Classical Nahuatl – Advanced Level 3700-CW17-CS

An advanced translation course for students (including PhD students) who have completed a basic Nahuatl language course. The topics during the course are strictly linked to a team project studying the Nahuatl language of central Mexico in the context of its “clash” with Spanish and with European culture.

Geographically, the course topics focus on central Mexico, inhabited mainly by people who speak the Nahuatl language, one of the major native languages of the Americas. The world of the Nahua Indians is also the central area of the Aztec empire (Triple Alliance) created in the final century before the Spanish conquest. Though the empire soon fell, under the reign of the Spanish crown many small Indian states survived for a long time. They were known by the traditional name altepetl, and European officials tried - with varying success - to fit them into the model of head towns and their subject towns (cabeceras and their sujetos). The Nahuatl language played an important political and cultural role, both before the arrival of the Europeans and during the Spanish conquest and colonization. The vigorous development of Nahuatl literary culture in the 16th century enabled the Spaniards to make this the official language of colonization, which in fact in a way copied its role of the lingua franca of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Nahuatl remains in use to this day in many local dialects.

The fact that the peoples of Mesoamerica used their own forms of writing before the Europeans arrived contributed significantly to the rapid adaptation of alphabetic writing, and consequently to the creation of a huge corpus of texts written in native languages. They represented different genres, both of pre-Hispanic origin and imported from Europe, starting with literary and religious texts, all the way to texts directly connected with everyday life (the economy, institutions of power, etc.). They contain interesting testimony to the varying degrees of acceptance for European tradition and acculturation, depending on the intensity of contacts, the status of language users, and also the degree of isolation of individual communities.

The course develops advanced skills in the translation and contextual reading of Nahuatl texts belonging to different genres, including documents never published before. It encompasses primarily historical, religious, and “everyday” genres, including wills, court files, and economic documents. The texts analysed during the course were written between the 16th and 18th centuries; they enable researchers to conduct systematic studies of the conceptual terminology developed by the natives as they came in contact with European culture, and also to trace the changes occurring in the language under the influence of contact with Spanish. On the example of specific sources from New Spain - studied especially in terms of lexical borrowings, loan translations, neologisms, and changed meanings of pre-Hispanic terminology - the course considers the problem of European-native intercultural communication reflected in language, native reactions to cultural foreignness, and adaptation strategies. Another objective is to continue learning the classic Nahuatl language at the advanced level, hence various grammar topics will be introduced as well.

Participation in the translation course enables students to develop their skills in reading early-colonial texts and documents, allowing them to learn about the culture of the Nahua Indians and the complex reality of New Spain; in a longer time horizon, students may also be able to take part in the interdisciplinary international team project devoted to “language meetings” between the Old and New World.