Náhuatl and Mayan Language Renaissance Occurring in Mexico

Mexico has so many greater problems to discuss than a few people learning the ancient tongue. 2 days ago a beauty influencer was shot dead on a live stream, and female (and male) mayors have been gunned down regularly. I couldn't care less about what they're speaking over there, I hope they take care of their basic human rights and giving their citizens dignity first.

What do you expect the average Mexican to do about that? The Cartels have substantially more power than the state.

I think it's great that they're reclaiming some power by relearning their ancient languages that were nearly destroyed by their colonizers

human rights and dignity are not something to be given (by whom?) but to be fought for. and the most important weapon in that fight is building a community. discovering your identity and making a connection to the community you live in is a big part of that. and learning your ancestral language is a way to make that connection.

Well, there are stories such as this:

https://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/11/mexican-marines-recon...

People without past have no future. Connecting to your ancient traditions is a form of empowerment. Look at what happened to Jews with Hebrew. It helped rebuild a united identity and contributed to Palestine's de-colonization effort. I hope people of the Americas will do the same and free themselves of the Spanish colonizers.

What kind of power are you speaking of? "Cultural power" or something? Does it mean much in practice in this context? I fail to see what its reclaim would achieve against fighting cartels.

Well, the cartels have more power as you get away from the Valley of Mexico. Much of the power distribution in Mexico is related to geography afaik. When terrain is difficult to cross, enforcing a monopoly on power is difficult. For another example of this problem, see Afghanistan.

Most genetic studies show the average Mexican has around half and half Native American and European ancestry with about 5% African ancestry. 99% of Mexicans speak Spanish and 94% speak only Spanish.

I’d love to know what Spanish decolonization in such a place looks like.

There is no objectively correct demographic language or culture for a given location. You have to pick a point in time to go back to and there is no way to do that that isn’t arbitrary.

Human beings are highly irrational. Increases in cultural power often gives them a sense of greater empowerment that causes them to take increases in political power. That's why dictatorships seek to suppress and control cultural practices that could lead to empowerment such as martial arts, religion, meditation, language, art, gender nonconformance, etc.

I don't disagree, and I see how that would go about, but does it have any immediate effects? Is it not more of a long-term thing?

Mexicans could start with liberalizing their gun laws since all the bad guys already have them. Zapatistas and other local resistance groups aren't afraid to fight them when they have weapons, and some of the communities that actually have gotten their hands on guns have managed to make it more trouble than it's worth for the cartels.

> The Cartels have substantially more power than the state.

This is a common misconception. The state can absolutely dominate any cartel in Mexico, they just choose not to for political reasons.

> relearning their ancient languages that were nearly destroyed by their colonizers

Nahuatl is actually a colonizer language. The Aztecs brutally subjugated other native peoples, so brutally in fact that those groups were extremely eager to ally with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztec empire.

Mexicans are indeed a new people drawn from both native and European stock and a fusion of those cultures. There is a notion of Mexicans (or even Latinos) as la raza cósmica, which is deeply connected with Our Lady of Guadalupe, regarded as "the first mestiza". This mestizo identity is core to Mexican identity. It isn't colonial even if colonialism served as a vector and a catalyst for it.

The idea of "going back" to some kind of pre-Spanish Mexico is nonsensical, and it would entail the very negation of Mexican identity and the invention of a fictional identity. Such "decolonization" movements are ahistorical. And frankly, I doubt most Mexicans would want a "return", whatever that even means.

Of course, this is different from learning Náhuatl. And it's worth noting that the Jesuits worked to preserve the native languages of the New World. You see this with Náhuatl. You see this in Paraguay where the Jesuits immediately began codifying and preserving Guarani in their missions, and where it is still widely spoken today.

> Mexico has so many greater problems to discuss than a few people learning the ancient tongue. 2 days ago a beauty influencer was shot dead on a live stream

Yucatan ain't Jalisco. That's like saying Alaska shouldn't support indigenous Alaskan languages because there is racial animus or police brutality in Mississippi.

Mexico is a federal state like the US, that's why it's the Estados Unidos Mexicanos/United States of Mexico.

I couldn't have written a better response than this, absolutely fantastic.

I was not suggesting "going back" to some sort of medieval past. Aboriginal languages and cultures do exist and they are oppressed. They are not fictional. Oddly, your arguments sound like Putin's points on Ukraine and "fictional" Ukrainian culture. 40 years ago, they all spoke Russian, and the moment they tried to unite around an indigenous, a more deeply connected culture for them, they got attacked by a colonial power.

40 years ago about 2/3 of Ukraine were native speakers of Ukrainian and primarily spoke Ukrainian at home (close to the same number as today).

A little over 1% of Mexicans speak Náhuatl (the most common indigenous language).

There is no comparison here.

If by decolonize you just mean stop oppressing minority cultures and languages then that sounds great. But decolonization is the wrong word for that.