The Origin of Náhuatl and the Uto-Aztecan Family
Figure 1. Proposed Uto-Aztecan (UA) range before Spanish contact. Some debatable unclassified proposed UA languages not included. Image created by Jonathan Rodriguez
About the Writer
Jonathan Rodriguez is a graduate of the University of Southern California from the GIST program. While studying Spatial Data Jonathan has integrated his Anthropology background from the University of Arizona on his projects and papers. Besides focusing on Mexican migration Jonathan also has a focus on Mesoamerica and the Mexican Northwest. Jonathan was also the director of outreach for Náhuatl Language Project at U of A.
Preface
Náhuatl is one of the most spoken indigenous languages in the Americas with over 1.7 million speakers and is part of the Uto-Aztecan (UA) family language. A language family that historically spanned from the US state of Idaho down to Northern Costa Rica. This family contains a variety of different languages that all came from a common ancestor thousands of years ago. Over the years various migrations occurred and groups eventually diverged from each other and started to become their own independent culture and language. Today this family contains languages such as the Shoshone, Comanche, Hopi, Cahuilla, Paiute, Ute, O'odham, Yaqui, Mayo, Tarahumara, Tepehuán, Huichol, and Náhuatl. Náhuatl was spoken by multiple cultures such as the Aztecs/Mexicas, Tlaxcalans, Acolhuas, and many others; today native Náhuatl speakers are now grouped as part of the Nahua culture. Due to the UA family spanning across such a large area of different biomes and elevations from pine forest, grasslands, plains, deserts, subtropical dry forest and tropical jungles. Much mystery and challenges have been investigated by academics for decades to find the exact origin of the Proto-Uto Aztecan language or ancestral language of all the modern-day Uto-Aztecan speakers.
Back during the start of my academic path at the University of Arizona, I was taking a class called Mesoamerican Archaeology. My professor was Mayanist Dr. Takeshi Inomata who suggested I research the possibility of Náhautl being spoken in the large classic period city of Teotihuacan due to my focus on Náhuatl and the Aztecs. This eventually led to the creation of my paper the UNCOVERING NÁHUATL IN TEOTIHUACAN AND NÁHUATL ORIGIN. In this paper I discussed the origin of Náhuatl and the Uto-Aztecan family based on two origin models. The Northern Origin model has been highly accepted by most academics, while the Southern Origin model was pushed by a few academics, such as linguist Jane Hill. I also discussed the story of Aztlan since this is a well-known migration account from Náhuatl speakers. The following is a revised version of three sections from my original paper.
The Northern Origin Model
Figure 2. The States of Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora, and Chihuahua are considered the possible origin of the UA. Image created by Jonathan Rodriguez.
The Northern Origin Model is a more popular accepted model that’s based on an idea that this Proto Uto-Aztecan (PUA) family came out from somewhere in the American Southwest/Northwest Mexico. Within this area there is also still much debate on where exactly the Proto-Uto Aztecan family came from and what time it started to split off. It was in the late 1950’s when Sydney Lamb and A.K. Romney proposed that the homeland for the Proto Uto-Aztecan family came from the American southwest in the Gila River Basin or in the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Other Academic proposals for the homeland were in the Columbian plateau, Northeast California, or Oregon, eventually Lamb’s and Romney's proposal became the most acceptable origin of the PUA family. From here the community started to split and become more independent cultures as some groups headed out into parts of the American Southwest and headed south into Mexico and finally reached parts of Central America.
Anthropologist Catherine S. Fowler estimated the PUA to be as old a 5000 B.C. and then the split or diversion of the family was around 3000 B.C. Fowler received plenty of credit with these ideas and it is now the more favored theory along the Northern origin. This would assume that agriculture spread north from Mesoamerica and was incorporated into the southwest that was adopted by many types of cultures throughout the southwest. With Agricultural and popular plants like corn, beans, and squash that came out of Mesoamerica this attracted many people from the Uto-Aztecan family to migrate South and eventually into Mexico and Central America.
The Southern Origin Model
Figure 3. Area of Possible UA Origin in Mesoamerica. Image created by Jonathan Rodriguez
Most scholars have widely believed that the origin of the Uto-Aztecan family came out of the American Southwest or Mexican northwest and its speakers spread down into Mexico. Yet it wasn't until the late 1990’s when Archeologist Peter Bellwood created an alternative hypothesis that the PUA family came out of Mesoamerica, where maize was domesticated thousands of years ago. This hypothesis was further investigated and supported by linguist Jane Hill. Hill believed the Uto-Aztecan family migrated north from Mesoamerica which allowed the spread of maize into the American Southwest. This too seems to be the case due to the rapid spread of maize cultivation throughout the southwest so quickly that other groups maintained their own independent languages outside of the Uto-Aztecan family.
If this was the case the southern model would support that PUA families were cultivators when Maize was domesticated around 5600 BC. Archeologists have also determined that Mazie had reached the American Southwest 4000 years ago. Due to the rapid growth of corn this allowed the Uto-Aztecan family to grow its population rapidly and spread northward in the northern parts of Mexico and the American West while also spreading into Central America. This would mean that Nahua people are originally from central Mexico. This could be why many classic period cities in Mesoamerica have Náhuatl writing influence.
Aztlán and the Seven Tribes
Figure 4. Image of Chicomoztoc from the 16th century Manuscript Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca
Out of these two models presented above there is at least one event that gives us an account of a well-known migration from actual Uto-Aztecan speakers. This is the story of Aztlán and the Seven tribes, the Aztec/Mexica origin story. The story has captivated not only Mexicans but also Chicanos/Mexican-Americans, as an essential part of pride and identity that has been passed on through generations and now in our history books. According to Aztec history, the Mexica tribe left their homeland Aztlán a mythical magical place sometime around 1000 AD and migrated south to the Valley of Mexico, who then became a powerful civilization centuries later, but this story is not just an isolated event as there were also six other sister cultures of the Mexica who left earlier.
The Journey South
Together these several tribes came out of the seven caves of Chicomoztoc within the land of Aztlán. These seven tribes were all sister cultures who spoke the same language. the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalteca, Tepaneca, Chalca, and the Mexica. All seven actually migrated south and 5 would eventually settle along the shores of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Anahuac, The Tlahuica would settle in the modern-day state of Morelos and the Tlaxcalteca would end up the modern state of Tlaxcala. They were seen as barbarians by the more civilized Toltec city-states but through their adaptation to Mesoamerican social politics and becoming urbanized they were incorporated and established their cities in Central Mexico. It was a conflict between the Achola of Texcoco and Tepaneca of Azcapotzalco which would actually give rise to the Mexica as one of the most powerful civilizations in the Americas in less than 200 hundred years.
Even though this story may show support of the PUA Northern Model as the Aztecs headed south into central Mexico, this doesn't mean that there weren't other Náhuatl speakers in Central Mexico. Much mystery is still wrapped around the origin of the Toltec Civilization and its predecessors, the Aztec and Tepaneca Empires. The Toltec Civilization came into power in the early post classic period 900 AD – 1100 AD. Most academics have agreed that the Toltecs were Náhuatl speakers, and their influence was perhaps even larger than the Aztecs as they appear to even influence the Maya in the Yucatan. It is likely that the Toltecs had a fusion culture or a civilization of different enclaves of ethnicities, perhaps Náhuatl speakers mixing with Oto-manguean speakers. In support of the PUA Southern Model one must find the ancestry or place of origin of the Toltecs.
Further investigation will always challenge both models, as even a recent investigation from the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School argues that the California Uto-Aztecans migrated from Northwest Mexico into California 5200 years ago. Perhaps the true origin of the PUA isn’t in Mesoamerica or the American Southwest perhaps in Aridoamerica in Southern Sonora, Southern Chihuahua, Sinaloa, or Durango.
References
Hill, Jane H. “Proto‐Uto‐Aztecan: A Community of Cultivators in Central Mexico?” American Anthropologist 103, no. 4 (December 2001): 913–934.
Nakatsuka, Nathan et al, “Genetic continuity and change among the Indigenous peoples of California”, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06771-5
Rodriguez, Jonathan. “Uncovering Náhuatl in Teotihuacan and Náhuatl origin”, ANTH Mesoamerican Archaeology 453. Term Paper, University of Arizona 2014
Smith, Michael E. “The Aztlan Migrations of the Náhuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?” Ethnohistory 31, no. 3 (1984): 153.
Townsend, Richard F. “The Aztecs”. London: Thames & Hudson, (2003).
