LESSON 1. PHONOLOGY.

Nahuatl vowels include four short vowels a, e, i, and o and four long vowels a, e, i, o. Nahuatl long vowels are identified with a macron in the lexical entry form as shown in Table 1 (Andrews 4). The lexical form is the dictionary entry or vocabulary form of a "word." Long vowels in Nahuatl are pronounced similarly as the short vowels except for a longer duration (Sullivan 5). As a result, a breathy resonance occurs when a long vowel is phonated due to its prolonged pronunciation.

Nahuatl is an accentuated language, where the emphasis occurs on the adjacent syllable of the last syllable as denoted by an accent mark under the "Pronunciation" column of Table 1. The locus of accentuation is retained when a Nahuatl word is agglutinated in form (to be explained in further lessons). The one exception to the accent locus rule occurs in the masculine vocative voice, where the suffix -é is added to a noun or proper noun: cihuatlé 'o woman!' (Sullivan 9).

TABLE 1. NAHUATL LONG VOWELS AND NOTATION.

Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli Notation:

The presence of long vowels in our text-based lessons will be marked in each vocabulary listing by use of a macron or by use of bold type (boldened vowels). Underlined letters in vocabulary listings represent vowels or consonants that are often omitted when the Nahuatl stem word is inflected, agglutinated, or derivitized in form (to be explained in future lessons).

Please Note: The occurrences of h in the word ehecámeh under the Table 1 "Lexical Example" column do not represent the presence of a long vowel. Rather, the h represents a consonant sound known as a glottal stop. This unique consonant sound h is denoted as an apostrophe ( ' ) in the pronunciation column and discussed in further detail below.

For additional references in which the macron identifies long vowels, please see the following excellent resources:

References:
Campbell, R. Joe and Frances Karttunen. Foundation Course in Nahuatl Grammar.2 vols. Morris: Univ. of Minnesota, 1989.

Karttunen, Frances. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. 1983. Oklahoma: Univ.
of Oklahoma, Norman, 1992.



In Sr. Ramos's Nahuatl course work (see ), you will find a distinct h symbol in many words listed in the tlahtoltecpanaliztli (vocabulary) sections. This notation marks a distinction in the h, such that, a pausal (also known as a glottal stop) is present. For example, in the word "MEXIHCO," the pronunciation is (meh - SHEE' - ko), indicating a glottal stop at the position of the "H" symbol. In our lessons, we do not consistently reinforce the h pausal distinction in the lexical entry form. Although we are in the process of editing our Nahuatl lessons to include the glottal stop distinction. When we do indicate the presence of a glottal stop h - we do so by using a plain h (NO adjacent letter u) text format (no bold, no underline as Ramos does). We encourage students who have access to the Nahuatl resource An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl by Frances Karttunen, to recognize the glottal stop that is identified and discussed in the book. You may begin to become acquainted with the distinct speech patterns of Nahuatl after practicing your tlahtoltecpanaliztli, these pronunciation guidelines, and consulting the Karttunen resource as well as listening to mp3 files available at this site.


Nahuatl Orthography

In the early 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish friars set out to learn Nahuatl discourse with the development of an orthography based on Castilian Spanish conventions (Karttunen xvii). Orthography is defined by Webster's College Dictionary as "the art of writing words with the proper letters according to accepted usage" or "a method of spelling, as by the use of an alphabet or other writing symbols" (955). At the time of initial European interactions with Nahuatl-speaking peoples, Spanish orthography lacked systematic practice amongst the Castilian speakers in the New World (Sullivan 9). Consequently, Nahuatl orthography was based on nonstandard Spanish orthography, including its historical variations present in the early 16th and 17th century literature of New Spain (México). Nahuatl orthography is comprised of the alphabetic items including the digraphs listed in Table 2 (Sullivan 285). A digraph is "two characters used to represent a single sound segment" (Campbell and Karttunen 1:5)

TABLE 2. NAHUATL ORTHOGRAPHY.

Table 2. NAHUATL ORTHOGRAPHY. The Nahuatl orthography that is based on conventional Spanish orthography is comprised of these alphabetic items which include several digraphs.

a

c

ch

cu

e

h

hu

i

l

m

n

o

p

qu

t

tl

tz

x

y

z

The items in parenthesis here (ca, ce, ci, co, hu, qu) reflect sounds common to the Spanish language and its related writing system. Readers may more often find the orthographic style of written Nahuatl that originates from Spanish convention orthography in numerous references which use this convention.

Table 3 showcases some distinct consonant sounds expressed in Nahuatl along with examples of consonants with an adjacent vowel and its pronunciation in concordance with conventional castellano Spanish orthography.

TABLE 3. NAHUATL CONSONANTS USING SPANISH BASED CONVENTIONAL ORTHOGRAPHY.

Table 3. NAHUATL CONSONANT EXAMPLES IN CONCORDANCE WITH SPANISH CONVENTION ORTHOGRAPHY. The hache saltillo or glottal stop is a distinctive consonant that is orthographically represented as an h in lexical examples and should not be confused with the breathy resonance of a long vowel. The hache saltillo is denoted as an apostrophe ( ' ) in the pronunciation examples of Tables 1 and 3.

 

 

CONSONANTS WITH DISTINCTION.

Consonants with distinction include the lateral affricate tl and the hache saltillo or glottal stop h. The tl is a single consonant classified linguistically as a lateral affricate. To verbally replicate the affricate tl, one must release the tl sound as a single consonant from the mouth in a voiceless, lateral fashion (Andrews 6).

The consonant h (with no adjacent letter u) is also known as a "hache saltillo" or glottal stop. To enunciate the glottal stop h, one must close-off the back of the mouth, then "suddenly release the breath banked up behind the vocal cords" (Andrews 5). This enunciation produces a voiceless h in the same manner as one does when the "h" distinction is made when "uh" (as in 'uh-oh') is expressed. The glottal stop may be "found between vowels, before a consonant, and at the end of a word" (Sullivan 7). Be sure to listen carefully to our Nahuatl recordings that are available at our site - as this may take some practice to replicate and acquire this distinct sound.



Works Cited

Andrews, J. Richard. Introduction to Classical Nahuatl. Austin: Univ. of Texas, 1975.

Ramos, Don Genaro Medina, Betty Jo Taffe and William J. Taffe. Nahuatl Curso. Version 1.9. San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, Mexico: Casa de Cultura de Cholula, Julio de 1999.

Sullivan, Thelma D. Compendium of Nahuatl Grammar.1976. Trans. Thelma D. and Neville Stiles. Ed. Wick R. Miller and Karen Dakin. Salt Lake City: Univ. of Utah, 1988.

Webster's Dictionary. Random House. 1991.


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