I think the title (and to a slight extent the text of the article) make the language sound like a rare curiosity but it's actually a major cultural phenomenon. Grabbing some numbers (which are always subject to definitional quarrels), I think Nahuatl is as common in Mexico as Tagalog in the U.S. (by absolute number of speakers) or as Chinese in the U.S. (by proportion of the population).
Among many other things, our words for tomato, avocado, chili, and chocolate all derive from Nahuatl.
(Edit: of course the social role of indigenous languages in Mexico is different from that of Tagalog or Chinese in the U.S., and the main indigenous languages there are strongly associated with rural and semi-rural communities, as this article points out... which might mean that city-dwelling Mexicans might have quite a bit less contact with Nahuatl and Maya languages than city-dwellers in the U.S. would have with Tagalog or Chinese.)
The dropping of /d/ is not surprising. This happens all over the place. Look at Latin "ad" becoming Spanish "a" for a simple example. (ad like the preposition built into this very word, ad + vocare)
The classical /w/ from Latin obviously became /v/ in a lot of romance languages. /b/ and /v/ merging to create [β] I think was particular to Spain and pretty old. But I think I also read that in many places vulgar Latin /b/ had a [v] allophone, but still distinct from /w/ (orthographic v) which I guess evolved into /v/ outside Iberia with the old [v] sticking around as /b/.
Here is one of the top google hits from an old saying about this: "beati hispani quibus vivere bibere est" --http://en.antiquitatem.com/felices-hispani-quibus-vivere-est... -- this seems to put the b, v merger at the first century AD and have a lot of quotes about Iberians doing it it from the ~1500s, blaming it on Basques.
By the way, in my amateur opinion the much more head-spinny Iberian sound change was the creation of modern /x/ in words like "Quijote" or "México". It would seem that the Spaniards conquered the new world with those things as [ʃ], transcribed a bunch of Mexican place names with that, then later changed the sound to [x], and brought the change back to the colonies. It is interesting to me that such a pronunciation change in relatively isolated populations can still be held on both sides of an ocean, and not have some other form just end up as one side's peculiar accent, as occurred with, say the evolution of the [θ] sound.
When visiting Mayan ruins outside of Tulum, Mexico the guide told me his father still lives in the Yucatán forest and his primary language being Maya (and unrelated, smokes a lot of pot apparently). I ignorantly assumed these languages disappeared with their civilizations.
In particular, this was an effort to suppress Maya religion that led to an almost complete loss of knowledge of the original writing system. Later on Maya started being written with Latin characters, but there are still lots of native speakers who are functionally literate in Spanish but not in Maya.
It's also not terribly uncommon to hear indigenous languages of Mexico spoken in the United States. I am an American who understands Spanish and I've occasionally recognized this in public, just overhearing people on the street in certain places.
Sometimes I hear a speaker switch back and forth between some language I can't recognize and a very recognizable, Mexican-accented Spanish. Or sometimes they will only code-switch with a few Spanish words here and there.
One way to recognize Maya languages from Spanish without that much familiarity with either is that /ʃ/ (English "sh") is a common sound in all Maya languages but not present in Spanish (except Rioplatense Spanish).
Also Maya languages make a lot of use of ejective consonants like
There's an interesting code-switching thing for two of them (especially the last speaker) where Spanish "este" ('this') is used apparently at the beginning or end of new thoughts or to relate ideas to each other, including "para este"/"para" ('for this') when describing a reason for something and "pero este" ('but this') when drawing a contrast. I don't think this is quite idiomatic in Spanish when used this way, and I wonder if these are translations of particular Nahuatl words or phrases.
I thought the situations where these were used were mostly ones where we might say "so" or "well" in English (I might expect something like "entonces" or "bien" in Spanish).
The stories that the people tell in the video involve some maltreatment from other people on account of the use of Nahuatl. I really liked the first speaker's intuition, something like: "If we use our language, people are going to be curious and want to learn it!"
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 66.3 ms ] threadhttp://www.native-languages.org/most-spoken.htm
and the most-spoken in Mexico.
I think the title (and to a slight extent the text of the article) make the language sound like a rare curiosity but it's actually a major cultural phenomenon. Grabbing some numbers (which are always subject to definitional quarrels), I think Nahuatl is as common in Mexico as Tagalog in the U.S. (by absolute number of speakers) or as Chinese in the U.S. (by proportion of the population).
Among many other things, our words for tomato, avocado, chili, and chocolate all derive from Nahuatl.
(Edit: of course the social role of indigenous languages in Mexico is different from that of Tagalog or Chinese in the U.S., and the main indigenous languages there are strongly associated with rural and semi-rural communities, as this article points out... which might mean that city-dwelling Mexicans might have quite a bit less contact with Nahuatl and Maya languages than city-dwellers in the U.S. would have with Tagalog or Chinese.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/guacamole#Spanish
> From Classical Nahuatl āhuacamōlli, from āhuacatl (“avocado fruit”) + mōlli (“sauce, something ground”).
Avocado -- mid 17th century: Spanish alteration (influenced by avocado ‘advocate’) of aguacate, from Nahuatl ahuacatl.
Guacamole -- from an Aztec dialect via Nahuatl "āhuaca molli", which translates to "avocado sauce/concoction".
I think you mean "influenced by abogado ‘advocate’".
The classical /w/ from Latin obviously became /v/ in a lot of romance languages. /b/ and /v/ merging to create [β] I think was particular to Spain and pretty old. But I think I also read that in many places vulgar Latin /b/ had a [v] allophone, but still distinct from /w/ (orthographic v) which I guess evolved into /v/ outside Iberia with the old [v] sticking around as /b/.
Here is one of the top google hits from an old saying about this: "beati hispani quibus vivere bibere est" --http://en.antiquitatem.com/felices-hispani-quibus-vivere-est... -- this seems to put the b, v merger at the first century AD and have a lot of quotes about Iberians doing it it from the ~1500s, blaming it on Basques.
By the way, in my amateur opinion the much more head-spinny Iberian sound change was the creation of modern /x/ in words like "Quijote" or "México". It would seem that the Spaniards conquered the new world with those things as [ʃ], transcribed a bunch of Mexican place names with that, then later changed the sound to [x], and brought the change back to the colonies. It is interesting to me that such a pronunciation change in relatively isolated populations can still be held on both sides of an ocean, and not have some other form just end up as one side's peculiar accent, as occurred with, say the evolution of the [θ] sound.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#Writing_system...
In particular, this was an effort to suppress Maya religion that led to an almost complete loss of knowledge of the original writing system. Later on Maya started being written with Latin characters, but there are still lots of native speakers who are functionally literate in Spanish but not in Maya.
Awakatl -> aguacate.
The English word is an old spelling for advocate. Some dude confused both back in the day.
Now if someone would fix this historical issue with marketing, would make me very happy.
https://nah.wiktionary.org/wiki/awakatl
I think both spellings refer to the same sounds.
Sometimes I hear a speaker switch back and forth between some language I can't recognize and a very recognizable, Mexican-accented Spanish. Or sometimes they will only code-switch with a few Spanish words here and there.
Also Maya languages make a lot of use of ejective consonants like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_and_alveolar_ejectives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_ejective_affricate
Youtube offered some some hokey "learn some phrases" videos, but this is a guy speaking naturally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTBABGLJzIA
There's an interesting code-switching thing for two of them (especially the last speaker) where Spanish "este" ('this') is used apparently at the beginning or end of new thoughts or to relate ideas to each other, including "para este"/"para" ('for this') when describing a reason for something and "pero este" ('but this') when drawing a contrast. I don't think this is quite idiomatic in Spanish when used this way, and I wonder if these are translations of particular Nahuatl words or phrases.
I thought the situations where these were used were mostly ones where we might say "so" or "well" in English (I might expect something like "entonces" or "bien" in Spanish).
The stories that the people tell in the video involve some maltreatment from other people on account of the use of Nahuatl. I really liked the first speaker's intuition, something like: "If we use our language, people are going to be curious and want to learn it!"