Nahuatl and CJ

[Henry Kammler]

Nahuatl and CJ? Now these are interesting stories. Though I don't speak CJ, I
coincidentally do speak modern Nahuatl (central Guerrero dialect) and I'm also
a bit familiar with colonial Aztec. I would say there is no more resemblance
between CJ and Nahuatl than between the languages of the region and Welsh or
Gaelic (the latter used to be mentioned by travellers at different spots in
North America, Catlin was one of those, simply because of phonetic
resemblances).

Spanish explorers insinuated Nahuatl and Nootka do be of the same stock
because
of the prominence of /tl/ and /tz/ (the way they wrote both languages) and
culturally because of the existence of what Spanish peceived to be "royalty"
and "idolatry" (some non-Native neighbors on Vancouver Island believe to this
day the images on crest poles are gods and being prayed to...).

Nahuatl indeed used to be a trade language (down to Nicaragua) and was used by
the missionaries also in non-Nahuatl areas which contributed to the
replacement
of local languages by Nahuatl, a process still observed in the
Popoloca-speaking
areas of Puebla in the 20th century.

I have no kowledge of the existence of a pidginized Nahuatl, except when you
look at Mexican Spanish that contains hundreds and hundreds of Nahuatl
loanwords (all the native languages of Southern California, the Southwest,
Northern Mexico and - as far as we can tell from scanty sources - of Texas
contain Nahuatl-loans, borrowed either directly or via Spanish). So
there is an
odd chance for finding nahuatl traces in CJ just as in English (how do you say
in CJ "avocado", "chocolate", "cocoa", "chili/hot pepper"...? another Nahuatl
word in English is "coyote" and there are more). I think this was discussed
before: does /kiwitan/ have anything to do with /kawayo/ (the latter is
Nahuatl
or what did you think :-) )?

Historically, direct contact with proto-CJ may have occurred in North-Central
California or on the North West Coast (especially around the short-lived
settlements at Nootka and Cape Flattery) but had a Nahuatl-speaker
confirmed he
didn't e.g. understand Nootka language, wouldn't this be mentioned in the
explorers' reports?

Both CJ and Nahuatl have a rather simple and similar phoneme inventory,
so there
is superficial resemblance. Our beloved lateral fricative is non-phonemic but
occurs in Guerrero Nahuatl predictably as a devoiced L in syllable-final
position. TL exists in both.
Is there phonemic vowel length in CJ or in Grand Ronde Wawa?

Henry K.

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