The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl Language can be grouped into two rough Dialect Continua , labelled the central and the peripheral dialects.
- /ta/ that the group of /t/ dialects were conservative and the /tł/ and /l/ dialects more innovative. This claim was shown to be false, when it was established that at least some t-dialects had also undergone the ---/ta/>/tł/ change and had later changed it back to /t/ in some positions. Hasler's "tetradialectology" was discredited because it made mistaken assumptions, and was based on one sole trait which did not prove useful for establishing isoglosses.
In her article "Nahuatl dialectology: A survey and some suggestions" (IJAL 54.1. 28-72.) Una Canger summarised research in Nahuatl Dialectology and suggests some diagnostic traits serving to establish to dialect contiua a central and a peripheral one peripheral. Her suggested classification was supported by the enormous dialectological survey conducted by Yolanda Lastra de Suaréz published as "Las Areas Dialectales Del Nahuatl Moderno" She proposes to subdivide the Peripheral dialects into an eastern, western and a La Huasteca area. Her classification stands as the most accepted to this day.
The central area is the valley of Mexico where the Aztec empire was founded and where it expanded from. Classical nahuatl as it was spoken by the people of Tenochtitlan , the Aztec capital was one of the central dialects, as are the dialects spoken in that area today. The central dialect area includes the dialects spoken in Morelos , Estado De Mexico , Southern Hidalgo , Northwest Puebla and Tlaxcala . The central dialects are generally considered to be innovative.
The Peripheral dialects are Nahuatl dialects spoken in the areas most distant from the center of the Aztec empire. There is much diversity within the peripheral dialects and various subdivisions within the periperal group have been proposed. Peripheral dialects are spoken in Durango , La Huasteca , Guerrero , Tabasco , and Veracruz .
- BOAS, Franz. 1917. El dialecto mexicano de Pochutla, Oaxaca. IJAL 1. 9-44.
- CAMPBELL, Lyle. n.d. La dialectologia pipil. Ms. : .
- CANGER, Una and DAKIN, Karen. 1985. An inconspicuous basic split in Nahuatl. IJAL 51. 358-361.
- CANGER, Una. 1980. Five Studies inspired by nahuatl Verbs in -oa. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague 19. Copenhagen:
- CANGER, Una. 1988. Nahuatl dialectology: A survey and some suggestions. IJAL 54.1. 28-72.
- CANGER, Una. 1988. Subgrupos de los dialectos nahuas. Smoke and Mist: Mesoamerican Studies in Memory of Thelma D. Sullivan. Ed. by J. Kathryn Josserand and Karen Dakin, eds.. 473-498. Oxford: BAR International Series 402. Part ii.
- DAKIN, Karen and RYESKY, Diana. 1990. Morelos Nahuatl Dialects: Hypotheses on their historical divisions. Morelos en una economia global. Proceedings of the Congress in Cocoyoc, Morelos, November 19023, 1989. Submitted in January, 1990.
- DAKIN, Karen, and SULLIVAN, Thelma D. 1980. Dialectologia del nahuatl de los siglos XVI y XVI. Rutas de intercambio en Moseamerica y el Norte de Mexico, XVI Round Table, Saltillo, September 9-15, 1979. V. II. 291-297.
- DAKIN, Karen. 1974. Dialectologia nahuatl de Morelos: Un estudio preliminar. Estudios de cultura nahuatl 11. 227-234.
- HASLER, Juan. 1961. Tetradialectologia nahua. A William Cameron Townsend en el Vigesimoquinto Aniversario del Instituto Linguistico de Verano. 455-464. Mexico: Instituto Linguistico de Verano.
- HASLER, Juan. 1975. Los dialectos de la lengua nahua. America Indigena 35. 170-188. : .
- HASLER, Juan. 1955. Los cuatro dialectos de la lengua nahua. Revista mexicana de estudios antropologicos xiv, 1a parte. 149-152.
- LASTRA DE SUAREZ, Yolanda. 1979. Nahuatl dialect areas. Presentation to the Friends of Uto-Aztecan Working Conference, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, June 22, Mexico
- LASTRA DE SUAREZ, Yolanda. 1981. Stress in modern Nahuatl dialects. Nahuatl Studies in Memory of Fernando Horcasitas, Texas Linguistic Forum 18.1. 19-128. Austin: The University of Texas, Department of Linguistics.
- LASTRA DE SUAREZ, Yolanda. 1986. Las areas dialectales del nahuat moderno. Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Antropological, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
- WHORF, Benjamin L. 1937. The origin of Aztec tl. American Anthropologist 39. 265-274.
The three-letter ( ISO 639-3 ) code, with a link to the corresponding Ethnologue entry, is given after each dialect name. Where there is an
SIL-MX Nahuatl
subsite for that variant, a link is given to that subsite.
List II. Nahuan subgroup members, sorted by number of speakers:
(name subgroup code – location(s) ~approx. number of speakers)
- Eastern Huasteca {Link without Title} – Hidalgo, Western Veracruz, Northern Puebla ~450,000
- Western Huasteca {Link without Title} – San Luis Potosí, Western Hidalgo ~450,000
- Guerrero {Link without Title} – Guerrero ~200,000
- Orizaba {Link without Title} – Central Veracruz ~140,000
- Southeastern Puebla {Link without Title} – Southeast Puebla ~135,000
- Highland Puebla {Link without Title} – Puebla Highlands ~125,000
- Northern Puebla {Link without Title} – Northern Puebla ~66,000
- Central {Link without Title} – Tlaxcala, Puebla ~50,000
- Isthmus-Mecayapan {Link without Title} – Southern Veracruz ~20,000
- Central Puebla {Link without Title} – Central Puebla ~18,000
- Morelos {Link without Title} – Morelos ~15,000
- Northern Oaxaca {Link without Title} – Northwestern Oaxaca, Southeastern Puebla ~10,000
- Huaxcaleca {Link without Title} – Puebla ~7,000
- Isthmus-Pajapan {Link without Title} – Southern Veracruz ~7,000
- Isthmus-Cosoleacaque {Link without Title} – Northwestern Coastal Chiapas, Southern Veracruz ~5,500
- Tetelcingo {Link without Title} – Morelos ~3,500
- Michoacán {Link without Title} – Michoacán ~3,000
- Santa María de la Alta {Link without Title} – Northwest Puebla ~3,000
- Tenango {Link without Title} – Northern Puebla ~2,000
- Tlamacazapa {Link without Title} – Morelos ~1,500
- Coatepec {Link without Title} – Southwestern México (State), Northwestern Guerrero ~1,500
- Durango {Link without Title} – Southern Durango ~1,000
- Ometepec {Link without Title} – Southern Guerrero, Western Oaxaca ~500
- Temascaltepec {Link without Title} – Southwestern México (State) ~300
- Tlalitzlipa {Link without Title} – Puebla ~100
- Pipil {Link without Title} – El Salvador ~100
- Tabasco {Link without Title} – Tabasco
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