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Náhuatl and Mayan Language Renaissance Occurring in Mexico

(yucatanmagazine.com)
148 points bryanrasmussen | 1 comments | 13 May 25 16:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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jf ◴[16 May 25 06:10 UTC] No.44002280[source]▶
I’ve been paying more attention to Náhuatl after reading “The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction” [0] and seeing the names of my great uncles and great aunts in there (e.g. Xochitl, Nezahualcoyotl) which opened a mystery of sorts. My grandmother and her older brother had very classically Mexican names and the four younger siblings had Náhuatl names, but why? My great aunts didn’t know but I suspect that the answer is related to the “Indigenismo” movement in Mexico [1], which may also be behind the linguistic renaissance that this article describes.

My personal ties to this history aside, it’s fascinating to see how many Náhuatl words made it into Mexican Spanish and into English and beyond! [2]

Footnotes:

0: https://academic.oup.com/book/481

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenismo_in_Mexico

2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Nah...

replies(4): >>44003417 #>>44004344 #>>44005868 #>>44006724 #
1. WillAdams ◴[16 May 25 11:59 UTC] No.44004344[source]▶
I'm most of the way through:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166433.Empires_of_the_Wo...

which has a very interesting discussion of how the native usage of these languages was affected by the Catholic Church and the children/descendants of immigrants.

Ages ago, there was an article on how earthen homes were traditional in many parts of South America (_not_ Pueblo) and the advantages of them --- folks lived quite well in this part of the world for millennia before Columbus and those who followed him --- and it is due to their innovations that Malthus' math was incorrect, which we should all recall the next time we have a potato chip, or eat anything made of maize.