Nahuatl

Nahuatl is the principal language of the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century. It was the tongue of the Mexica, the people of the Aztec Empire, and as their power spread the variety of Tenochtitlan became a prestige language across Mesoamerica, recorded in pictorial codices.

After the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Spanish missionaries gave Nahuatl a Latin alphabet, and the literary norm known as Classical Nahuatl produced grammars, chronicles, poetry and administrative records. Andrés de Olmos wrote its first printed grammar, while Bernardino de Sahagún compiled the Florentine Codex with Nahua scribes.

In 1570 Philip II decreed Nahuatl the official language of New Spain, and Horacio Carochi published a grammar in 1645. Words such as chocolate, tomato and coyote passed into Spanish and other languages.