Huasteca Nahuatl is the variant with the most speakers today. My name is Itztli Ehecatl and I have been studying Huasteca Nahuatl for three years. I am currently in the intermediate stage. Over the years I’ve had the following teachers Ofelia de la Cruz, Victoriano de la Cruz, Brenda de la Cruz, and Yan Garcia. In this website I will provide detailed step-by-step instructions designed to help you learn the language quickly and efficiently.
No Substitute for the Best Learning Strategy
First and foremost I want to be clear that there is no learning strategy more effective than learning the language from a native speaker who understands their language well. A native speaker is a living dictionary. In a split second they can tell you how to say anything in their language. They don’t need to stop to look at a dictionary first because their dictionary resides in their minds. A proficient speaker can easily know upwards of a whopping 12,000+ words! If you’re reading this page in English right now, you may or may not know Spanish. My suggestion for those who do know Spanish is to enroll in a language learning course with a native Huasteca Nahuatl speaker who knows their language well. You can then utilize all of the resources on my page as homework to reinforce what you learn in your classes. For those who do not know Spanish, I recommend you utilize the resources on this website to reach an intermediate level. Once the intermediate level is attained, you can then enroll in a course with a native speaker, communicate solely using Huasteca Nahuatl, and thus bypass the need to learn Spanish. I’ve utilized a few different Huasteca Nahuatl native speakers up to this point in my language learning journey and the two that I highly recommend are Victoriano de la Cruz (yolitia.centrodelenguas@gmail.com) and Ofelia de la Cruz (ofemorales.c12@gmail.com).
The Myth of the Unintelligible Nahuatl Variants
I’ve encountered many people who argue that Nahuatl variants are mutually unintelligible. They say that the difference between any given two Nahuatl variants is the same as the difference between Spanish and Italian. Considering Spanish and Italian are two distinct languages, this is a bold claim. But is it supported? When I asked one of my Huasteca Nahuatl teachers, Victoriano de la Cruz, if he could understand Nahuatl speakers from regions outside of Veracruz, he answered with an emphatic KENA (yes)! How is this possible? Huasteca Nahuatl covers a wide geographical range which includes the states of Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, and Hidalgo. The further one travels from their own altepetl (city, community), the more differences they can expect to encounter but within the Huasteca Nahuatl region, the differences would be similar to American English speaker communicating with an Australian or British English speaker. If a Huasteca Nahuatl speaker travels further to Puebla, Guerrero, or Tlaxcala, they will start to encounter more moderate differences and they might begin to struggle communicating but with a bit of practice this could be resolved relatively easily. If a Huasteca Nahuatl speaker travels even further to Michoacan or El Salvador then at this point we are indeed approaching the intelligibility rate of two distinct languages such as Spanish and Italian and they can still adjust but it would take more time and effort than before.
But I Want to Learn Classical Nahuatl, Can Huasteca Nahuatl Help Me?
Many people have a desire to learn Classical Nahuatl and for good reason considering there are numerous books documenting Pre-Columbian Nahua history and culture so they wonder if Huasteca Nahuatl will help them reach that goal. Others want to learn a Nahuatl variant that is closer to their ancestral homelands and wonder if learning Huasteca Nahuatl help them in that regard. The answer is a resounding yes! In 2014, the linguists Justyna Olko and John Sullivan conducted an experiment to determine if adult and high school-level Nahuatl speakers could understand Classical Nahuatl. Interestingly, all of the participants could read Spanish but none of the participants had ever read anything written in their own language. The researchers concluded that “the students had no trouble reading and understanding the manuscripts.” It turns out that no matter which Nahuatl variant you speak, you can understand the other variants with very slight modifications in most cases.
Chicontepec, Veracruz, the Epicenter of Nahuatl Language Revitalization
The problem all Nahuatl language learners face is that the language is not standardized (not even Classical Nahuatl was standardized and the writing conventions vary wildly from author to author) and there are very few resources available. This means that as you travel from altepetl to altepetl, you will quickly discover that the Nahuatl speakers in each altepetl pronounce words differently and also use different words since no Nahuatl standard exists. As a result, learning Nahuatl takes considerably longer compared to learning standardized languages with abundant resources available such as English and Spanish. Learning Huasteca Nahuatl helps to alleviate these problems because since the Huasteca Nahuatl variant has the most speakers, there are naturally more resources available. Also, the only thing that we have that is close to a Nahuatl language standard is the IDIEZ program centered in Zacatecas, Mexico. Beginning in 2002 by the American linguist named John Sullivan gathered several Huasteca Nahuatl native speakers from Chicontepec, Veracruz and taught them how to read and write their language. He also taught them the grammar rules that glues their language together. This program was so successful that many of his Huasteca Nahuatl students have gone on to become illustrious linguists! The Huasteca Nahuatl speakers who were a part of the IDIEZ program published (and continue to publish) a plethora of helpful resources such as dictionaries and novels. that will aid you greatly in your Nahuatl learning journey.