Standardization of Nahuatl

[Juan Adrián Pérez Rivera]

About the translation of a Nahuatl Catholic Mass and more things

I think it's great for nahuatl to receive attention from Rome. I'm
catholic, and I think it would be great to translate many catholic
texts to nahuatl. BUT, I'm afraid I don't like the way things are
being done.

You talk about create a 'simple' and 'unified nahuatl', in order to
make a mass that every nahuatl speaker can easily understand. NAHUATL
doesn't need this kind of changes. If you do this, you would make
serious damage to this beautiful language.

In my opinion, if you want to make a 'unified nahuatl', you should
take classical nahuatl as reference. This is the original, the nahuatl
that Cuauhtemoc, Tlacaelel, Itzcoatl and Motecuhzoma spoke. And in my
opinion, if someday in the very far future, we have an agreement,
Classical Nahuatl should be the standard nahuatl. Padre Horacio
Carochi's grammar is the best book available to settle the nahuatl
rules and correct writing and meanings and pronunciation. Also, you
may go to Milpa Alta, in Mexico City. In the town of Santa Ana
Tlacotenco, they speak a kind of nahuatl that is very close to
classical nahuatl.

I'm sorry if I sound aggressive, but this is a problem that should be
consulted with expert people, not with bishops. Many groups around
Mexico claim to have created their unified nahuatl, and the result is
that we have dozens of 'correct' nahuatl idioms. I insist, we need to
consult with people like Dr. León Portilla, Dr. López Austin, Dr.
Launey, etc. etc. in order to have an excellent translation of
catholic mass, I would really like that.

If you speak spanish, I recommend this article from the serious
magazine Estudios de cultura nahuatl:
http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/revistas/nahuatl/pdf/ecn42/874.pdf

Here the author recommends to use classical nahuatl as the standard
and explain the reasons why we should do this.

We need to teach people form little towns the correct grammar of their
own language, because many of them don't know how to write it
correctly, and that's why there are many dialects nowadays. Regards.

Achcauhtli
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