Nahuatl status

[Leonel Hermida]

Hi,

Many thanks to all people who bothered to respond to my query on the
status of the Nahuatl language. One information here, another there and
one feels a little better. I could not check all the links provided by Jose
Maria, probably due to difficulties of communication on the Web but could
find valuable information both at
http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Mexi.html  and
http://www.inegi.gob.mx/poblacion/espanol/estudios/censo90.html
though the former source lists not less than 27 flavours, varieties or dialects
of Nahuatl as 27 different 'languages'! No wonder it gets a total of 295
'languages' for Mexico (289 of which are living 'languages', so we are told),
which means probably some 10 to 20 different languages (as a guess), all
this for 1991 or so.
I would not object about comparing the state of the Nahuatl dialects in
Mexico with the state of German dialects in Switzerland (or in all the
German speaking area as a whole). I guess mutual intelligibility is probably
low in distant parts of the dialectal chain in both cases but similarities
end here.
Comparing Schwyzerdutsch in Switzerland with Nahuatl in Mexico
would only be reasonable if one were to compare also the number of
Schwyzerdutsch speakers that are litterate in 'Standard German' with
the number of Nahuatl speakers that are litterate in 'Classical Nahuatl'.
Any ideas about the percentages in one case and in the other?

Jose Maria tells us that there is no higher education in Nahuatl but he
thinks it's more 'from lack of demand than by design'. How could it be
otherwise when we learn that education in Nahuatl is barely beginning
as is also litterary production?
I think what is urgent now in all the Nahuatl speaking areas is the
implementation of a net of grade schools (perhaps you would have to
form teachers, first...), but that is only possible if all Mexican people
is really disposed to pay for it and begins to act without delay. Be
sure no one is going to do it for you. I would bet it is also the best as
a vaccination against 'revolutions'...( You have the examples of the IRA
in Ireland and the ETA in Spain!). What the hell are you waiting for??

Thank you.
Best regards,
Leonel


-----Original Message-----
From: Jose Maria Hernandez Gil <hernand at dcsun1.epfl.ch>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nahuat-l at server.umt.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: Nahuatl status


>Hello, this is my first post. I have some information and first hand
>information that could be interesting. I'm a Spanish-speaking Mexican,
>but I'm beginning to learn Nahuatl little by little.
>
>Most statistic I have seen regarding Nahuatl put it at more than 1.2
>million. This is the official government data from 1990, so today it
>could easily be around 1.5 million (or more). It isn't small at all and
>since the population growth rate of Nahuatl-speaking Mexicans is higher
>than Spanish-speaking Mexicans, the percentage grows every census. Other
>Mexican languages are in much, much worse shape.
>
>Nahuatl as a homogeneous entity does not seem to exist as is. I liken it
>to the Schwyzerdutsch in Switzerland. There is a lot of fragmentation and
>sometimes the dialects are not intelligible (any additional information
>regarding this?)
>
>Written forms of Nahuatl seem to be very chaotic also. The original
>people that used Roman script were not very careful and sometimes you see
>the same words with multiple variants. Now days, there's also the problem
>that some people use english based orthography while others keep the
>original orthography. Personally, I prefer the "spanish" based one since
>it seems more original and the actual similarities to Iberian Castillian
>phonetics is limited at best (the j, c, z, x, tz and tl can confuse
>Spaniards.)
>
>Education in Nahuatl has begun to appear recently also, as well as the
>other major Mexican languages.  As to the quality of the education I
>can't say. Literature also seems to be begin to appear, I even heard that
>a novel in Nahuatl won an international native language prize in Cuba a
>few years back. There is no higher education in Nahuatl but I think it's
>more from lack of demand than by design. Nahuatl (as well as other
>Mexican languages) seem to enjoy quite a bit of usage in smaller towns
>and villages government, but in larger cities they seem to take a back
>seat.
>
>Comparisons between Basque and Catalan would not be useful I think. Both
>Euskadi and Catalunya are very industrialized off in comparison to other
>regions of Spain, while the opposite is true for the Nahuatl speaking
>regions of Mexico. Nor Breton and Corsican (which enjoy absolutely no
>official status in France BTW). In Europe, only Irish or Rheto-Rumansch
>could compare.
>
>Yaoxochtil is right in the way most Mexicans view Nahuatl although I've
>found it's mostly the older people. Younger Mexicans (>25 years) are more
>proud of it and see it as a part of their heritage.
>
>I've been to several places where Nahuatl is spoken. It seems to be a
>very live language. People make CDs in it and you see little children
>speaking it. I do not doubt it will survive, but I wonder as to how it
>will live.
>
>Some interesting links follow.
>
>Chema
>
>
>http://www.sedesol.gob.mx/ini/len9095.htm
>http://www.inegi.gob.mx/poblacion/espanol/estudios/censo90.html
>http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Mexi.html
>
>
>
>"if, as you say, our gods are dead,
> it is better that you allow us to die too.
> ...
> we cannot be tranquil,
> and yet we certainly do not believe;
> we do not accept your teachings as truth,
> even though this may offend you."
>
>in tlamatinime
>