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<DIV>Regarding Anthony Appleyard's query:</DIV>
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<DIV>"With apologies for asking a novice question, but: how mutually
comprehensible <BR>are the various dialects of Nahuatl? If someone went to a
modern Nahuatl <BR>speaking area, knowing only classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl
learned from a <BR>textbook, how much would he and the local people understand
each other?"</DIV>
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<DIV>It's hardly a novice question!</DIV>
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<DIV>The people who have looked hardest at the question of intelligibility
between dialects of languages in Mexico are the researchers associated with the
Summer Institute of Linguistics. Since one of their goals is to translate the
Bible and other educational materials into as many languages as possible on a
world-wide level, they are very focused on whether or not people from a given
town would understand material written for those from another town or region.
They devised a method of testing this question, which consists of recording a
text in each of the two places to be compared, then formulating ten questions in
each place, concerning the content of the recording. The recording is played for
ten individuals in each of the two places (as well as playing each recording in
the place it was recorded, as a control); then each of the participants is
asked the ten questions. The results are averaged, giving the percentage of
intelligibility between the two places. The critical percentage to guarantee
adequate comprehension is set at 80%, although this can vary, depending on
social factors and other considerations. (See Jorge A. Suárez, The Mesoamerican
Indian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1983, section 2.2, and the
"Introduction" in Ethnologue, Languages of the World, 13th ed., Summer Institute
of Linguistics, 1996.)</DIV>
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<DIV>Ethnologue has the results of these studies. Twenty-seven varieties of
náhuatl, most with internal divisions or "dialects", are
listed. Intelligibility ranges from 94% (Pajapan, Ver./Oteapan, Ver.) to 0%
(Morelos/Mecayapan, Ver.), with everything in between. The Epiclassic and
Postclassic expansion of the Nahua speakers is responsible for a rather
chaotic linguistic panorama, with some varieties showing high intelligibility in
spite of a large geographic separation, and others showing low intelligibility
in spite of being quite close. (Compare this situation to the Otomi
languages, which have much deeper roots in Central Mexico than Nahuatl, and thus
a greater correspondence between linguistic and geographic proximity.)</DIV>
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<DIV>Ethnologue can be consulted in its entirety on-line at <A
href="http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/">http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/</A>.</DIV>
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<DIV>Classical Nahuatl is listed, but it wasn't compared with any other, being
an extinct language.</DIV>
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<DIV>I would guess that intelligibility between Classical Nahuatl and any modern
variety would be fairly low.</DIV>
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<DIV>I'm sorry this is so long; I was just looking at this question and I have a
pile of note cards with pertinent information on my desk.</DIV>
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<DIV>Un saludo,</DIV>
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<DIV>David Wright</DIV></BODY></HTML>