tlahtoa / saltillo

[Frances Karttunen]

There is a difference between saltillo (whatever its phonetic realization)
and the other phenomenon under discussion.

Saltillo is the name for a segmental phoneme not only in 16th-century
Central Mexican Nahuatl, but in a lot of varieties of currently-spoken
Nahuatl.  It serves to distinguish meaning in many, many minimal pairs (not
just singular/plural).  Its role in the phonology and morphology of Nahuatl
is like that of other consonants, such as t or p.

The closing off of short vowels in word-final position is contextual, not
segmental.

How one chooses to represent it is arbitrary, but getting saltillo mixed up
with anything nonsegmental by using "h" sometimes for one and sometimes for
the other is an invitation to confusion.

Fran