Nahuatlan?

War14655 at aol.com War14655 at aol.com
Fri Oct 20 13:56:13 UTC 2000


look at u, labeling the so-called ancient "aztec" language or so-called
classical language as "extinct."  I think it's high-time that you rid
yourself of that practice.  Even Joe Campbell admonishes that, "Scholars of
Nahuatl are accustomed to talk about 'classical Nahuatl' and what is spoken
today; yet the people who speak Nahuatl today are the desecndants of the
people who spoke it five centuries ago.  The practice of isolating classical
Nahuatl is rather like calling the English of Shakespeare's time "Classical
English" while referring to English as it is spoken today in various places
around the world as "the modern dialects."  It is not technically wrong, but
if we don't do it for English, we should be wary of doing so for
Nahuatl"(Campbell and Karttunen p2).  If this is a listserve of so-called
scholars and a lowly undergrad student, like me, can see the error in this
kind of mislabeling, then surely u guys see it too...



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