que esto suena muy raro , pero no manches, si empiezas a estudiar Genetico, Lingustica y la historia de la regiones .. hay un historia mas grande de los nos contaron. Aedemas de eso Mexico no se convierto en pais Hispanohablante hast la llegada de Lazaro Cardenas. En un CENSUS formado por Gustavo Madero en el 1908 , encontraron que 82% de los Mexicanos hablan idiomas indigenas como Nahuatl, Otomi, Zapotec. etc. No fue hasta que Lazaro Cardenas hiso escula compulsatoria para los Mexicanos que espanol llego a dominar influenciar nuestras tieras.
@@AnariEvans Schön zu wissen, dass mein Vater so nette und interessante Schüler hatte! Si tienes tiempo, recomendaría mucho el Náhuatl, se nota que te gustan los idiomas y aprender un idioma lejano al español (como el japonés) siempre es muy interesante, cambia tu forma de expresarte y hasta de pensar. Mucha suerte!
I'm really glad you added the "an indigenous language of Mexico", I think many people are nahuacentrist when it comes to indigenous languages from Mexico and let's give credit to all the +60 indigenous languages that are alive in the country
True but isn’t Nahuatl the most populous of the indigenous languages? I’m American so I wouldn’t know for sure but I can’t temper any other one having a few million like Nahuatl.
@@baneofbanes Yes, but is mainly concentrated in specific areas, especially rural towns. Let's say that you're an indigenous person from Yucatán, then you probably don't speak nahuatl and you can't even understand it, then someone says that nahuatl is THE indigenous language from Mexico, then you'd probably feel attacked.
@@kQcsdN8JBUw True enough.
Thanks Paul, I was waiting for this one!
It really warms my heart that there's been interest in discovering, studying, learning, etc indigenous languages. I have a friend who is learning Cherokee.
Amazing how such old languages are still preserved with so few speakers
Nahuatl has over 1.5 million speakers. There's no danger that it will vanish anytime soon.
I has two million speakers. I’d say that’s a decent amount
Neither it is so old, there's a bunch of european languages that are much older, not to mention languages like Chinese, Persian, Aramaic and so on
@@mexicounexplainedOh really, I was born in the central area (Morelos) of Mexico. And let’s just say I moved around quite bit. i've never heard someone speak Nahuatl or any other dialects in life. So, I would say the odds of reviving the language are miniscule.
@@roykk2 There's nothing to "revive." There are more people speaking Nahuatl now than at the time of the Conquest. It's not going to die anytime soon. I've heard it spoken in Tijuana by some suppliers of mine (I live in San Diego and do business in TJ quite frequently).
Thank you for this short introduction to Nahuatl. Much more material is available on classical Nahuatl; it might therefore be a good idea to start by learning the classical variety, with lots of historical texts to read, and then adapt this classical language to the spoken variety of one's choice. Besides, the classical orthography helps to understand historical concepts: Xochitl, cihuatl, teotl....
Thank you for all the work you do for me to have this video to watch. Thank you.
Very excited for this video as long time watcher of your channel! A lot of my family are Nahua from northern Morelos and speak a a dialect of Nahuatl spoken in Hueyapan, Morelos. I hope to learn it someday but wow is it difficult to self teach far from home in the US!
It would be interesting if Mexico revives the usage of Nahuatl by making it a compulsory subject in areas where it is spoken. Reviving large-scale usage of Nahuatl in Mexico is like reviving large-scale usage of Spanish in the Philippines.
Agree 👍🏻 All Hispanohablante countries need to see what Paraguay 🇵🇾 done with Guarani and take that path, it’s sad if those languages died just like my native language (Gotlandic) it’s not really dead but it is nearly
Lol impossible
Except that Spanish doesn’t really need to be revived in Philippines given it’s not native, they have their own indigenous lingua franca and it’s a remnant of a colonial past lol.
@Joseph spoken by 1.7 million people in Mexico though
I’d say it’s more like reviving Irish in Ireland. Nahuatl is a language native to Mexico and Spanish is a colonial language of the Philippines. Reviving Nahuatl is reclaiming Nahuatl.
I hope they develop courses for Nahuatl and Quechua on DuoLingo.
I believe Pimsleur had Nahuatl… or maybe Clozemaster.. which honestly both taught me more in a few months than duolingo did in years
Tlazocamati miac Gracias x compartir este video invaluable para personas k conoscan la lengua nativa de México Saludos de Tijuana MX
This is so cool Paul. Because you aren't just explain about the national language but also the native or indigenous languages of a country. Would you also make some Indonesian language like Javanese or Sundanese? I think it would be really cool because you are one of the best language expert in KZhead 😊 Bravo Paul 💪
Náhuatl's grammar looks so clean, intuitive and expressive. Agglutinative languages are a joy to learn. No having to memorize tables of fusional endings. I wish I could learn this and practice with someone.
Very educational, excellent video! Thank you Paul
Thank you for all the support, Inez!
Glad to see you back.
Hi Paul, I just wanted to thank you for making this video! I'm really interested in learning this language, specially because it's native to my country and it's also endangered. So anyway, I really appreciate this video ❤ thank you