The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. They called themselves Mexica. The Republic of Mexico and its capital, Mexico City, derive their names from the word “Mexica”.

The capital of the Aztec empire was Tenochtitlan, built on raised island in Lake Texcoco. Mexico City is built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish colonization of the Americas reached the mainland during the reign of Huey Tlatoani , Moctezuma II (Montezuma II). In 1521 Hernan Cortés and an allied army of American Indians that far outnumbered the defending Aztecs, conquered the Aztecs through germ warfare, siege warfare, psychological warfare, and direct combat.

Origins of the Aztecs

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Main article: Aztlán

The Aztecs’ legendary home was Aztlan, a Nahuatl word likely meaning “place of the heron”. It is generally thought that Aztlan was somewhere to the north of the Valley of Mexico; some experts have placed it as far north as Northwestern Mexico and the US Southwest, while others suggest is a mythical place, since Aztlan can also be translated as “the place of the origin”.

Whatever caused them to leave Aztlan, the Mexica, as the Aztecs called themselves, came to the Valley of Mexico in the mid-13th century. The mythical story of these travels is recorded in a number of Aztec codices.

The Aztecs arrive in the Valley of Mexico

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In the 13th century in the Valley of Mexico, there existed many city-states including Chalco, Xochimilco, Tlacopan, Culhuacan, and Atzcapotzalco. The most powerful were Culhuacan on the south shore of Lake Texcoco and Azcapotzalco on the west shore.

As a result, when the Mexica arrived in the Valley of Mexico as a semi-nomadic tribe, they had nowhere to go. In roughly 1248, they first settled on Chapultepec, a hill on the west shore of Lake Texcoco, the site of numerous springs.

In time, the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco ousted the Mexica from Chapultepec and the ruler of Culhuacan, Cocoxtli, gave the Mexica permission to settle in the empty barrens of Tizaapan in 1299. There they married and assimilated into Culhuacan culture.

In 1323, they asked the new ruler of Culhuacan, Achicometl, for his daughter, in order to make her the goddess Yaocihuatl. Unbeknownst to the king, the Mexica actually planned to sacrifice her. The Mexica believed that by doing this the princess would join the gods as a deity. As the story goes, during a festival dinner, a priest came out wearing her flayed skin as part of the ritual. Upon seeing this, the king and the people of Culhuacan were horrified and expelled the Mexica.

Forced to flee, in 1325 they went to a small island on the west side of Lake Texcoco, where they began to build their city Tenochtitlan, eventually creating a large artificial island. It is said that the Aztec god, Huitzlipochtli, instructed the Aztecs to found their city at the location where they saw an eagle, on a cactus, with a snake in its talons. The Aztecs, apparently, saw this vision on the small island where Tenochtitlan was founded.

Another Mexica group settled on the north side of this island: this would become the city of Tlatelolco. Originally, this was an independent Mexica kingdom, but eventually it was absorbed by Tenochtitlan, and treated as a “fifth” quadrant. The famous marketplace described by Hernan Cortés and Bernal Diaz del Castillo was actually located in Tlatelolco.

In 1376, the Mexica elected their first tlatoani, Acamapichtli, following customs learned from the Culhuacan.

Rise of the Aztecs

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Initially, the Mexica hired themselves out as mercenaries in wars between the different Nahua states.

From 1376 until 1427, the Mexica were a tributary of Azcapotzalco. The Aztec rulers Acamapichtli, Huitzilihuitl and Chimalpopoca were, in fact, vassals of Tezozomoc, the Tepanec ruler of Azcapotzalco.

When Tezozomoc died in 1426, his son Maxtla ascended to the throne of Azcapotzalco. Shortly thereafter, Maxtla assassinated Chimalpopoca, the Aztec ruler. In an effort to defeat Maxtla, Chimalpopoca’s successor, Itzcoatl, allied with Nezahualcoyotl, the exiled ruler of Texcoco. This coalition became the foundation of the Aztec Triple Alliance.

Itzcoatl and Nezahualcoyotl and their allies subsequently besieged Azcapotzalco, took Maxtla captive, and sacrificed him.

Aztec Triple Alliance
Main article: Aztec Triple Alliance

The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan would, in the next 100 years, come to dominate the Valley of Mexico and extend its power to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific shores. From the beginning of the Triple Alliance, Tenochtitlan was mostly in charge of the military and conquest, whereas the other two cities had other responsibilities. This military dominance of Tenochtitlan gradually led to this city becoming the dominant power in the alliance.

The reign of Itzcoatl 1427-1440
The first Tlatoani of the Triple Alliance was Itzcoatl and he, along with his Texcocan co-ruler Nezahualcoyotl, began expanding the territory dominated by the alliance towards the south conquering Nahua speaking cities like Cuauhnahuac (now Cuernavaca) and towards Huexotla, Coatlinchan, and Tepoztlan in the modern-day state of Morelos which was then dominated by the Tlahuica. During this period the Nahuan cities immediately on the lakeside such as Xochimilco, Culhuacan and Mixquic were also subdued.

Moctezuma I and Tlacaelel 1440-1469
Two of the primary architects of the Aztec empire were the half-brothers Tlacaelel and Moctezuma I. They were sons of Huitzilíhuitl, the 3rd Hueyi Tlatoani, half-brothers to Chimalpopoca, the 4th Hueyi Tlatoani, and nephews of Itzcoatl, the 5th. Moctezuma I succeeded Itzcoatl as the 6th Hueyi Tlatoani in 1449. Tlacaelel became the power behind the throne and reformed both the Aztec state and the Aztec religion.

Moctezuma I began the expansion in earnest. First he had to reconquer towns which were first conquered by Itzcoatl, but had since rebelled. He asked a number of smaller cities to contribute to the construction of a new Great Temple, and only Chalco refused, which caused Moctezuma to start a war against them which lasted for several years. He then conquered Huastec territory under a pretext of securing Aztec merchants in that area, and then he went to war against the Mixtecs of Coixtlahuaca. Coixtlahuaca was successfully conquered although the Mixtec ruler Atonal received military assistance from the Nahua states of Tlaxcala and Huexotzinco, by now enemies of the Aztecs. After the defeat of Coixtlahuaca many Mixtec artisans were relocated to the Aztec capital. Later Moctezuma marched upon the Totonacan cities of Vera Cruz and conquered Xalapa, Cosamaloapan, Cotaxtla (modern day Cuetlachtlan), Ahuilizapan (Modern day Orizaba) and north into Huastec territory conquering Tuxpan and Xilotepec.

Tlacaelel
Tlacaelel was one of the primary architects of the Aztec empire. Rising to prominence during the war against the Tepanec in the late 1420s, Tlacaelel wielded power as something of a Grand Vizier during the reigns of four Hueyi Tlatoani, until his death in 1487.

Tlacaelel recast or strengthened the concept of the Aztecs as a chosen people and elevated the tribal god/hero Huitzilopochtli to the top of the pantheon of gods. In tandem with this, Tlacaelel increased the level and prevalence of human sacrifice, particularly during a period of natural disasters that started in 1446 (according to Durán). During the reign of Moctezuma I, he instigated the flower wars in which the Aztecs fought Tlaxcala and other Nahuan city-states.

To strengthen the Aztec nobility, he helped create and enforce sumptuary laws, prohibiting commoners from wearing certain adornments such as lip plugs, gold armbands, and cotton cloaks.

At the start of Tlacaelel’s tenure, the Mexica were vassals. By the end, they had become the Aztecs, rulers of a socially stratified and expansionistic empire.

The reigns of Axayacatl 1469-1481 and Tizoc 1481-1486
Moctezuma I’s son, Axayacatl, ascended to the throne in 1469. During his reign, Tenochtitlan absorbed the kingdom of Tlatelolco. Axayacatl’s sister was married to the tlatoani of Tlatelolco, and, as a pretext for war, Axayacatl declared that she was mistreated.

He went on to conquer the Matlatzinca and Mazahua cities of Tollocan, Ocuillan, and Malinalco west of the Valley of Mexico.

At this point Tenochtitlan experienced a brief “Civil war” when the small city of Tlatelolco, considered a part of Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs, rebelled under their Tlatoani Moquihuix, who sought to ally himself with the longstanding enemies of the Tenochca, the Chalca, Tlaxcalteca, Chololteca and Huexotzinca. The Tlatelolca were defeated and Axayacatl then ordered the execution of all the rulers who had aided him, including the ruler of Xochimilco.

Continuing campaigns in the west in 1479, he suffered an unprecedented defeat by the Tarascans at Tzintzuntzan. This was the Aztec’s first great defeat; once recovered he had to consolidate control of the Huasteca region which had already been conquered by his predecessor.

In 1481 Axayacatl’s son Tizoc ruled briefly, but his rule was marred by the humiliation he received in his coronation war: fighting the Otomies at Metztitlan he brought home only 40 prisoners for sacrifice at his coronation ceremony. After this defeat Tizoc had to fight principally to maintain control of the already conquered territories, and failing to subdue new towns he was replaced, possibly poisoned, by his younger brother Ahuitzotl.

Ahuitzotl’s reign 1486-1502
The expansionist policies of the empire culminated during Ahuitzotl’s reign. In his coronation war, he fought the Chontales in the territories west of Mexico defeating Toluca, Malinalco and Xilotepec. He invited the rulers of the still independent states of the Tarascans, Tlaxcaltecs and Huexotzinca to the dedication ceremony of the enlarged Great Temple, all of whom witnessed an unprecedented increase of human sacrifices and gift-givings. He then conducted punitive expeditions to rebellious cities on the Gulf Coast. He also conquered vast territories in the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and as far south as Xoconosco in present day Chiapas. He constructed a series of fortifications and garrisons on the frontiers of the independent kingdoms of the Tlaxcaltecs and Tarascans. Some archaeological remains exist of these fortifications, for example at Oztuma in Guerrero, Quauhquechula in Puebla and the best preserved Aztec site, the one at Malinalco in the state of Mexico.

The reign of Moctezuma II Xocoyotzin
Moctezuma II was, although many sources depict him otherwise, a notable warrior who extended the tributary system, and consolidated the conquests made by his predecessors as well as conquering new territories. His campaigns reached as far south as Tapachula in the Soconusco region and the Chontal Maya states of Xicallanco in Tabasco. Only the Aztec archenemies of Tlaxcala, Huexotzinco and the Tarascans remained undefeated, as well as the Mixtec kingdoms of Tututepec and Yopitzinco which didn’t interest the Aztecs. Thus the Aztec empire had its largest geographical extent when the Spaniards arrived in 1519. In some sources, it claims that Moctezuma II, and the Aztecs, believed the arriving Spanish to linked to the supposed return of an exiled god, Quetzlcoatl, who was supposed to return pale and bearded.

Fall of the Aztec Empire

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The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala, and eventually other Aztec tributary states. It was not difficult for Cortes to find allies to fight with him, the Aztecs were not generally liked by the neighbouring city-states. Cuauhtémoc, the last Hueyi Tlatoani surrendered to Cortés on August 13, 1521.

It took nearly another 60 years of war before the Spaniards completed the conquest of Mesoamerica (the Chichimeca wars), a process that could have taken longer were it not for three separate epidemics that took a heavy toll on the Native American population. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán took almost 170 years.

After the fall of Tenochtitlan, most of the other Mesoamerican cultures remained intact. In fact, the conquest of the Aztec empire did not have an immediate impact on other Mesoamerican cultures. If anything, the freedom from Aztec domination was probably considered a positive development by most of the other cultures.

As allies of the Spaniards, the Tlaxcalans gained the most. The Spaniards would eventually break the alliance, but not until decades later.

The fate of the Aztec empire under Spanish rule
Cortés stated intention was to maintain the structure of the Aztec empire. Initially, it seemed that the Aztec empire could survive under Spanish rule. The upper classes of the Aztec empire were initially considered as noblemen (to this day, the title of Duke of Moctezuma is held by a Spanish noble family). The upper classes learned Spanish, and several learned to write in Roman characters. Some of their surviving writings are crucial to our knowledge of the Aztecs. In addition, the first missionaries tried to learn Nahuatl and some, like Bernardino de Sahagún, set out to learn as much as they could of the Aztec culture.

All that changed rapidly. Eventually, the indigenous peoples were not only forbidden to learn of their cultures, but were also forbidden to learn to read and write in Spanish, and, under the law, they were reduced to the status of minors.

The impact of epidemics on the Aztec Empire
The first epidemic, an outbreak of smallpox occurring from 1520-1521, decimated the population of Tenochtitlan and was decisive in the fall of the city. The other two epidemics, of smallpox (1545-1548) and typhus (1576-1581) killed up to 75% of the population of Mesoamerica.

Whole towns disappeared, lands were deserted, roads were closed and armies were destroyed. The Spaniards, trying to make more of the diminishing population, merged the survivors from small towns into the bigger ones. This broke the power of the upper classes and dissolved the coherence of the indigenous society. In addition, the indigenous peoples collected in the larger towns were more susceptible to epidemics due to the higher population density.

The population before the time of the conquest is estimated at 15 million; by 1550, the estimated population was 4 million and less than two million by 1581. Thus, the “New Spain” of the 17th century was a depopulated country and many Mesoamerican cultures were wiped out.

In order to have an adequate supply of labor, the Spaniards began to import black slaves, although most of them eventually merged with the population.

Notable rulers

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Acamapichtli – ‘Handful of Arrows’, 1st ruler. First Aztec ruler during the early construction of Tenochtitlán and local conquests

Itzcoatl – ‘Obsidian Serpent’, 4th Ruler. Formed a coalition with other lakeside people against the Tepanecs, brought an end to the Tepanec Domination of the basin of Mexico by sacking the city of Azcapotzalco, and founded the empire of the Triple Alliance

Ahuitzotl – ‘Water Beast’, 8th ruler. Was a fierce warrior, rebuilt the Great Temple, sacrificed 2,000 victims at temple’s opening ceremony, and extended the empire from coast to coast

Moctezuma II – ‘Angry Lord, The Younger’, 9th Ruler. Was the emperor of the Aztecs during the time of the three Spanish expeditions, the third of which was led by Hernán Cortés. He was captured by Cortés when the Spaniards, after being welcomed into the city, took him hostage because of the fear of an uprising. Accounts of his death vary: according to some he was killed by his own people later (stoned to death) when Cortés used him to try to quell the uprising, according to others the Spaniards killed him when he had proved to be unable to control the uprising.

References

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Berdan, Frances F. (2005) The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society. 2nd ed. Thomson-Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.

Berdan, Frances F., Richard E. Blanton, Elizabeth H. Boone, Mary G. Hodge, Michael E. Smith and Emily Umberger (1996) Aztec Imperial Strategies. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

Boone, Elizabeth H. 1989. “Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., Vol. 79, No. 2., pp. i-iv+1-107.

Boone, Elizabeth H. (2000) Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Carrasco, Davíd (1999) City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization. Beacon Press, Boston.

Carrasco, Pedro (1999) The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Clendinnen, Inga (1991) Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Davies, Nigel (1973) The Aztecs: A History. University of Oklahoma, Norman.

Gillespie, Susan D. (1989) The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History’. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Graulich, Michel (1997) Myths of Ancient Mexico. Translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Guggenheim Museum (editor) (2004) The Aztec Empire (Curated by Felipe Solís). Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Hassig, Ross (1988) Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

León-Portilla, Miguel (Ed.) (1992) [1959]. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Ángel María Garibay K. (Nahuatl-Spanish trans.), Lysander Kemp (Spanish-English trans.), Alberto Beltran (illus.) (Expanded and updated edition ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-807-05501-8.

León-Portilla, Miguel (1963) Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Náhuatl Mind. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

López Luján, Leonardo (2005) The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. Revised ed. Translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo (1988) The Great Temple of the Aztecs. Thames and Hudson, New York.

Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo and Felipe R. Solís Olguín (editors) (2002) Aztecs. Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. (1990) Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.

Smith, Michael E. (1984); “The Aztlan Migrations of Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?”, in Ethnohistory 31(3): 153 – 186.

Smith, Michael E. (2003) The Aztecs. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.

Smith, Michael E, “Life in the Provinces of the Aztec Empire”, Scientific American.

Soustelle, J., (1961) The Daily life of the Aztecs, London, WI

Woods, M., (2000) “Conquistadors”, Ubuversity of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

Townsend, Richard F. (2000) The Aztecs. revised ed. Thames and Hudson, New York.

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Nahuatl is a group of related languages and dialects of the Nahuan (traditionally called “Aztecan”) branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Collectively they are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua people, most of whom live in Central Mexico. All Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica.

The Classical Nahuatl word nahuatl is thought to mean “a good, clear sound”. This language name has several spellings, among them Náhuatl (the standard spelling in the Spanish language), Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua.

Nahuatl has been spoken in Central Mexico since at least the 7th century AD. It was the language of the Aztecs, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology. During the preceding century and a half, the expansion and influence of the Aztec Empire had led to the variety spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan becoming a prestige language in Mesoamerica. With the introduction of the Latin alphabet, Nahuatl also became a literary language and many chronicles, grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl and is among the most studied and best documented languages of the Americas.

Today Nahuatl languages are spoken in scattered communities mostly in rural areas. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are mutually unintelligible. They have all been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish. No modern Nahuatl languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Under Mexico’s Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (”General Law on the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples”) promulgated in 2003, Nahuatl along with the other indigenous languages of Mexico are recognized as lenguas nacionales (”national languages”) in the regions where they are spoken, enjoying the same status as Spanish within their region.

Nahuatl is a language with a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination, allowing the construction of long words with complex meanings out of several stems and affixes. Nahuatl has been influenced by other Mesoamerican languages through centuries of coexistence, and with them forms the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.

Many words from Nahuatl have been borrowed into Spanish and thence have diffused into hundreds of other languages. Most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English words of Nahuatl origin include “avocado“, “chili“, “chocolate“, “coyote” and “tomato“.

The place of Nahuatl within Uto-Aztecan

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Main articles: Nahuatl dialects and Pochutec

In the past the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs was called “Aztecan”. From the 1990s on, the alternative designation “Nahuan” has been frequently used as a replacement especially in Spanish language publications. Since the monograph of Lyle Campbell and Ronald Langacker (1978), the Nahuan (Aztecan) branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions, “General Aztec” and Pochutec.

General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages. Pochutec is a scantily attested language which went extinct in the 20th century. The notion that Pochutec should not be considered a variety of Nahuatl was already several decades old, but Campbell and Langacker adduced new arguments for it. Other researchers maintain that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery.

“Nahuatl” denotes at least Classical Nahuatl together with related modern languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil (Nawat) into the group is slightly controversial. Lyle Campbell, who has worked intensively with the Pipil language, classifies Pipil as separate from the Nahuatl branch within general Aztecan, whereas dialectologists like Una Canger, Karen Dakin and Yolanda Lastra prefer to include Pipil in the General Aztecan branch, citing close historical ties with the so-called eastern peripheral dialects of General Aztec.

History

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Pre-Columbian period

On the issue of geographic origin, linguists during the 20th century agreed that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in the southwestern United States. Evidence from archaeology and ethnohistory also supports the southward diffusion thesis, specifically that speakers of early Nahuan languages migrated from the northern Mexican deserts into central Mexico in several waves. But recently, the traditional assessment has been challenged by Jane H. Hill, who proposes instead that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in central Mexico and spread northwards at a very early date.

The purported migration of speakers of the Proto-Nahuan language into the Mesoamerican region has been placed at sometime around AD 500, towards the end of the Early Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology. Before reaching the central altiplano, pre-Nahuan groups probably spent a period of time in contact with the Coracholan languages Cora and Huichol of northwestern Mexico (which are also Uto-Aztecan).

The major political and cultural center of Mesoamerica in the Early Classic period was Teotihuacan. The identity of the language(s) spoken by Teotihuacan’s founders has long been debated, with the relationship of Nahuatl to Teotihuacan being prominent in that enquiry. While in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was presumed that Teotihuacan had been founded by speakers of Nahuatl, later linguistic and archaeological research tended to disconfirm this view. Instead, the timing of the Nahuatl influx was seen to coincide more closely with Teotihuacan’s fall than its rise, and other candidates such as Totonacan identified as more likely. But recently, evidence from Mayan epigraphy of possible Nahuatl loanwords in Mayan languages has been interpreted as demonstrating that other Mesoamerican languages may have been borrowing words from Proto-Nahuan (or its early descendants) significantly earlier than previously thought, bolstering the possibility of a significant Nahuatl presence at Teotihuacan.

In Mesoamerica the Mayan, Oto-Manguean and Mixe-Zoquean language families had coexisted for millennia. This had given rise to the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area (a linguistic area being one where a set of language traits have become common among the area’s language by diffusion and not by evolution within a set of languages belonging to a common genetic subgrouping). After the Nahuas migrated into the Mesoamerican cultural zone, their language too adopted some of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Examples of such adopted traits are the use of relational nouns, the appearance of calques, or loan translations, and a form of possessive construction typical of Mesoamerican languages.

A language which was the ancestor of Pochutec split from Proto-Nahuan (or Proto-Aztecan) possibly as early as AD 400, arriving in Mesoamerica a few centuries earlier than the main bulk of speakers of Nahuan languages. Some Nahuan groups migrated south along the Central American isthmus, reaching perhaps as far as Nicaragua. The moribund Pipil language of El Salvador is the only living descendant of the variety of Nahuatl once spoken south of present day Mexico.

Beginning in the 7th century Nahuan speakers rose to power in central Mexico. The people of the Toltec culture of Tula, Hidalgo, which was active in central Mexico around the 10th century, are thought to have been Nahuatl speakers. By the 11th century, Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, with settlements including Azcapotzalco, Colhuacan and Cholula rising to prominence. Nahua migrations into the region from the north continued into the Postclassic period. One of the last of these migrations to arrive in the Valley of Mexico settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco and proceeded to subjugate the surrounding tribes. This group was the Mexica (or Mexihka), who over the course of the next three centuries founded an empire named Tenochtitlan. Their political and linguistic influence came to extend into Central America and Nahuatl became a lingua franca among merchants and elites in Mesoamerica, e.g., among the Quiché (K’iche’) Maya.

Colonial period

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With the arrival of the Spanish in 1519, the tables were turned on the Nahuatl language: it was displaced as the dominant regional language. Nevertheless, due to the Spanish making alliances with first the Nahuatl speakers from Tlaxcala and later with the conquered Aztecs, the Nahuatl language continued spreading throughout Mesoamerica in the decades after the conquest, when Spanish expeditions with thousands of Nahua soldiers marched north and south to conquer new territories. Jesuit missions in northern Mexico and the southwestern US region often included a barrio of Tlaxcaltec soldiers who remained to guard the mission. For example, some fourteen years after the northeastern city of Saltillo, Coahuila, was founded in 1577, a Tlaxcaltec community was resettled in a separate nearby village, San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala to cultivate the land and aid colonization efforts that had stalled in the face of local hostility to the Spanish settlement. As for the conquest of modern day Central America, Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala with the help of tens of thousands of Tlaxcaltec allies, who then settled outside of modern day Antigua. Similar episodes occurred across El Salvador and Honduras, with Nahuatl speakers settling in communities that were often named after them. In Honduras for example, two of these barrios are called “Mexicapa”; another in El Salvador is called “Mejicanos”. (The postconquest presence of Nahua peoples well inside present day US territory is well documented. For example, a map of Santa Fe, New Mexico drawn ca. 1768 by José de Urrutia shows a pueblo (”village”) or barrio named Analco spread along the southern bank of the Santa Fe River, opposite to the Spanish town. This settlement of Analco, labelled “E” on the map, is accompanied by the text: “Pueblo ò Barrio de Analco que debe su origen à los Tracaltecas que acompa[ña]ron à los primeros E?pañoles que entraron à la Conqui?ta de e?te Reino” (”village or quarter of Analco, which owes its origins to the Tlaxcaltecs who accompanied the first Spaniards who entered into the conquest of this region”).)

As a part of their missionary efforts, members of various religious orders (principally Fransciscan friars, Dominican friars, and Jesuits) introduced the Latin alphabet to the Nahuas, who were eager to learn to read and write both in Spanish and in their own language. Within the first twenty years after the Spanish arrival, texts were being prepared in the Nahuatl language written in Latin characters. Simultaneously, schools were founded, such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in 1536, which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Indians and priests. Missionary grammarians undertook the writing of grammars of indigenous languages for use by priests. The first Nahuatl grammar, written by Andrés de Olmos, was published in 1547—three years before the first French grammar. By 1645 four more had been published, authored respectively by Alonso de Molina (1571), Antonio del Rincón (1595), Diego de Galdo Guzmán (1642), and Horacio Carochi (1645). Carochi’s is today considered the most important of the colonial era grammars of Nahuatl.

In 1570 King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain in order to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies. This led to the Spanish missionaries teaching Nahuatl to Indians living as far south as Honduras and El Salvador. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language, and a large corpus of texts from that period is in existence today. Texts from this period include histories, chronicles, poetry, theatrical works, Christian canonical works, ethnographic descriptions, and administrative documents. The Spanish permitted a great deal of autonomy in the local administration of indigenous towns during this period, and in many Nahuatl speaking towns Nahuatl was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. A large body of Nahuatl literature was composed during this period, including the Florentine Codex, a twelve-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún; Crónica Mexicayotl, a chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc; Cantares Mexicanos, a collection of songs in Nahuatl; a Nahuatl-Spanish/Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by Alonso de Molina; and the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, a description in Nahuatl of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Grammars and dictionaries of indigenous languages were composed throughout the colonial period, but their quality was highest in the initial period. The friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible in practice, so they concentrated on Nahuatl. For a time, the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained relatively stable, but in 1696 King Charles II issued a decree banning the use of any language other than Spanish throughout the Spanish Empire. In 1770 another decree, calling for the elimination of the indigenous languages, did away with Classical Nahuatl as a literary language.

Modern period
Throughout the modern period the situation of indigenous languages has grown increasingly precarious in Mexico, and the numbers of speakers of virtually all indigenous languages have dwindled. Although the absolute number of Nahuatl speakers has actually risen over the past century, indigenous populations have become increasingly marginalized in Mexican society. In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. By 2000, this proportion had fallen to 1.49%. Given the process of marginalization combined with the trend of migration to urban areas and to the United States, some linguists are warning of impending language death. At present Nahuatl is mostly spoken in rural areas by an impoverished class of indigenous subsistence agriculturists. According to the Mexican national statistics institute, INEGI, 51% of Nahuatl speakers are involved in the farming sector and 6 in 10 receive no wages or less than the minimum wage.

From the early 20th century to at least the mid-1980s, educational policies in Mexico focused on the “Hispanification” of indigenous communities, teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of indigenous languages. As a result, today there is no group of Nahuatl speakers having attained general literacy in Nahuatl; while their literacy rate in Spanish also remains much lower than the national average. Even so, Nahuatl is still spoken by well over a million people, of whom around 10% are monolingual. The survival of Nahuatl dialects as a whole is not imminently endangered, but the survival of certain dialects is, and some dialects have already become extinct within the last few decades of the 20th century.

The 1990s saw the onset of diametric changes in official Mexican government policies towards indigenous and linguistic rights. Developments of accords in the international rights arena combined with domestic pressures led to legislative reforms and the creation of decentralized government agencies like CDI and INALI with responsibilities for the promotion and protection of indigenous communities and languages. In particular, the federal Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ["General Law on the Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples", promulgated 13 March 2003] recognizes all the country’s indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as “national languages” and gives indigenous people the right to use them in all spheres of public and private life.

In February 2008 the mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, launched a drive to have all government employees learn Nahuatl. Ebrard stated he would continue institutionalizing Nahuatl and that it was important for Mexico to remember its history and its tradition.

Geographic distribution

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Main articles: Nahuatl dialects, List of Nahuan languages, and Nahua peoples

A spectrum of Nahuatl dialects is currently spoken in an area stretching from the northern state of Durango to Veracruz in the southeast. Pipil (also known as Nawat[51]), the southernmost Nahuan language, is spoken in El Salvador by a small number of speakers. According to IRIN-International, the Nawat Language Recovery Initiative project, there are no reliable figures for the contemporary numbers of speakers of Pipil / Nawat. Numbers may range anywhere from “perhaps a few hundred people, perhaps only a few dozen.”

Based on figures accumulated by INEGI from the national census conducted in 2000, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1.45 million people, some 198,000 (14.9%) of whom are monolingual. There is gender disparity in monolingualism, with females representing nearly two thirds of all monolinguals. The states of Guerrero and Hidalgo have the highest rates of monolingual Nahuatl speakers as a proportion of the total Nahuatl speaking population, calculated at 24.2% and 22.6%, respectively. The proportion of monolinguals for most other states is less than 5%. Put another way, more than 95% of the Nahuatl speaking population in most states speaks at least one other language, usually Spanish; nationally, the figure is about 86% of the total.

The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Guerrero. Significant populations are also found in Mexico State, Morelos, and the Federal District, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Nahuatl became extinct during the 20th century in the states of Jalisco and Colima. As a result of internal migrations within the country, Nahuatl speaking communities exist in all of Mexico’s states. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the United States has resulted in the establishment of a few small Nahuatl speaking communities in that country, particularly in New York and California.

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