Náhuatl and Mayan Language Renaissance Occurring in Mexico

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...

And remember that this is possible because the Spanish did respect the old culture. Actually it was the mexicans after their independence that tried to remove it.