Nahuatl

Nahuatl is the language spoken by the native people, including the Aztecs, in what is now Mexico. It is still the most important Indian language in the country. Its 1.5 million speakers live mainly in the states of Puebla, Veracruz?, Hidalgo?, and Guerrero?.

Nahuatl belongs to the Uto-Aztecan? subgroup of North American Indian languages which also include the languages spoken by the Comanche?, Pima?, Shoshone?, and other tribes of western North America. It is an agglutinant?, flexive? language.

Nahuatl words adopted into English include "tomato," "chocolate," "avocado," "coyote," and "ocelot."

At the time of the Spanish conquest Aztec writing was entirely pictographic. The Spanish introduced the Roman script and recorded a large body of Aztec prose and poetry.

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