<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>In a message dated 01/21/2002 11:28:57 AM Eastern Standard Time, mdmorris@indiana.edu writes:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I also lean toward a western<BR>
hypothesis (whether north or south I know not) for eruption of Nahuatl in<BR>
central and eastern Mexico and the consequent separation of "Mayan"<BR>
languages into northern and southern branches, and I believe that the Rio<BR>
Balsas-Rio Atoyac route into the Tlaxcala-Puebla valley would be the<BR>
probable route of Nahuatl's migration into central-eastern Mesoamerica.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Given my current work in the Mezquital, this makes sense to me, as I am quite sure that Nahuatl was not spoken in that area in the Postclassic except by elites and small migrant groups. I don't see any evidence for a sea of Otomi migrants arriving prior to that, so I assume it (or an ancestral form) has been spoken across Hidalgo for a long time, if not since the initial divergence from proto-Otomanguean. Nahuatl entering from the west rather than the north fits with this.<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Given the clear presence of Nahuatl in the culture of the<BR>
Olmeca-Xicallanca who establish in Cholula and Cacaxtla by 650 A.D. and<BR>
who had been the key mediators of long distance trade between Teotihuacan<BR>
and the region of the Usamacinta River, I have a hard time imagining that<BR>
Nahuatl was not a key part of the fluorescence of culture, commerce and<BR>
communication in the "Classic" period of Teotihuacan and Cholula. </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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I'm curious what you base the linguistic identity of the Olmeca-Xicallanca on. I'm not disputing the statement, although I still am inclined to think that the major movement of Nahua-speakers came in the Epiclassic, not the Classic, I'm just curious what amounts to a "clear presence."<BR>
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Alec Christensen</FONT></HTML>