Nahuatl ([ˈnaː.wat͡ɬ] (help·info)[1]) is a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan[2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family which is indigenous to Mesoamerica and is spoken by around 1.5 million Nahua people in Central Mexico.
Groups speaking Nahuan languages have existed in central Mexico at least since 600 AD[3] and at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico one of these Nahuatl-speaking groups, the Aztecs, dominated central Mexico. Because of the expansion of the Aztec Empire the dialect spoken by the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan had become a prestige language throughout Mesoamerica. With the arrival of the Spanish and the introduction of the Latin Alphabet Nahuatl became also a literary language with large amounts of chronicles, grammars, poetry, administrative documents and codices being written in the language during the 16th and 17th centuries.[4] This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan dialect has been labelled Classical Nahuatl and is among the most studied and best documented languages of the Americas.
^^^^^
CB:Like I said, Aztecs spoke Nahuatl. Founded Tenochtitlan , now Mexico City.
>>> "Charles Brown" <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> 12/28/2007 11:27 AM >>>
Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
(I assume Nahuatl is the name of the people as well as the language.)
Can somebody tell me about when worship of Quetzalquotl died out/was finally stamped out? Are there any remnants in Mexican religion today (outside the obvious blood obsession)? Thanks!
^^^^^ CB: I'm sure Google has more, but from memory from graduate school. Nahuatl is, I believe, the language of the Aztecs , who founded Mexico City. The Aztecs were the Colhua Mexica, migrating from the North in the area of what is now New Mexico or Arizona. Their myth told them to settle where an eagle had a serpent in its mouth. That turned out to be in the middle of a lake. So, they founded Mexico City there.
There were prior civs in the Valley of Mexico before the Aztecs. The pyramids at Teotihuacan are pre-Aztec. Also, there had been a Toltec empire before the Aztecs.
Quetzelquatl is a god , but not from the Valley of Mexico, rather in the Yucatan peninsula, where the Mayas had been too. I don't think Q was a Mayan God though. Also, Q and the Mayan high civ were from an earlier epoch than the Aztecs' empire.
Q is the "feathered serpent" though. So, there is some imagic similarity to an eagle with a serpent in its mouth, but they are not the same. Q is not Aztec.
Ok now I'll google and see if my memory is accurate.
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