Ancient language, modern voices

[phil cash cash]

Ancient language, modern voices
Local students find indigenous Mexican dialect a key to their heritage

By Gil Griffin
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20040307-9999- 
mz1c7dialect.html
March 7, 2004

indigenous roots. Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune

How do you say, 'Mama'?"

The teacher smiled as he posed the question to about a dozen men, women  
and children sitting with him in a circle on the floor.

After a pregnant pause, an answer came.

"Nantli," answered one of the students in the circle.

"How about 'Papa'?" the teacher asked.

"Tahtli," replied another.

The informal quizzing continued as the group of native Spanish and  
English speakers who had gathered on a recent weeknight at the Sherman  
Heights Community Center heard, then recited, the words.

These words – unfamiliar, yet central to the students' heritage – form  
the basis of the ancient and complex language spoken by their ancestors  
– Nahuatl.

Less than 2 percent of the Mexican population – about 1.5 million  
people – speaks Nahuatl (pronounced NAH-waht). The language and its  
various dialects are also spoken by pockets of indigenous people in  
Central America. But, scholars say, it is far from being a dying  
language.

At these classes – held in Sherman Heights and San Ysidro – the members  
of Danza Mexi'cayotl ("The Dance of the Mexican people") are drawn to  
the language to help preserve it, while enriching their understanding  
of their heritage and discovering their ancestors' worldview.

"Learning Nahuatl gives me tools to interpret the world around me in a  
different way," said Veronica Enrique, a 45-year-old National City  
homemaker who described herself as a child of the Chicano movement of  
the late-1960s and early 1970s. Each week she attends the community  
center classes, bringing her sons, Graciano, 17 and Adrian, 5.

"It's still very much part of the life and culture of Mexican Indian  
communities, even though it's not common here. The indigenous Mexican  
worldview is that things are centered on nature, family and community.  
Nahuatl words show that their sense of time is cyclical rather than  
linear. That adds to the complexity of being a Chicana in the 21st  
century."

Today, more Mexican poets and playwrights are writing in Nahuatl. In  
the Mexican states of Morelos, Hidalgo and Puebla, it's common to see  
street signs in Nahuatl. Here in North County, many migrant workers, of  
Yaqui, Zacateca and Mixteco ancestry, speak Nahuatl as their first  
language.

Teacher Mario Aguilar started Nahuatl classes more than 20 years ago,  
as part of his Aztec dance group. The classes also have attracted many  
Mexican and Mexican-American college students, who are part of this  
growing movement to embrace elements of their indigenous lineage.

"The European aspect of Mexican culture (in Mexico) had been pushed,  
but the indigenous part had been crushed and almost obliterated," said  
Aguilar, "even though it's been present on this continent for 60,000  
years."

That condition bothers Bettzi Jimenez-Barrios, a 23-year-old SDSU  
student and Tijuana native, another Danza Mexi'cayotl member learning  
Nahuatl.

"In Mexico, there's a lot of racism toward the indigenous people and  
there are a lot of people there who don't care about their Indian  
heritage," she said.

"I went to school in Mexico before coming here and the schools never  
encouraged me to do research about my own culture. The Mexican  
government wants us to learn American or European ways. I don't want to  
get caught up in that. I want to learn Nahuatl to get to know who I  
am."

One day, Jimenez-Barrios said, she'd like to travel around Mexico and  
get to know the indigenous people and be able to speak to them in their  
own language.

Aguilar, who is 49, took up Aztec dance when he was 19 and eventually  
earned the title of danza capitan ("dance captain") from tribal elders  
in Mexico. He has been studying and speaking Nahuatl – the language the  
ancient Aztec dancers spoke – for 22 years. Aguilar said his parents –  
of Otomi and Tarasco Indian heritage, and participants in the Chicano  
rights and consciousness movement – pushed him to learn about his  
roots.

Aguilar, now an assistant director of an early academic outreach  
program at the University of California San Diego, did so by taking  
Chicano studies and anthropology courses at SDSU. Today's Chicano  
college students learning Nahuatl, he said, have a different mentality  
than when he was their age.

"Back then, there was a revolutionary fervor and feeling like we could  
make a difference in the world," Aguilar said. "Today, young Chicanos  
studying their roots are more pragmatic about life and history as  
opposed to the idealism we had in our youth. It's nice to see people  
getting interested in Nahuatl again."

This summer, Aguilar said, he may pursue teaching Nahuatl in Mexico at  
the University of Zacatecas. In the fall, he said, he hopes to teach  
the language at an academic setting in San Diego.

But in colleges and universities across the United States, the teaching  
of Nahuatl is gaining momentum in some unexpected places.

One of North America's foremost Nahuatl scholars, John F. Schwaller,  
teaches the language at a branch of the University of Minnesota in the  
small town of Morris, near the South Dakota border. He previously  
taught Nahuatl at Indiana University and the University of Montana.

"It's a factor of the growing Mexican-American population in this  
country and in its universities," said Schwaller, who has no Mexican  
heritage, but has degrees in Latin American studies and spent years  
traveling throughout Mexico.

Other colleges and universities, Schwaller said, such as Yale, Tulane  
and Vanderbilt, are offering formal Nahuatl classes or study groups.

Jimenez-Barrios and other college students say they find learning  
Nahuatl extremely challenging.

"Learning English is easier," said Jimenez-Barrios, who studiously  
takes notes during the Nahuatl instruction.

"Here, you hear how people speak English. I have some friends at home  
who speak some Nahuatl, but there aren't many other speakers. But I  
wanted to join a group where I could learn it. I'd love to become  
fluent."

Other Nahuatl learners, like Elias McGann, say studying the language  
gives him a greater sense of self-awareness.

"You realize who you are and where you come from," said McGann, a  
21-year-old trail keeper at the San Diego Zoo and visual artist who  
lives in Serra Mesa. He has been a member of Danza Mexi'cayotl since he  
was 14.

"My family is from the Tarasco tribe in Michoacan and my family members  
speak Nahuatl. My uncle first got me into it. It's a very hard  
language. The grammar and grammar rules are complicated."

Yet, many words in Nahuatl are similar to Mexican Spanish. To make it  
easier, Aguilar regularly gives the members of the group handouts  
reflecting how many modern-day words spoken in Mexico have Nahuatl  
origins. Recently, Aguilar gave his students copies of the lyrics of  
the Mexican national anthem in Nahuatl.

"One of the beautiful things about classic Nahuatl is that people spoke  
in allegories and couplets," Aguilar said.

"The Nahuatl word for 'poetry' is 'in xochitl incuicatl.' That means,  
'the flower, the song.' That's the kind of worldview they had. They  
looked at things in a spiritual way, so that even the most mundane  
object or experience became sacred to them."

Using the Nahuatl word ollin – which loosely means "movement" – as an  
example, Aguilar compared learning Nahuatl to peeling onions.

"Every time you peel a layer off of one word, there's another one to  
peel," Aguilar said. "Ollin is the center of the onion, but it relates  
to the heart moving, the earth moving and the stars moving. In Native  
American tradition, nothing is ever literal, unlike the European model,  
which puts words in black-and-white terms."

Augustine Rodriguez, a 38-year-old U.S. Navy retiree, attends the  
classes with his wife, Angie, daughters Jessica, 13, and Amalia, 6, and  
infant son, Augustine. The family drives to Sherman Heights for class,  
all the way from Perris, in Riverside County.

"It's a sacrifice, but it's worth it," he said, while packing up his  
and his family's dancing gear and gearing up for the 80-plus-mile drive  
home.

"The language is important. It's influenced a lot of everyday words. We  
don't want the tradition to die. It's forgotten in a lot of ways here,  
but for it to still be around gives us hope that it won't."

With the kind of dedication to Nahuatl shown by Rodriguez and Enrique,  
the National City woman who regularly brings her two sons to the  
classes, the future of the language seems secure.

"I have my children learn it because it's part of who they are,"  
Enrique said. "It's a responsibility and a privilege to provide that  
for them. It's important to keep Nahuatl alive in our next generation."

Language comparisons

NAHUATL

cuauhtli

no'palli

tonalli

atl

tzopilotl

ozomatli

tepetl

hueyapan

hueyxolotl

xochitl

SPANISH

aguila

nopal

sol

agua

zopilote

chango

monta×a

océano

guajolote

flor

ENGLISH

eagle

prickly pear cactus

sun

water

buzzard

monkey

mountain

ocean

turkey

flower

Courtesy of the Mex
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 9615 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20040308/c119c9d6/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: starbullet.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 98 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20040308/c119c9d6/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
cayotl Indio Cultural Center
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 75 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20040308/c119c9d6/attachment-0001.bin>