Question about the length of the vowels in nahuatl.

[Fabian E. Pena Arellano]

	As probably every beginner in the learning of the nahuatl
language, I am surprised and confused for the variety of different
ortografical systems there are to write the nahuatl.
	This time I am particularly interested about the wrinting of the
long vowels. Angerl Mria Garibay, in his "Lave del Nahuatl", never
indicates the length of the vowels. On the other hand, Michel Luney, in
his "Introduccion a la Lengua y a la Literatura Nahuatl" always does. Why
does this difference exists?
	As far as I understand, we may clasificate the languages as
quantitative and non-qunatitative (Gili Gaya, "Fonetica General", p.47).
The first are the ones in which the difference in the length of a vowel
in a word may produce a semantic opposition, that is, depending of the
length of a vowel a word may have different meanings. The latter are the
ones in which it does not matter how long the vowels are, there will not
be confusion about the meaning of a word. In such languages the length of
a vowel depends on the accent, and the nature and number of sounds which
compose the syllabe; the length is completely determined by fonetical
factors rather to the semantics of the word.
	According to Launey, there are not many pairs in nahuatl which may
cause confusion; he names such couples as minimun pairs ("Introduccion a
la Luengua y la la ....", p344, 1a. ed., UNAM). If such minimum pairs are
so few, what is the need to express them explicity in the wrinting?
	I thenk you for your answer before hand.

	Fabian Pena.