NAHUA IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICA: Evidence from Maya inscriptions

Abstract

This paper examines Nahua words found in both the Maya codices and the monumental texts. These words, spelled with syllabic signs, occur for the most part in contexts associated with foreign influence: Nahuatl deity names and words for "helmet," "tribute," and "heart." One word-"and then"-is a conjunction used frequently in discourse. Sound correspondences between these loan words and the Nahua sources suggest an Eastern Nahua dialect as the likely source during the Classic period. Thus, Mexican influence in the Maya area, frequently attributed directly to Teotihuacan, may in fact have come by way of Nahua-speakers settled in the Gulf region. The epigraphic evidence establishes that Nahua speakers were influential in Mesoamerica far earlier than previously believed. Nahuatl, the tongue of the Mexica (Aztec) empire, is documented in a vast body of literature. Historical texts, poetry, dictionaries, and grammars provide a clear picture of this language, which is still spoken today in the Valley of Mexico but was once also widely dispersed throughout Mesoamerica as a result of political and commercial interaction and population movement. The language of the Mexica, however, was only one of a number of related languages and dialects collectively termed Nahua. We use Nahuatl to refer to the language of the Aztecs and those contemporary dialects directly related to it. Nahua includes Nahuatl and other related languages and dialects in Veracruz, Chiapas, and Guatemala, as well as Pipil, spoken today in western El Salvador, and Pochutec from Oaxaca. The diversity of this language family is suggested by sixteenthcentury native histories that differentiate between groups speaking Nahuatl and those whose languages are similar but not precisely the same: These Tolteca, as it is said, were Nahua; they did not speak a barbarous tongue. However, their language they called Nonoalca.. .. [A]ll the Nahua, those who speak clearly, not the speakers of a barbarous tongue, are the descendants of the Tolteca, for they are those who remained, those who could no longer migrate [Sahagún 1959-1982:Book 10:170]. Here are mentioned-are named-those called Nahua. They are the ones who speak the Nahuatl language. They speak a little [like] the Mexica, although not really perfectly, not really pronounced in the same way [Sahagún 1959-1982:Book 10:175]. The Tlalhuica. These are the dwellers of the hot lands. They speak Nahuatl [Sahagún 1959-1982:Book 10:186]. They [the Coixca] are not speakers of a barbarous tongue; they speak Nahuatl [Sahagún 1959-1982:Book 10:187]. These passages suggest at least as much diversity in the Nahua family in the sixteenth century as can be observed today (Lastra de Suárez 1986; Monzón 1990). Nahua-speaking towns included many of the principal population centers in central Mexico, including the two other members of the Triple Alliance, Texcoco and Tlacopan, and Epi-Toltec centers such as Chalco, Colhuacan, Tenayocan, and Tepepolco. These populations were already established in the region when the Mexica arrived in th...

"The Only True People": Linking Maya Identities Past and Present

“…The appearance of this title in the early eighth century is consistent with the seventh-and eighth-century dates for several other Nahua words spelled syllabically in Maya texts (Macri and Looper 2003b). These words suggest that certain Maya regions experienced possibly several episodes of influence from Nahua speakers.…”

“…Nun in the name of the early Tikal ruler represents an unusually early date for a possible loan from a Nahua language into the vocabulary of the Classic Maya, adding to a growing body of data that suggests an early form of Nahua was present in central Mexico and the Gulf region from as early as the Late Preclassic and was at least one of the languages used at Teotihuacan (Dakin and Wichmann 2000;Macri and Looper 2003b;Macri 2005). Perhaps more important for a discussion of ethnogenesis, the use of the term nun "someone who does not know the language of the land" in names of prominent individuals suggests an acknowledgment of the presence of those who speak differently from the local population and the prestige associated with those persons.…”

The Evolution of Ancient Maya Exchange Systems: An Etymological Study of Economic Vocabulary in the Mayan Language Family

“…Yet the similarities appear to be completely superficial, since there is no indication of the complex initial preconsonantal vowel /a:/ in Mayan languages, nor the /l/, and the semantics are decidedly different anyway. Moreover, as discussed above, *pataan otherwise reconstructs quite nicely as a purely Mayan root to proto-Core Mayan, which in any model dates to well before the period of Teotihuacan influence that Macri and Looper (2003) wish to connect with Nahua contact. Superficial lexical similarities are often coincidental and extremely weak bases for establishing cognacy.…”

“…There are those who maintain that *pataan is actually derived of Uto-Aztecan origins and represents Classic period contact between Nahua and Mayan languages (Macri and Looper 2003). They argue this point on the basis of similarity to Uto-Aztecan words for “to trade,” patla in Nahuatl and Pipil, or “to change” *patla in proto-Nahua and *pa:ta for proto-Southern Uto-Aztecan as reconstructed by Dakin (1982).…”

“…To summarize, many of the preeminent linguists working in the region adhere to the established, orthodox view maintaining the word *kakaw diffused about ancient Mesoamerica from a Mixe-Sokean language (Campbell and Kaufman 1976; Justeson et al 1985; Kaufman and Justeson 2007). Some others, however, subscribe to a more recent proposition that it is proto-Nahua in origin, being a reduplicated innovation on a Southern Yuta-Nawan word for “egg,” *kava (Brown 2010; Dakin and Wichmann 2000; Macri and Looper 2003). The present author considers the Nahua origin hypothesis quite thoroughly refuted.…”