‘Aztec Voices Across the Centuries’

The writing system devised for Náhuatl by Franciscan friars in the years immediately following the Spanish Conquest uses too many letters in some cases and not enough in others. As a result, Classical Náhuatl could be said to be written in a code to remind people of pronunciation rather than to accurately represent it. This served the Spaniards and the Náhuatl speakers equally well; the traditional orthography [way of writing it] did not indicate sounds that Spanish speakers couldn't hear well, while speakers of Classical Náhuatl knew how to pronounce their language even if it was not precisely written. Only we, centuries removed from the days of the Conquest, are at a disadvantage.

Book 1, Chapter 1, page 1 of the Florentine Codex (Spanish, left, Náhuatl, right)

It was Carochi, writing in 1645, who devised a system of diacritics [accents and marks] to indicate two crucial elements of Náhuatl. First, he recognized the glottal stop ( saltillo in Spanish) as a consonant like any other. The earlier attempts to write it down rarely indicated the saltillo. Second, building on a list of contrasting pairs of words devised by one of his Jesuit colleagues, Carochi showed that Náhuatl has two degrees of vowel length. Long vowels contrast with short vowels just as they do, for instance, in Finnish and in Czech.

Elders speaking Náhuatl, Moctezuma's Council chamber, Codex Mendoza folio 69r

For us today there are three avenues back to the pronunciation of Classical Náhuatl. There is the body of work written with accents and marks by Carochi and his associates. Second, some of the varieties of Náhuatl spoken today are thought to be especially conservative. Because they have changed less, we can follow Carochi’s advice and go directly to their speakers. Third, languages that have diverged much more from older Náhuatl have done so in systematic ways, so by a sort of triangulation among them we can reconstruct the Classical forms. For instance, in the town of Tetelcingo, Morelos, the long vowels have changed in quality, while the short ones have not. This makes it easy to distinguish long vowels from short ones. In other varieties of spoken Náhuatl, in the place of the Aztecs’ saltillo, there is a whispery but audible “h” sound.

Frances Karttunen's 'Analytical Dictionary of Náhuatl'

In addition to authentic pronunciation, this opera seeks to convey an aspect of Náhuatl rhetoric that is impossible to translate. There was a convoluted style of speaking known as 'lordly speech' in which everything is indirect and often contrary to fact. Politeness among the Aztecs required that one often say the opposite of what one meant and to speak at length in florid ways. In classical Náhuatl, anything worth saying once was worth saying twice, and anything said twice was better said four times. Experienced practitioners of lordly speech saw through the verbiage to the intent [read between the lines to get at the real meaning]. A literal translation of Moteuczoma’s welcoming speech to Cortés should not be taken at face value.

Elegant Náhuatl speech glyph, Codex Borbonicus, p. 4