Introduction to Classical Nahuatl

by J. Richard Andrews

For many years, J. Richard Andrews’s Introduction to Classical Nahuatl has been the standard reference work for scholars and students of Nahuatl, the language used by the ancient Aztecs and the Nahua Indians of Central Mexico. Andrews’s work was the first book to make Nahuatl accessible as a coherent language system and to recognize such crucial linguistic features as vowel length and the glottal stop. Accompanied by a workbook, this long-awaited new edition is extensively revised, enlarged, and updated with the latest research. The revised edition is guided by the same intentions as those behind the first. Andrews’s approach is "anthropological," teaching us to understand Nahuatl according to its own distinctive grammar and to reject translationalist descriptions based on English or Spanish notions of grammar. In particular, Andrews emphasizes the nonexistence of words in Nahuatl (except for the few so-called particles) and stresses the nuclear clause as the basis for Nahuatl linguistic organization. Besides an increase in the number of chapters (from forty-eight to fifty-seven, including a more detailed treatment of place names), the new edition contains an innovative approach to personal names and the introduction of the square zero to indicate irregular morphological silence. The accompanying workbook provides exercises linked to the text, a key to the exercises, and an extensive vocabulary list.  

692 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1975

Reviews

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thorough, but deeply unpleasant.

As another review mentioned, this book uses a principles and parameters approach that may not be at all familiar or intuitive for readers. On the other hand, nobody is going to be learning Nahuatl as part of a vacation plan, so scholars should be able to figure it out and work through it.

While the author goes to great lengths to explain how Nahuatl is a very different language in terms of structure and conceptualization, the author is also obnoxious. There are only so many times you can read "the way everybody else does it is wrong and they're stupid, but my way is the right way" before it gets tiresome. It's not that the author is wrong, but he blows his horn so often you'd think he was trying to make a one-man symphony, and I can only imagine what torture it would be to have him as a professor.

IF you can get past that, this is a very strong resource for a subject that doesn't offer a lot of options.

[Taylor Bolinger]

Deeply thorough, the standard text on the subject. However, it is written using a Principles and Parameters syntactic paradigm that is no longer current and requires some additional work to decipher. Highly useful however if you are studying Mesoamerican languages in general and Aztec in particular.