Nahuatl

The language spoken by the Aztecs was Nahuatl, which served as a lingua franca in Mexico both before and after the Spanish conquest in 1521.

Nahuatl is part of the Uto-Aztecan language group, a broad family of languages spoken by people from the northwestern United States to Panama. Linguists believe that the heartland of this language family was in northwestern Mexico. The most important language group within the Uto-Aztecan family was Nahua, with Nahuatl being the most widespread language within this group. Nahuatl primarily differs from other languages in the family by its use of the tl sound. Most of the inhabitants of Mexico’s central valley spoke an early form of Nahuatl and referred to all those who spoke the language as Nahua, an ethnic designation that persists to this day. The first Nahual-speak-ing group that rose to prominence was the ToLTECS. As the Toltecs conquered or colonized substantial portions of Mexico, Nahuatl spread throughout the region, becoming the language of international diplomacy. For example, ancient manuscripts from the Mixtec Indians of southern Mexico differentiated Nahuatl speakers from local Mixtecs, and frequently depicted the Nahua as diplomats or ambassadors. The Aztecs also spoke Nahuatl, and once they seized control over much of Mexico, Nahuatl clinched its position as the dominant language of Mesoamerica.

Nahuatl is a lyrical, highly expressive language that often relies on metaphors to convey ideas. This gives it a poetic feel that sets it apart from most European languages. Nahuatl’s development reached its apogee between 1400 and 1500, which scholars refer to as its classical age. Aztec boys learned Nahuatl rhetoric as part of their basic education, and a remarkable series of gifted poets made use of its expressive qualities. Perhaps the most famous poet was Nezahuacoyotl, the king of Texcoco (1402-72). Acknowledged as the greatest proponent of the classical style, Nezahuacoyotl wrote about the transience of existence and the fragile beauty of nature. Besides using it for poetry, Aztec scholars used the language to record history in the form of elaborate oral songs that were similar in style and content to the Iliad.

Contrary to popular belief, Nahuatl did not die out in the wake of the Spanish conquest. In fact, the conquest actually promoted the use of Nahuatl. Because most

Natives already used it as a second language, the Spaniards encouraged the use of Nahuatl as a convenient, standard language for all legal transactions involving non-Spanish speakers. In this way Spanish officials and translators would have to work with only one universal language, rather than almost 100 smaller ones. Additionally, when the Spaniards began exploring and mapping Mexico, they relied almost exclusively on Nahuatl-speaking guides and informants. Therefore, royal officials gave Nahuatl names to hills, rivers, and cities throughout the colony of New Spain. These Nahuatl names persist in Mexico and Guatemala today, although many of the communities never actually spoke Nahuatl. Also, a number of Spanish scholars such as Bernardino de Sahagun interviewed Nahuatl speakers and used these interviews to construct their histories of ancient Mexico. Many of the most important works on Aztec culture, such as the Florentine Codex and the Codex Mendoza, were originally written in Nahuatl, and many colonial writers, musicians, and poets used Nahuatl in their works. A number of Nahuatl songs, theater pieces, and sonnets survive from colonial Mexico.

Nahuatl studies continue to be important today. Many of the documents of colonial Mexico, including histories, wills, court transcripts, and dramas, were not written in Spanish, but Nahuatl. Historians who concentrate on Spanish sources often end up with a distorted view of postconquest Mexico. Nearly 1.5 million people speak Nahuatl today, making it among the most widely spoken indigenous languages in the Americas. English words that derive from Nahuatl include tomato (tomatl), coyote (coyotl), and chocolate (xocolatl).

Further reading: J. Richard Andrews, Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975); Miguel Leon-Portilla, Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992).

—Scott Chamberlain

Narvaez, Panfilo de (ca. 1478-1528) explorer, conquistador, colonial official

A Spanish explorer and CONQUISTADOR, Panfilo de Narvaez helped conquer CUBA and later led a disastrous expedition into FLORIDA.

Narvaez first came to the Americas as a young man, probably around 1498. He fought in JAMAICA and helped lead the Spanish soldiers who conquered Cuba in a war that lasted from 1510 to 1514. The governor of Cuba, Diego de Velazquez, feared that Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of the AzTECS, was growing insubordinate. In 1520 Velazquez sent Narvaez to Mexico at the head of almost a thousand soldiers with instructions to arrest Cortes. Cortes, in a surprise attack, defeated Narvaez and recruited many of his soldiers into his own army. He then imprisoned Narvaez for more than two years. Once freed, Narvaez returned to Spain.

In 1526 Narvaez received a commission to conquer the Gulf coast of Florida. As a reward for leading this expedition, he was named both adelantado and governor for life of Florida. His party landed near Tampa Bay on April 14, 1528.

The expedition faced severe problems from the beginning, which were probably exacerbated by conflicts between Narvaez and his second-in-command, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Narvaez did not bring enough food and supplies for the expedition, and the men suffered from hunger and thirst. As they headed north they fought with Indians they encountered. The Spanish survivors eventually reached the chiefdom of Apalachee, in northern Florida. Ill and exhausted, they decided to build boats and return to Mexico. They launched five boats, but their attempt to return to Mexico failed. Some boats were washed out to sea, while others washed ashore. Only four men, including Cabeza de Vaca, survived to return to New Spain eight years later.

Cabeza de Vaca, in his account of the expedition, wrote that Narvaez was among those lost at sea. He heard from another Spanish survivor of the expedition that one night “the governor stayed in his boat and refused to go ashore . . . and a mate and a page, who was ill, stayed with him; and they had no water in the boat or anything to eat, and in the middle of the night the north wind began to blow so fiercely that it took the boat out to sea without anyone seeing it go, for they had no anchor but a stone.”

Further reading: Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz, Alvar N-unez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pdnfilo de Narvaez, vol. 3 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); Jerald T. Milanich, “Narvaez, Panfilo de,” in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 4, ed. Barbara A. Tenenbaum (New York: Scribner’s, 1996); Enrique Pupo-Walker, ed., Castaways: The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, trans. Frances M. Lopez-Morillas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Stuart B. Schwartz, ed., Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000).

—Martha K. Robinson