Nahuatl

[Frances Karttunen]

The use of the word Nahuatl as a language name and the term Nahuah as  
an ethnic term have been mined out of old sources, but I am not sure  
they were much used in precontact time.

Nahuatlahtolli 'clear, intelligible speech' was contrasted with  
popoloca 'to speak gibberish.' so the Mesoamerican world could be  
divided into "us" and "them" in terms of "people whose language is  
mutually intelligible with ours" and "people whose language is  
unintelligible."

That's different from Mexihcatl/Mexihcah, Acolhuah/Acolhuahqueh, etc.

Fran

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