Nahua origins

[David Wright]

Listeros:

Regarding the controversy surrounding the presence of various linguistic groups in central Mexico during the Classic period, and in support of Alec's recent message, there are some elementary linguistic facts which should not be ignored. The Mesoamerican Otopames (speakers of Otomi, Mazahua, Matlatzinca and Ocuilteco) have a geographic distribution which parallels their linguistic affinities; that is to say, those groups which speak languages more closely related occupy adjacent or nearby territories. The obvious explanation for this is that their ancestors lived in approximately the same areas since before the related tongues branched off from an ancestral language. It's hard to imagine immigrants settling a landscape in accordance with a linguistic classification of which they were largely unaware. Glottochronology is admittedly an imprecise yardstick, but it gives us a very rough idea of when these languages diverged, and the Otopamean presence in the area goes back to the Formative and probably beyond, even allowing a margin of error of over five centuries for the glottochronological dates. Applying the same line of reasoning to the Nahuas, the lack of temporal depth in the central valleys of Mexico (compared with the Otopamean group) is evident and would seem to go back just to the Epiclassic and Postclassic periods. If Nahuas lived at Teotihuacan they were probably just an enclave like the Veracruzanos or the Oaxaqueños; a Nahua majority at Teotihuacan would probably have resulted in greater dialectological and glotochronological depth in the region. The fact that the closest linguistic relatives of the nahua-pochuteco group are all located in northwestern Mexico is revealing as to where their heartland lies. I also think these linguistic considerations fit well with the archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence available to date.

Saludos,

David Wright

P.S. I haven't gotten my hands on the article which started this yet, but couldn't resist throwing in my two cents. I'll read it as I have the opportunity.


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