Today's Mayan date is: 12.19.17.1.13 - two years and 316 days to go to the end of the cycle!

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'Dear Mother' Click below to hear a daughter’s love for her mother expressed in a Náhuatl poem ‘Aztec Stories’

Welcome

Here is our new Aztec Language (Náhuatl) section which incorporates previous material on pronunciation as well as new material on Aztec sayings and proverbs. PLEASE NOTE that we have more material on Náhuatl in our ‘Ask the Experts’ and ‘Aztec Stories’ pages.

Our first offering is ‘Aztec Voices Across the Centuries’, kindly shared with us by Frances Karttunen, a world expert on Náhuatl: Professor Karttunen gave this as an address at a press conference in March 2005 for the premiere of La Conquista, a pioneering modern opera about the Conquest of Mexico, composed and written by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero with extensive help from Professor Kartunnen, and commissioned for the Prague National Opera. Professor Ferrero’s concept was for the Spaniards to sing in 16th-century Spanish, the Aztecs to sing in Classical Náhuatl, and the character of Doña Marina, the Nahua interpreter for Cortés, to interpret to the opera’s audience what was going on. Moreover, he allowed the contrasting rhythms of the two languages (Spanish/Náhuatl) to ‘drive’ the opera’s music in very different directions...

NOTE: For useful extra links to online resources on Náhuatl, both Classical and modern, click on ‘Introductory Náhuatl Guide’ (right).

Proverbs

and Pronunciations

How has today’s Náhuatl changed

from Classical Náhuatl?

The Aztecs took ‘double-entendre’

to a whole new level of meaning...

When in Rome...’

Download a basic Náhuatl guide

Ancient language modern soundwaves

- how to pronounce some of the commonest words

Learn from two young locals

how to say Hello in Náhuatl

The Aztecs were nothing if not

‘proverbial’ speakers...