Ancient Tongue Linked to Aztec Past (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-nahuatl5feb05,0,3957607.story?coll=la-news-learning[1]
        _From the Los Angeles Times_ 

  ANCIENT TONGUE LINKED TO AZTEC PAST    

  A Santa Ana man teaches classes in Nahuatl, keeping alive a language that
lets many students connect with their heritage.        By Jennifer Delson
       Times Staff Writer

         February 5, 2006

For 15 years, David Vazquez has awakened each morning at 5:30 to clean the pews
and the patio at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Santa Ana.

His wife, Rosa, brings him lunch. When the musicians don't show up on Sundays
for the Spanish-language service, Vazquez plays the guitar. For Good Friday, he
weaves religious figures out of palm leaves and makes church decorations for Day
of the Dead.

But what has attracted attention among Mexican Americans seeking to learn more
about their heritage is his second, unpaid job. He teaches his native Nahuatl,
a language spoken by the Aztecs and still spoken in parts of central Mexico. 

An estimated 1 million people, including more than 25,000 Mexican immigrants in
the United States, speak some form of Nahuatl (NAH-wa-tl, with the "l" nearly
silent). It varies in pronunciation from region to region. 

For Vazquez and his students, learning the language is a way to link themselves
to Mexico's core. 

"Promoting this language helps preserve my culture," he said. "This is our
mother tongue and offers a direct route to express yourself and understand the
culture."

More Mexican Americans in Southern California are learning the language "as a
journey to their past," said Lupe Lopez, executive director of the Indigenous
Peoples Alliance, a cultural rights organization in Anaheim that offers the
classes. Books are being published in Nahuatl and classes are offered
throughout Southern California, she said. 

Vazquez, who has little formal education, spends hours each day studying at
home and teaching the language at local community centers and colleges.

He has made more than 250 large posters to teach people such common phrases as
"how are you?" The posters include the phrases in English, Spanish and Nahuatl.

A modest man who wears a long ponytail and uses words sparingly, Vazquez is "a
real Renaissance man," said Rev. Brad Karelius, who welcomed the Mexican
immigrant to the Santa Ana church in 1989. 

"I've seen what he can do in art, poetry and language. I know for him, [the
church] is just a day job."

Vazquez lives in Santa Ana, but has big ideas that frequently take him back to
his hometown about 120 miles southwest of Mexico City, where Nahuatl is
commonly spoken. With money he has saved, he has built a nine-bedroom house
there and has plans for a Nahuatl learning center nearby.

He hopes the center, with the support of villagers, will not only promote the
understanding and use of Nahuatl, but also provide a place for him to promote
an entirely new Nahuatl alphabet he has developed. 

The center would be located on 20 acres spanning two towns and communally owned
by villagers.

Speaking in telephone interviews, officials of the two towns said they are
raising about $10,000 for construction costs.

"There are many communities that are losing their ties to Nahuatl," said
Gaudencio Cruz Aguilar, one of the local officials. "This is very important for
us and we think an alphabet will reinforce the language." 

Groundbreaking is set for May 13.

"This is a project that really comes from my heart," said Vazquez. "We will be
able to teach people a letter system that has not been imposed on us from
outside."

Despite local enthusiasm, the project faces many hurdles, in part because
outsiders question the need for a new alphabet.

"It's a very radical idea to remake a language. I think it will be very hard to
teach it," said Juan Jose Gonzalez Medina, a representative of the Puebla State
Cultural Secretariat.

John Schwaller, a professor of Nahuatl and Latin American history and
literature at the University of Minnesota-Morris, said there have been other
attempts to create a Nahuatl alphabet, but none have stuck. 

"A Nahuatl speaker has access to millions of written documents in European
characters. If they learn a different orthography, that wonderful cultural
legacy is closed off to them," Schwaller said.

Meanwhile, Vazquez is teaching classes at El Modena Community Center in Orange.
The two-hour classes, given in Spanish, are a tongue-twisting experience for
students repeating Nahuatl words.

There are 12 ways to say hello, and five ways to say "to eat," Vazquez said.
Because there are regional dialects, students must learn six ways to say "I."

Janet Mendez, a 25-year-old county employee, was among two dozen beginning
students on a recent Tuesday night who could not say more than a few sentences.
The struggle to learn more is worth it, she said.

"I feel this is the only way to reclaim our culture, to speak this language
even if it is only a little bit," she said. "It's great that he is here,
because there's not too many places where you can hear this language."

Links:
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[1]
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-nahuatl5feb05,0,3957607.story?coll=la-news-learning
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