ABSTRACT
Nahuatl, the common language of the so-called Aztec Empire and native language of some 1.5 million people today, is one of the most of the widely spoken and best-documented Indigenous languages in the Americas.1 This robust number of speakers and written corpus, however, does not translate to language or cultural vitality. Similar to other Indigenous peoples across the world, over the past five centuries Nahuas have been subject to systematic discrimination, displacement, dispossession, and deprivation of their cultural resources, particularly their language (UN Division of Economic and Social Affairs 2009: 1). Today fewer and fewer Nahua children learn their maternal language at home. Add to this that language, reading, and writing skills in Nahuatl are rarely taught beyond the second grade, if at all, in public schools in Nahua communities. It is common for Nahuas to deny that they speak an Indigenous language or to refuse to speak it in public, having long endured intense discrimination based on their indigeneity (McDonough 2014: 60-61). Deemed inferior to Spanish, Indigenous languages in Mexico such as Nahuatl are at risk of extinction.2
