Writing Nahuatl Without Latin. Can it be done? Who has tried? Also a brief intro to Nahuatl Glyphs drive.google.com/drive/folder... Get the book here! www.amazon.com/Nahuatl-Langua...
I love this approach with the comments mentioning a system influenced by Japanese kana and kanji. I think putting the characters together like Korean Hangul would make it look smoother and still fit in with the original prints merging imagery based off of similar sounds. Gracias por todo, paisano, amo mi segundo país.
I was literally thinking this while watching. Something like the Japanese script might be a little too hard, but a system like hangul could work and still be easy to ready while being efficient on space and representative of old Aztec glyphs. That or the syllabary seem like the best options.
Why don’t they create a writing system on their own which is unique to their way of thinking and not connected to any other language? Why does it have to be similar to Japanese? What is so great about Japanese? Japan and its cultural are overhyped and overrated. Most of japanese culture was inherited from china and korea.
I liked your syllabary, I feel like that would be the most logical next step in the evolution of a Nahuatl writing system. Another idea I could see being possible is for Nahuatl to retain some symbols for their original meaning and combining those with a syllabary system, sort of how Japanese combines their syllabaries with logographs.
What a fantastic video. I myself think the Trager abugida would be best and easier to pick up by beginners coming from the Latin alphabet (which is important if we want to use it to expand the language), but you make the very important point that the abugida is not natively found in Nahuatl.
i dont see how it being found natively or not should affect the use of a writing system, thats just being a picky eater imo. If it works for the language let it be used
Tlazocamati tlamachti, these are amazing lessons on Huasteca Nahuatl. They are very helpful and I am so happy to know some things about a major indigenous language in Mexico/the Americas. Greetings from Indonesia.
I respect your work immensely. You created a writing system from indigenous symbols and glyphs without the use of the latin alphabet. You have done a service to history and culture even if you don’t realize it. Thank you, I don’t speak aztec but I think its absurd that all other language’s have to look like and function like latin does.
Brilliant, beautiful video! I really liked your syllabary and was thinking about the same thing comparing the codices to ancient Chinese pictographs. The way you broke down the hieroglyphs and transformed them into syllables is very similar to the way the Japanese turned the foreign kanji into their own hiragana and katakana syllabaries. I prefer your syllabary over the others because it’s so rich in native language and culture. I wish money was used to implement your system to little by little help decolonize Nahuatl speaking peoples, but unfortunately that’s not possible at the moment. Hopefully in the future your method can be used! Thanks for making the syllabary and this video!
A long time ago, I read a comment on Facebook saying that Hangul would be perfect for nahuatl and after I made a research I realized that nahuatl has a little problem, the length of the words but Hangul would make it easy for the nahuatl language to write words and make them compacted, and Hangul is a well recognized and stablished writing system.
I think Cyrillic is a better fit for pronunciation when reading, as they have many alphabets that cover our sylabuls like Tl, Tz, Tsh . They even have Xochtli as сочи ,see. I think if you do a side by side in cyrillic with some of the other Dene languages you would find that Nahuatl and the Salish langauges do share lots of similarities that you would not notice when reading it in latin. I think maybe a 2-3 alphabet appraoch like Japanese does , kanji and hiragana. So a Hiragana like alphabet would tackle the pronunciation of simple parts using the Cyrillic alphabet . Then the symbols to be like a character set to represent complex ideas into a character almost like an emoji the same way Kanji does with Japanese. I'm not familiar w/ Hangul , could you explain Hangul??? I heard it also leads to confusion. I've seen somebody do a Chinese character set for Nahuatl but its way too vauge as Nahuatl grammar is very complicated almost like Polish or Hungarian- Mansi. But Latin does not do Nahuatl justice, which explains why the language stagnated and transformed more into mexican spanish we know of in the 1600s.
@@chibiromano5631 but I don't mean a "good fit", I'm talking about practicalness, I'm gonna give you some examples, I also added Cyrillic script and I don't find it practical at all, Latin script is more practical because it's the most used in the world, even some countries that have russian as a language use Latin alphabet. Classical script: Māca xicmocaccānehnequi in nāhuatlahtōlli. My Latin script: Māka xikmokakkānehneki in nāwaλahtōlλi. Translation: Don't try to understand the nahuatl language. Hangul script: 먀가씩모각갸넿네기인냐와탛됼티. Cyrillic script: Ма́ка шикмокакка́нэьнэки ин иа́уатлаьто́лтли. As you can see, the Hangul script has only 15 syllables blocks and being a syllable block script makes it easy for nahuatl to be written because the nahuatl language is syllabic. As far as I can see, Latin and Cyrillic scripts make the same length and have almost the same possibilities, they both take more than 35 spaces, more than the Hangul script that only takes 15.
@@gcondado my last comment didn't make it clear that Cyrillic isn't going to be the alphabet. yea of course the letters are lengthy. What I meant was that Cyrillic to be used as a supplmentary pronunciation guide for an new script base. You would still need a new script similar to Japanese(Hiragana & Kanji) or a Hangul type to be the foundation but for new students learning the pronunication of these parts, Cyrillic would need to be used instead latin ( and even IPA) because Cyrillic pronunciation is way more accurate and it's also way faster to read. For instance in that sentence comparison you did, the letters might be the same however in reading cyrilic you finish that whole sentence in like 1.5 second vs latin 3.4 seconds because of its no gutteral stop but in Latin script you're pretty much reading letter for letter and it slows down the nahuatl pronunciation and so learning even the basics would be lengthier and not true to its pronunciation. But yeah In doing some translations of 16 letter sentences, i can use the Chinese script and get that done in 4 characters. But even then it still causes confusion. Because Chinese has tones, but Japanese hybrid system kinda covers this with their two-three alphabet system. Nahuatl is a very vague language. For instance, to make a reference to white you are also referencing a totol (white bird). So when wanting to describe stuff like snow, you are using totol and that can mean several things depending on its usage. The iconography that Kanji uses not only saves space but also makes it clear what the word is in reference and what conitation it is being used in. I've stayed away from hangul because their pronunciation seem very limited. I guess i'll learn it but it seems like Hangul replaces a lot of the nahuatl pronunciation with its own, like japanese they have a limited pronunciation. So in you're example you got rid of the K for a G. Is there a reason for that?
@@chibiromano5631 I don't mean a 100% phonetically perfect script, ㄱ in Korean can be read as k/ɡ, if you wanna make a phonetic alphabet, the best choice is IPA, not all people will read Cyrillic as fast as you, most people only know Latin alphabet; kanzi or kanji are good for a shorter writing but they're not phonetic, you must memorize each character's pronunciation and they're harder to learn, that's why King Sejong created Hangul, because most people couldn't learn Chinese characters. I don't know which dialect of nahuatl you're talking about, in the dialect I know "istāk" is "white" and "tōtōtl" is "bird", "tōtolin" is a farm bird.
@@gcondado just started messing around with Hangul. Your kinda right, its super clean and knocks down most of the complex words way quicker than latin script. i.e Chiquihuite ㅈㅣ퀴후이ㅌㅔ чикйихуитэ The Cyrillic one looks scary to the untrained eye but once learned, you're reading that word in about 1.4 second , with latin script its like about 2.8 seconds, and with hangul about 2 seconds. Now i'm not sure if the pronunciation of Nahuatl was slower in its original form but in modern post contact nahuatl its more faster. i think Cyrillic-ruso pronunication keeps up with the pace of it due to its contact w/ the Mansi and Khet langauges which have some similarities to the native american languages. But the Hangul and korean pronunciation is more slower - if im not mistaken. Perhaps older Nahuatl was pronunced more like Korean and mongolic tones - i would think so. My problem with Cyrillic is that it doesn't have the Wa, We parts, Hangul actually had this. So there were parts that hangul lacked that the syilic script covered easily and there were parts that cyrillic lacked that hangul covered with one letter easily. The japanese use both kanji and hiragana. hiragana is their base alphabet to spell out everything, however they still need kanji (sino charactes) to save space and to emit an emotion or concept with one character. Honestly they are sort of like Emojis. Rather than saying Laugh my ar5e off, you can just use the laugh emoticon to represent that conecpt, thats why kanji is super useful. For like objects of jade you can use a kanji like symbol to differentite if you are refering specifically to wealth, the color jade, the material jade, the emotion of jade etc... because nahuatl has many meaning for material objects. Just knowing how to pronunce chalchiwitl чалчийтл ㅊ알치위티 Want solve the vaguness issues that nahuatl has. hence why Japanese used Kanji 碧 - color Jade 琭- Material of Jade etc. Tel ka chalchiwitl no xamani, тел ка чалчийтл но хамани 텔 카 찰치틀 노 하마니 Hybrided Hangul/cyrillic and Character set 텔카碧노ㄴ ㅡ断裂 тел ка 碧 но 断裂 碧 - chalchiwitl 断裂-xamani 碧- чалчийтл 断裂- хамани Just to clear up , i'm not saying to use cyrillic script as the basis of the hirgana like alphabet. i like the idea of a hnagul like script or hiragana script type that is authentic to nahuatl for a character set that is phonetic. What i'm saying is that the reference alphabet for new learners to learn these ( romanji, pinyang) should be Cyrillic because Cyrillic is more authentic to the nahuatl pronunciation , the latin script is not accurate and kills the poetic side of nahuatl. First you learn a hangul type script , then advanced learners call start using a kanji like script that can take on deepr concepts - altough in japa n kids are taught kanji. But if you need a reference pinyang like scrip then Cyrillic is best.
I have read that the ancient mesoamerican scribes used turkey feathers where the central core was stripped of the vanes up to the very tip. The remaining feather vanes at the tip were dipped in ink and used for writing. If I can find a turkey feather I would like to try writing your syllabary using that implement. As I have learned from my study of mandarin, different writing implements influence the 'personality' of writing. Thank you for this idea!
This is really interesting! I was giving it some thought and it seemed like if there was a place to look for answers it would be the place where there are a seemingly endless amount of writing systems. Have you looked at some of the South African systems of writing like the ditema isibheqe syllabary? I know some of there languages are agglutinative as well and share characteristics similar to uto-aztecan languages.
I think the closet script analog to what Nahautl could use is the Japanese script system of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Both Hiragana and Katakana are syllabary with one system for native words and the other for foreign words. Kanji functions a lot like the pictographs of Nahuatl as they represent whole words and have a similar breakdown of how the Kanji is formed by using other Kanji symbols to create the larger meaning but its also used to differentiate the meanings between homonyms and syllables.
Yeah in our case, the nahuatl kanji would represent pictographs, main ideas, The hiragana would contain a syllabary of our main sounds, and the katakana would contain foreign sounds from spanish, Would be a lot of work to develop tho for sure!
Looks great! However, like someone said before me, I wouldn't drop all the fantastic logograms or pictograms. Like in Chinese or Mayan, they form a very rich part of the system. By the way, people used to phonetic signs almost never think about the huge benefits logograms and pictograms have: in a world with many different languages, one can easily read each other's texts. If it is only phonetic, you have to learn all the different languages and grammars as well... Think of the male/female signs on toilet in a bar, or about road signs... If they were spelled out phonetically in hundreds and hundreds of different languages, you would have many more accidents on the road 😉
With the rise of Keyboards we can have Nahuatl in Nahuatl due to the lack of the writing time. Also writing words such as Tenochlitlan in Nahuatl can save a lot of Space in digital devices or using printing. And it looks epic. By looks it's probably place 4 of my favourite writing systems after Japanese, Chinese and Mayan. Edit: Also writing Ship for example is a box, with extra steps. Stone is also a box with extra, but curvy steps in comparison.
Hey Yan, I realize this message is not recent based on the date of your video! How's the syllabary going? If you are still soliciting volunteers to help work with and study glyphs, let me know. My backround is linguistics but now i mostly do education about maize and library engagement type stuff. I'm definitely down to help if it's still needed. Also thanks so much for all your teaching and work on this language!
Bravo!! I speak Nawat (Pipil) and plan to use your writing system! Should we write left to right, right to left, or up and down? Maybe like some East Asian systems we can write any way we choose.
Maya usually wrote left to right, like most in the world. There can be an option to do left to right and/or top to bottom. Btw, I just updated the system somewhat, fixed some glyphs I didn't like. See the link: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TvFlI0bAMUIpF3AAJcJuwCYn2qPjVnfF?usp=sharing
The few times I’ve tried to build scripts, I’ve loved it; it’s so fun. Some years ago I tried to create a script for Nahuatl. Some things I thought about were (which you might also be thinking about or have already thought about): 1. Do I want to use square syllabic blocks, like Mayan; if so, how do I design characters that stack efficiently onto each other while still maintaining the uniqueness of the Nahuatl writing system? 2. Do I want to have logograms for the various affixes? My initial thought was yes to reduce word length. But it felt somewhat cumbersome to memorize. 3. How do I maintain the beauty of the original Nahuatl script while making a modern script efficient for writing with pens and pencils? Anyways. Take my questions with a grain of salt. I stumbled upon your videos because I’m wanting to start learning Nahuatl again. You’re doing great work! For fun, check out the story being the pahawh Hmong script. Very cool.
I had those same questions and also skipped on #2, yes ill check that out, thanks! My biggest internal struggle was on syllable final consonants, whether to stack that or not, and whether create a dummy consonant or a unique glyph for final consonants
Gran aporte, me dan ganas de hacer varias preguntas. ¿Sabías que el sistema del maya antiguo está siendo considerado y trabajado para ser agregado a Unicode? ¿Qué opinas de que el Cherokee sí sea parte de Unicode, pero no los sistemas de escritura de América Latina? ¿Por qué hay wikipedia en nahuatl pero no en maya?
Si, pero han tardado muchos años y no sé cuanto lograran porque unicode es muy dificil para la variedad que existe en Maya. El Cherokee tiene apodo financiado de su tribu No existe una organizacion que finance proyectos para idiomas de america latina, porque ya no tienen un gobierno maya, en cambio los Cherokee sí tienen esa autonomia
I would love to see Temachtiani Vazquez' full alphabet and have explanation about it. I think Yan would too, although he may already have this information. Is the information posted on a web site anywhere?
Hola, tu idea es muy buena, me gustaría saber cómo tu sistema podría evolucionar o podría aplicarse a medios actuales, por ejemplo (digo, imagina un cartel de una exposición o la portada de un libro o un sitio web). Me gustan mucho los idiomas y también he pensado como sería la escritura náhuatl si hubiera podido evolucionar. Sin embargo, no veo como algo negativo que se tome inspiración de otros sistemas de escritura extranjeros para desarrollar uno propio. El sistema de escritura del idioma español (entre muchos otros idiomas) se deriva el abjad fenicio y nos ha funcionado muy bien. También creo que es importante que quienes deben desarrollar el sistema deberían ser los hablantes nativos del náhuatl, uno que les funcione lo mejor posible, que existan incentivos para su enseñanza y uso, y que pueda formar parte de su identidad. Si alguien desarrolla un sistema de escritura, es algo beneficioso y existen los recursos para su difusión, bien por eso. Si se desarrolla para experimentar, divertirse, aprender, etc., bien por eso también.
De hecho puedes bajar el archivo con el font/tipografia, se instala en cualquier compu, y con ciertos programas, lo puedes utilizar para escribir. Publicar libros etc. Todo digitalmente
How did Nezahualcoyotl jot down his poems? Did he use the Nahuatl glyph system to write them? I’m really curious. Thanks for the videos!!🙌🏼 Tlazohcamati
Axcan nicmati tlen Nezahualcoyotl oquihtoh in icuauh. (Now I’m thinking that Nezahualcoyotl spoke his poems) *Intla Nahuatl in oniquihtoh amo cualli, tla xinechpalehuia* Thanks for the insightful videos, Yan. 👍🏼
If he wrote them with glyphs all evidence is destroyed by now, but poems are likely part of oral history that was passed down orally by others who specialized in poetry.
@@thenahuatlchannel3896that’s what hurts my heart the most, that all their written down contents were destroyed by the colonizers. I’m not from the Aztec culture or Mayan but Tarahumara and my family speaks Rarámuri. I learned Nahuatl while in prison.
Okay I looked at your syllabary and noticed the following the symbols for "ye" and "te" are identical, are they supposed to be? There are some "o" sounds missing, particularly "kwo", "ho", and "wo". Why is this? How do you do the glottal stop which is sometimes denoted with the letter "j"?
Thanks for the feedback. I must have made a typo when typing out te or ye. They are different. Those words with kwo dont exist in nahuatl phonotactics.
Most varieties dont use a glottal stop anymore, but use a soft h sound. The few varieties that have glottal dont use h, so they can use the same symbol. So basically use the h symbols
that's something i've thought about. Small particles like inic probably shouldn't because they vary so much between varieties. However, it could be done for the prefixes and suffixes, they dont vary much across regions yet they are used so often that it could be very effective for a reader.
I also want to add, perhaps a hybrided alphabet like the way Japanese has with Kanji(emoji) and Hiragana(prounciacion) . The reason why I believe a hybrid system is needed is because Nahuatl is very vague and a meaning isn't cleaerly stated , sometimes a saying could be meant as a joke,sarcasm or a insult, so having an Emoji to emit that emotion really helps it out. Japanese needs the hyrbid system because its very vague like nahautl and one emotion or meaning can be sumed up with one image/emoji. I don't think a pure glyph symbol alphabet like chinese would work for nahuatl nor a phonetic one like Thai or Hindi. But regardless this is a very long term project, we're talking about two to maybe three generations. You're images remind me of early Chinese ,eventually through years of revisions it formed into the one we know today which is much cleaner. But the objective of the matter is to make it easy for little kids to read and learn quickly. I guess somebody here mentioned hangul.
Hau, keep your writing system related to your original writing system so it can be historically connected, think in terms of an evolution of your language. Keep the connection to the ancients. Awesome, y're like a Nahuatl Sequoyah🙂
UPDATE: I've gotten into contact with another TH-camr (Tepoztachilo) and he has actual notes from David Vazquez. I suggest you do the same, he might have the only readily available resources left
I mean, any system devised by the native speakers should count as legit, the Runes were created by Germanic speakers based on Italic scripts, the Vietnamese Chu Nom and Japanese Kana were created by natives based on Chinese characters. I myself am partial to learning as much as I can regarding the Maya and Nahua glyphs and implement them as authentically as possible, but that's just me (and I'm a gringo so what do I know? xD). From what I've read, I get the impression that Aztec codices were similar in a way to modern comic books, also that even color could have an important phonetic component. How cool is that?! While this system might seem cumbersome and indeed byzantine in implementation, isn't that part of the fun? To have a system that perhaps isn't the most straightforward, but embodies a unique way of thinking and expression? Suppose that China/Taiwan abandoned their Hanzi for the pinyin or bopomofo systems, while these systems are much easier to use (and bopomofo is even a native system) wouldn't the cultural and historical loss vastly outweigh the benefit of a more straightforward writing system? I think your syllabic system is really dope man, and it would be cool if it was implemented as a homegrown way of writing, but I wouldn't mind seeing a logophonetic system similar to Mayan or Chinese or Sumerian cuneiform in use either ^^
I like your script very much, but there is some stylistic difference to the original script and to Mayan too. Sadly colours would probably be lost, albeit one might theorise about some inventive uses for them, but in fast writing nobody would use more than one colour. Something which I find all Mesoamerican scripts I know of (Mayan, Zapotec, Isthmian, Aztec) share is that they emphasize space rather than strokes. So you have always somewhat closed off spaces, while a system like Hanzi or Cuneiform put more emphasize on redrawing a thing with either strokes or outlines of it, Mesoamerican graphemes have a "body" so to speak. I like your derivation, but it seems more like the way you'd derive it for a Chinese type script as it consists mostly of strokes. As for the system itself and deriving new graphemes. Besides looking at Mayan, would it be feasible to derive new phonetic symbols from existing logograms? What is your opinion on making a mixed script of syllabic and logographic signs similar to how Japanese or Classical Mayan work?
Excellent points you bring up! I'll think about them more. And yeah you wouldn't be the first to consider a logographic/syllabic mixed system. I think it could work in very interesting ways if we had a symbol for each morpheme, something you can do best with agglutinating languages. Of course, Nahuatl speakers have highly limited finances and schools would never put in the effort time or money, even if Nahuas would accept it, so this remains purely an activity for entertainment
@@thenahuatlchannel3896 Thank you for your reply. What do you mean with "a symbol for each morpheme" exactly? Morphography is generally rare even in logographic scripts. I'd make the comparison to cuneiform, morphemes are just written as syllables like most other things which aren't written with logograms. Since almost all syllabic signs are also logographs, this complicates the system a bit. There are a handful of signs which have come to be used primarily for a single morpheme or rather the reverse, a few morphemes are almost exclusively written with a certain sign, but this is rare. Although a morphography would be efficient in a script, it seems generally rare. Guess it is because you need a linguistic analysis of the language as prerequisite. Nahuatl writing also has some of it, the TLAN glyph being used for a locative for example. Also another question, why don't you include VC syllable glyphs? Apart from the reason that it would increase the amount of signs and hamper learnability. Or is there is conclusive knowledge about them and Whittaker is the only one who assumed VC and CVC syllable glyphs?
I had this idea drive.google.com/file/d/16MQ6RRB8yp_MaeiunUbI-0HS6ew48wEr/view?usp=sharing idk if it is even useful or whether it would even work. I just tried it with four glyphs.
@@Flozone1 Not sure why TH-cam didn't update me on this comment, so I didn't even see your response until now ! VC syllable glyphs follow the same rule, vowel + dummy consonant. At least in this method I'm creating. I just saw your link so I will take a look.
I hate hearing modern Nahuatl spoken without the classic tl. I realize languages evolve but TL as it was spoken was the heart of the language. Like the ñ is in Spanish. What would Spanish be without it?
I would highly advise to read the spelling out of Nahuatl in Cyrillic rather than latin alphabet. Cyrllic gets the pronunciations correctly and makes it easier to read , much more organized and cleaner which means you can go through pages of nahuatl super fast rather then waste energy and time trying to get a pronunciation with cyrilic you have it in seconds . But here is Nezacoyotl poem using the Cyrillic Script: ни_ктлазотла икуик н сентзонтлагтоле ни_ктлазотла итлапаю н чалчихуитл иуан теках_ауани сочтли иагуи_яака зан ок сенка ни_ктлазотла ни_книу н тлакатл I love the song of the mockingbird, bird of four hundred voices; I love the color of jade and the drowsy perfume of flowers; but more than these, I love my fellow human beings. nictlazohtla īcuīc in centzontlahtōleh. nictlazohtla ītlapallo in chālchihuitl īhuān tēcaxāhuani xōchitl īahhuiyaca zan oc cencah nictlazohtla nicnīuh in tlācatl. Notice how the Cyrillic alphabet is much much more cleaner and it also helps you distinguish the conjugations . But I was able to pronunce Nezas paragprh i like 15 seconds, but with the Latinzed nahuatl it took me like about 45 seconds and I wasn't even sure if i got the pronuncation right.
The Abugida script is very easy to learn and it’s adaptable to all Nahuatl dialects and variants, it also uses way less space than the alphabets.
I love this approach with the comments mentioning a system influenced by Japanese kana and kanji. I think putting the characters together like Korean Hangul would make it look smoother and still fit in with the original prints merging imagery based off of similar sounds.
Gracias por todo, paisano, amo mi segundo país.
I was literally thinking this while watching. Something like the Japanese script might be a little too hard, but a system like hangul could work and still be easy to ready while being efficient on space and representative of old Aztec glyphs. That or the syllabary seem like the best options.
Why don’t they create a writing system on their own which is unique to their way of thinking and not connected to any other language? Why does it have to be similar to Japanese? What is so great about Japanese? Japan and its cultural are overhyped and overrated. Most of japanese culture was inherited from china and korea.
I really like the syllabary system you’ve developed! Ive attempted that before for fun but haven’t done so in a long time, it’s nice to see it!
feel free to share!
Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs is definitely ground breaking. For me, I didn't know the images had meanings or sounds before I read that book.
I liked your syllabary, I feel like that would be the most logical next step in the evolution of a Nahuatl writing system. Another idea I could see being possible is for Nahuatl to retain some symbols for their original meaning and combining those with a syllabary system, sort of how Japanese combines their syllabaries with logographs.
Yeah thats another option i thought about too, would just require logographic glyphs to be simplified.
What a fantastic video. I myself think the Trager abugida would be best and easier to pick up by beginners coming from the Latin alphabet (which is important if we want to use it to expand the language), but you make the very important point that the abugida is not natively found in Nahuatl.
i dont see how it being found natively or not should affect the use of a writing system, thats just being a picky eater imo. If it works for the language let it be used
This is so cool! Your system looks great! Great work on this video, thank you so much.
ça alors, je vous remercie pour pouvoir partager cette video qui est plein d’information que je utiliserai pour mon apprentissage de votre langue! ❤
Tlazocamati tlamachti, these are amazing lessons on Huasteca Nahuatl. They are very helpful and I am so happy to know some things about a major indigenous language in Mexico/the Americas. Greetings from Indonesia.
your syllabary system is really good, i love it, it makes me wanna learn nawatl
I respect your work immensely. You created a writing system from indigenous symbols and glyphs without the use of the latin alphabet. You have done a service to history and culture even if you don’t realize it. Thank you, I don’t speak aztec but I think its absurd that all other language’s have to look like and function like latin does.
It would be really interesting to look at David Vasquez' alphabet and know more about it ...
Brilliant, beautiful video! I really liked your syllabary and was thinking about the same thing comparing the codices to ancient Chinese pictographs. The way you broke down the hieroglyphs and transformed them into syllables is very similar to the way the Japanese turned the foreign kanji into their own hiragana and katakana syllabaries. I prefer your syllabary over the others because it’s so rich in native language and culture. I wish money was used to implement your system to little by little help decolonize Nahuatl speaking peoples, but unfortunately that’s not possible at the moment. Hopefully in the future your method can be used! Thanks for making the syllabary and this video!
Excellent work ahch.
Very interesting. My brother is studying linguistics. He would probably be interested in this video.
The cherokees also have a syllabary
ᎣᏍᏓ Yes the Cherokee syllabary is alive an well.
A long time ago, I read a comment on Facebook saying that Hangul would be perfect for nahuatl and after I made a research I realized that nahuatl has a little problem, the length of the words but Hangul would make it easy for the nahuatl language to write words and make them compacted, and Hangul is a well recognized and stablished writing system.
I think Cyrillic is a better fit for pronunciation when reading, as they have many alphabets that cover our sylabuls like Tl, Tz, Tsh . They even have Xochtli as сочи ,see. I think if you do a side by side in cyrillic with some of the other Dene languages you would find that Nahuatl and the Salish langauges do share lots of similarities that you would not notice when reading it in latin. I think maybe a 2-3 alphabet appraoch like Japanese does , kanji and hiragana. So a Hiragana like alphabet would tackle the pronunciation of simple parts using the Cyrillic alphabet . Then the symbols to be like a character set to represent complex ideas into a character almost like an emoji the same way Kanji does with Japanese. I'm not familiar w/ Hangul , could you explain Hangul??? I heard it also leads to confusion.
I've seen somebody do a Chinese character set for Nahuatl but its way too vauge as Nahuatl grammar is very complicated almost like Polish or Hungarian- Mansi.
But Latin does not do Nahuatl justice, which explains why the language stagnated and transformed more into mexican spanish we know of in the 1600s.
@@chibiromano5631 but I don't mean a "good fit", I'm talking about practicalness, I'm gonna give you some examples, I also added Cyrillic script and I don't find it practical at all, Latin script is more practical because it's the most used in the world, even some countries that have russian as a language use Latin alphabet.
Classical script:
Māca xicmocaccānehnequi in nāhuatlahtōlli.
My Latin script:
Māka xikmokakkānehneki in nāwaλahtōlλi.
Translation:
Don't try to understand the nahuatl language.
Hangul script:
먀가씩모각갸넿네기인냐와탛됼티.
Cyrillic script:
Ма́ка шикмокакка́нэьнэки ин иа́уатлаьто́лтли.
As you can see, the Hangul script has only 15 syllables blocks and being a syllable block script makes it easy for nahuatl to be written because the nahuatl language is syllabic. As far as I can see, Latin and Cyrillic scripts make the same length and have almost the same possibilities, they both take more than 35 spaces, more than the Hangul script that only takes 15.
@@gcondado my last comment didn't make it clear that Cyrillic isn't going to be the alphabet. yea of course the letters are lengthy. What I meant was that Cyrillic to be used as a supplmentary pronunciation guide for an new script base. You would still need a new script similar to Japanese(Hiragana & Kanji) or a Hangul type to be the foundation but for new students learning the pronunication of these parts, Cyrillic would need to be used instead latin ( and even IPA) because Cyrillic pronunciation is way more accurate and it's also way faster to read. For instance in that sentence comparison you did, the letters might be the same however in reading cyrilic you finish that whole sentence in like 1.5 second vs latin 3.4 seconds because of its no gutteral stop but in Latin script you're pretty much reading letter for letter and it slows down the nahuatl pronunciation and so learning even the basics would be lengthier and not true to its pronunciation.
But yeah In doing some translations of 16 letter sentences, i can use the Chinese script and get that done in 4 characters.
But even then it still causes confusion. Because Chinese has tones, but Japanese hybrid system kinda covers this with their two-three alphabet system.
Nahuatl is a very vague language.
For instance, to make a reference to white you are also referencing a totol (white bird). So when wanting to describe stuff like snow, you are using totol and that can mean several things depending on its usage. The iconography that Kanji uses not only saves space but also makes it clear what the word is in reference and what conitation it is being used in.
I've stayed away from hangul because their pronunciation seem very limited.
I guess i'll learn it but it seems like Hangul replaces a lot of the nahuatl pronunciation with its own, like japanese they have a limited pronunciation.
So in you're example you got rid of the K for a G.
Is there a reason for that?
@@chibiromano5631 I don't mean a 100% phonetically perfect script, ㄱ in Korean can be read as k/ɡ, if you wanna make a phonetic alphabet, the best choice is IPA, not all people will read Cyrillic as fast as you, most people only know Latin alphabet; kanzi or kanji are good for a shorter writing but they're not phonetic, you must memorize each character's pronunciation and they're harder to learn, that's why King Sejong created Hangul, because most people couldn't learn Chinese characters. I don't know which dialect of nahuatl you're talking about, in the dialect I know "istāk" is "white" and "tōtōtl" is "bird", "tōtolin" is a farm bird.
@@gcondado just started messing around with Hangul. Your kinda right, its super clean and knocks down most of the complex words way quicker than latin script. i.e
Chiquihuite
ㅈㅣ퀴후이ㅌㅔ
чикйихуитэ
The Cyrillic one looks scary to the untrained eye but once learned, you're reading that word in about 1.4 second , with latin script its like about 2.8 seconds, and with hangul about 2 seconds.
Now i'm not sure if the pronunciation of Nahuatl was slower in its original form but in modern post contact nahuatl its more faster. i think Cyrillic-ruso pronunication keeps up with the pace of it due to its contact w/ the Mansi and Khet langauges which have some similarities to the native american languages. But the Hangul and korean pronunciation is more slower - if im not mistaken. Perhaps older Nahuatl was pronunced more like Korean and mongolic tones - i would think so.
My problem with Cyrillic is that it doesn't have the Wa, We parts, Hangul actually had this.
So there were parts that hangul lacked that the syilic script covered easily and there were parts that cyrillic lacked that hangul covered with one letter easily.
The japanese use both kanji and hiragana. hiragana is their base alphabet to spell out everything, however they still need kanji (sino charactes) to save space and to emit an emotion or concept with one character.
Honestly they are sort of like Emojis.
Rather than saying Laugh my ar5e off, you can just use the laugh emoticon to represent that conecpt, thats why kanji is super useful. For like objects of jade you can use a kanji like symbol to differentite if you are refering specifically to wealth, the color jade, the material jade, the emotion of jade etc... because nahuatl has many meaning for material objects.
Just knowing how to pronunce
chalchiwitl
чалчийтл
ㅊ알치위티
Want solve the vaguness issues that nahuatl has. hence why Japanese used Kanji
碧 - color Jade
琭- Material of Jade
etc.
Tel ka chalchiwitl no xamani,
тел ка чалчийтл но хамани
텔 카 찰치틀 노 하마니
Hybrided Hangul/cyrillic and Character set
텔카碧노ㄴ ㅡ断裂
тел ка 碧 но 断裂
碧 - chalchiwitl
断裂-xamani
碧- чалчийтл
断裂- хамани
Just to clear up , i'm not saying to use cyrillic script
as the basis of the hirgana like alphabet. i like the idea of a hnagul like script or hiragana script type that is authentic to nahuatl for a character set that is phonetic. What i'm saying is that the reference alphabet for new learners to learn these ( romanji, pinyang) should be Cyrillic because Cyrillic is more authentic to the nahuatl pronunciation , the latin script is not accurate and kills the poetic side of nahuatl.
First you learn a hangul type script ,
then advanced learners call start using a kanji like script that can take on deepr concepts - altough in japa n kids are taught kanji.
But if you need a reference pinyang like scrip then Cyrillic is best.
I have read that the ancient mesoamerican scribes used turkey feathers where the central core was stripped of the vanes up to the very tip. The remaining feather vanes at the tip were dipped in ink and used for writing. If I can find a turkey feather I would like to try writing your syllabary using that implement. As I have learned from my study of mandarin, different writing implements influence the 'personality' of writing. Thank you for this idea!
I just updated the Google Drive file with minor edits, just an FYI, good luck!
This is really interesting! I was giving it some thought and it seemed like if there was a place to look for answers it would be the place where there are a seemingly endless amount of writing systems. Have you looked at some of the South African systems of writing like the ditema isibheqe syllabary? I know some of there languages are agglutinative as well and share characteristics similar to uto-aztecan languages.
I just saw it and it looks amazing. They are creating traditions for the future, awesome
Estaria maravilloso tener este video en español para poder entenderlo bien
I think the closet script analog to what Nahautl could use is the Japanese script system of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Both Hiragana and Katakana are syllabary with one system for native words and the other for foreign words. Kanji functions a lot like the pictographs of Nahuatl as they represent whole words and have a similar breakdown of how the Kanji is formed by using other Kanji symbols to create the larger meaning but its also used to differentiate the meanings between homonyms and syllables.
Yeah in our case, the nahuatl kanji would represent pictographs, main ideas,
The hiragana would contain a syllabary of our main sounds, and the katakana would contain foreign sounds from spanish,
Would be a lot of work to develop tho for sure!
beautiful
Looks great! However, like someone said before me, I wouldn't drop all the fantastic logograms or pictograms. Like in Chinese or Mayan, they form a very rich part of the system. By the way, people used to phonetic signs almost never think about the huge benefits logograms and pictograms have: in a world with many different languages, one can easily read each other's texts. If it is only phonetic, you have to learn all the different languages and grammars as well...
Think of the male/female signs on toilet in a bar, or about road signs... If they were spelled out phonetically in hundreds and hundreds of different languages, you would have many more accidents on the road 😉
gonna start practicing today🙏🏼❤ tlazocamati
With the rise of Keyboards we can have Nahuatl in Nahuatl due to the lack of the writing time.
Also writing words such as Tenochlitlan in Nahuatl can save a lot of Space in digital devices or using printing.
And it looks epic. By looks it's probably place 4 of my favourite writing systems after Japanese, Chinese and Mayan.
Edit:
Also writing Ship for example is a box, with extra steps. Stone is also a box with extra, but curvy steps in comparison.
Hey Yan, I realize this message is not recent based on the date of your video! How's the syllabary going? If you are still soliciting volunteers to help work with and study glyphs, let me know. My backround is linguistics but now i mostly do education about maize and library engagement type stuff. I'm definitely down to help if it's still needed. Also thanks so much for all your teaching and work on this language!
Yes id still like to develop it, my emails. 1tecuexe@gmail.com if interested
I invented a style that seems simple enough and has partial inspiration from the partial syllabary. I'd love to try out yours, however!
heres the files.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TvFlI0bAMUIpF3AAJcJuwCYn2qPjVnfF?usp=sharing
The syllable writings work like kanji (Japanese), the nauhlt version seems way more simple. I think kanji has 46 characters.
Maybe Mexico will never write without Latin in this lifetime but it should be conserved
Bravo!! I speak Nawat (Pipil) and plan to use your writing system! Should we write left to right, right to left, or up and down? Maybe like some East Asian systems we can write any way we choose.
Maya usually wrote left to right, like most in the world. There can be an option to do left to right and/or top to bottom.
Btw, I just updated the system somewhat, fixed some glyphs I didn't like. See the link: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TvFlI0bAMUIpF3AAJcJuwCYn2qPjVnfF?usp=sharing
Like what was done with the Cherokee language.
The few times I’ve tried to build scripts, I’ve loved it; it’s so fun. Some years ago I tried to create a script for Nahuatl. Some things I thought about were (which you might also be thinking about or have already thought about):
1. Do I want to use square syllabic blocks, like Mayan; if so, how do I design characters that stack efficiently onto each other while still maintaining the uniqueness of the Nahuatl writing system?
2. Do I want to have logograms for the various affixes? My initial thought was yes to reduce word length. But it felt somewhat cumbersome to memorize.
3. How do I maintain the beauty of the original Nahuatl script while making a modern script efficient for writing with pens and pencils?
Anyways. Take my questions with a grain of salt. I stumbled upon your videos because I’m wanting to start learning Nahuatl again. You’re doing great work!
For fun, check out the story being the pahawh Hmong script. Very cool.
I had those same questions and also skipped on #2, yes ill check that out, thanks!
My biggest internal struggle was on syllable final consonants, whether to stack that or not, and whether create a dummy consonant or a unique glyph for final consonants
Gran aporte, me dan ganas de hacer varias preguntas. ¿Sabías que el sistema del maya antiguo está siendo considerado y trabajado para ser agregado a Unicode? ¿Qué opinas de que el Cherokee sí sea parte de Unicode, pero no los sistemas de escritura de América Latina? ¿Por qué hay wikipedia en nahuatl pero no en maya?
Si, pero han tardado muchos años y no sé cuanto lograran porque unicode es muy dificil para la variedad que existe en Maya.
El Cherokee tiene apodo financiado de su tribu
No existe una organizacion que finance proyectos para idiomas de america latina, porque ya no tienen un gobierno maya, en cambio los Cherokee sí tienen esa autonomia
can you please show me the links to the pdfs of 6:49-6:55 the face came was covering part of part one and i would like to see the whole thing please
I studied under Temachtiani Vazquez. Would you like the full alphabet and some explanation behind it?
Great video! You're on point.
I would love to see Temachtiani Vazquez' full alphabet and have explanation about it. I think Yan would too, although he may already have this information. Is the information posted on a web site anywhere?
@@EdTrager I'm not aware if it's online. I have his book and notes I've taken. Let me know though. Otherwise great content!
Of course if ur willing to share!
Hola, tu idea es muy buena, me gustaría saber cómo tu sistema podría evolucionar o podría aplicarse a medios actuales, por ejemplo (digo, imagina un cartel de una exposición o la portada de un libro o un sitio web). Me gustan mucho los idiomas y también he pensado como sería la escritura náhuatl si hubiera podido evolucionar. Sin embargo, no veo como algo negativo que se tome inspiración de otros sistemas de escritura extranjeros para desarrollar uno propio. El sistema de escritura del idioma español (entre muchos otros idiomas) se deriva el abjad fenicio y nos ha funcionado muy bien. También creo que es importante que quienes deben desarrollar el sistema deberían ser los hablantes nativos del náhuatl, uno que les funcione lo mejor posible, que existan incentivos para su enseñanza y uso, y que pueda formar parte de su identidad. Si alguien desarrolla un sistema de escritura, es algo beneficioso y existen los recursos para su difusión, bien por eso. Si se desarrolla para experimentar, divertirse, aprender, etc., bien por eso también.
De hecho puedes bajar el archivo con el font/tipografia, se instala en cualquier compu, y con ciertos programas, lo puedes utilizar para escribir. Publicar libros etc. Todo digitalmente
How did Nezahualcoyotl jot down his poems? Did he use the Nahuatl glyph system to write them? I’m really curious. Thanks for the videos!!🙌🏼 Tlazohcamati
Axcan nicmati tlen Nezahualcoyotl oquihtoh in icuauh. (Now I’m thinking that Nezahualcoyotl spoke his poems) *Intla Nahuatl in oniquihtoh amo cualli, tla xinechpalehuia* Thanks for the insightful videos, Yan. 👍🏼
If he wrote them with glyphs all evidence is destroyed by now, but poems are likely part of oral history that was passed down orally by others who specialized in poetry.
@@thenahuatlchannel3896that’s what hurts my heart the most, that all their written down contents were destroyed by the colonizers. I’m not from the Aztec culture or Mayan but Tarahumara and my family speaks Rarámuri. I learned Nahuatl while in prison.
Okay I looked at your syllabary and noticed the following
the symbols for "ye" and "te" are identical, are they supposed to be?
There are some "o" sounds missing, particularly "kwo", "ho", and "wo". Why is this?
How do you do the glottal stop which is sometimes denoted with the letter "j"?
Thanks for the feedback. I must have made a typo when typing out te or ye. They are different.
Those words with kwo dont exist in nahuatl phonotactics.
Most varieties dont use a glottal stop anymore, but use a soft h sound. The few varieties that have glottal dont use h, so they can use the same symbol. So basically use the h symbols
it would be good if ya made the glyps into a keyboard, so we can text with them
Yeah, just needs volunteer work from a programmer, or funding, i do have a font you can download and it works, but only in certain programs
Any updates on that program??
11:04 12:02 12:39 13:09
Do you think Nahuatl should have individual symbols for particles such as "inic" and other aspects of grammar?
that's something i've thought about. Small particles like inic probably shouldn't because they vary so much between varieties. However, it could be done for the prefixes and suffixes, they dont vary much across regions yet they are used so often that it could be very effective for a reader.
I also want to add, perhaps a hybrided alphabet like the way Japanese has with Kanji(emoji) and Hiragana(prounciacion) . The reason why I believe a hybrid system is needed is because Nahuatl is very vague and a meaning isn't cleaerly stated , sometimes a saying could be meant as a joke,sarcasm or a insult, so having an Emoji to emit that emotion really helps it out. Japanese needs the hyrbid system because its very vague like nahautl and one emotion or meaning can be sumed up with one image/emoji. I don't think a pure glyph symbol alphabet like chinese would work for nahuatl nor a phonetic one like Thai or Hindi. But regardless this is a very long term project, we're talking about two to maybe three generations. You're images remind me of early Chinese ,eventually through years of revisions it formed into the one we know today which is much cleaner. But the objective of the matter is to make it easy for little kids to read and learn quickly.
I guess somebody here mentioned hangul.
Hau, keep your writing system related to your original writing system so it can be historically connected, think in terms of an evolution of your language. Keep the connection to the ancients.
Awesome, y're like a Nahuatl Sequoyah🙂
I appreciate that, but Sequoyah put a lot more work into his script, im no artist hehe. So my system is not perfect (yet) in my view.
UPDATE: I've gotten into contact with another TH-camr (Tepoztachilo) and he has actual notes from David Vazquez. I suggest you do the same, he might have the only readily available resources left
Yup he's a friend of mine, just got the notes, thanks!
@@thenahuatlchannel3896 with his permission, could you upload them to the Google drive folder?
I mean, any system devised by the native speakers should count as legit, the Runes were created by Germanic speakers based on Italic scripts, the Vietnamese Chu Nom and Japanese Kana were created by natives based on Chinese characters. I myself am partial to learning as much as I can regarding the Maya and Nahua glyphs and implement them as authentically as possible, but that's just me (and I'm a gringo so what do I know? xD).
From what I've read, I get the impression that Aztec codices were similar in a way to modern comic books, also that even color could have an important phonetic component. How cool is that?! While this system might seem cumbersome and indeed byzantine in implementation, isn't that part of the fun? To have a system that perhaps isn't the most straightforward, but embodies a unique way of thinking and expression? Suppose that China/Taiwan abandoned their Hanzi for the pinyin or bopomofo systems, while these systems are much easier to use (and bopomofo is even a native system) wouldn't the cultural and historical loss vastly outweigh the benefit of a more straightforward writing system? I think your syllabic system is really dope man, and it would be cool if it was implemented as a homegrown way of writing, but I wouldn't mind seeing a logophonetic system similar to Mayan or Chinese or Sumerian cuneiform in use either ^^
I should add that I find this video interesting too! LOL
woa similar to chinese hanzi
I like your script very much, but there is some stylistic difference to the original script and to Mayan too. Sadly colours would probably be lost, albeit one might theorise about some inventive uses for them, but in fast writing nobody would use more than one colour.
Something which I find all Mesoamerican scripts I know of (Mayan, Zapotec, Isthmian, Aztec) share is that they emphasize space rather than strokes. So you have always somewhat closed off spaces, while a system like Hanzi or Cuneiform put more emphasize on redrawing a thing with either strokes or outlines of it, Mesoamerican graphemes have a "body" so to speak. I like your derivation, but it seems more like the way you'd derive it for a Chinese type script as it consists mostly of strokes.
As for the system itself and deriving new graphemes. Besides looking at Mayan, would it be feasible to derive new phonetic symbols from existing logograms?
What is your opinion on making a mixed script of syllabic and logographic signs similar to how Japanese or Classical Mayan work?
Excellent points you bring up! I'll think about them more. And yeah you wouldn't be the first to consider a logographic/syllabic mixed system. I think it could work in very interesting ways if we had a symbol for each morpheme, something you can do best with agglutinating languages.
Of course, Nahuatl speakers have highly limited finances and schools would never put in the effort time or money, even if Nahuas would accept it, so this remains purely an activity for entertainment
Part of the reasoning for removing the body was to save space, but yes the body was very central in Mayan script
@@thenahuatlchannel3896 Thank you for your reply. What do you mean with "a symbol for each morpheme" exactly? Morphography is generally rare even in logographic scripts. I'd make the comparison to cuneiform, morphemes are just written as syllables like most other things which aren't written with logograms. Since almost all syllabic signs are also logographs, this complicates the system a bit. There are a handful of signs which have come to be used primarily for a single morpheme or rather the reverse, a few morphemes are almost exclusively written with a certain sign, but this is rare. Although a morphography would be efficient in a script, it seems generally rare. Guess it is because you need a linguistic analysis of the language as prerequisite. Nahuatl writing also has some of it, the TLAN glyph being used for a locative for example.
Also another question, why don't you include VC syllable glyphs? Apart from the reason that it would increase the amount of signs and hamper learnability. Or is there is conclusive knowledge about them and Whittaker is the only one who assumed VC and CVC syllable glyphs?
I had this idea drive.google.com/file/d/16MQ6RRB8yp_MaeiunUbI-0HS6ew48wEr/view?usp=sharing idk if it is even useful or whether it would even work. I just tried it with four glyphs.
@@Flozone1 Not sure why TH-cam didn't update me on this comment, so I didn't even see your response until now ! VC syllable glyphs follow the same rule, vowel + dummy consonant. At least in this method I'm creating. I just saw your link so I will take a look.
Hello yan, I sent you an email hope you see it
I hate hearing modern Nahuatl spoken without the classic tl. I realize languages evolve but TL as it was spoken was the heart of the language. Like the ñ is in Spanish. What would Spanish be without it?
I'm not sure where you heard Nahuatl without the /tl/, but only a few towns made that change. Mostly in puebla
I would highly advise to read the spelling out of Nahuatl in Cyrillic rather than latin alphabet. Cyrllic gets the pronunciations correctly and makes it easier to read , much more organized and cleaner which means you can go through pages of nahuatl super fast rather then waste energy and time trying to get a pronunciation with cyrilic you have it in seconds .
But here is Nezacoyotl poem using the Cyrillic Script:
ни_ктлазотла икуик н сентзонтлагтоле
ни_ктлазотла итлапаю н чалчихуитл
иуан теках_ауани сочтли иагуи_яака
зан ок сенка ни_ктлазотла
ни_книу н тлакатл
I love the song of the mockingbird,
bird of four hundred voices;
I love the color of jade
and the drowsy perfume of flowers;
but more than these, I love
my fellow human beings.
nictlazohtla īcuīc in centzontlahtōleh.
nictlazohtla ītlapallo in chālchihuitl
īhuān tēcaxāhuani xōchitl īahhuiyaca
zan oc cencah nictlazohtla
nicnīuh in tlācatl.
Notice how the Cyrillic alphabet is much much more cleaner and it also helps you distinguish the conjugations . But I was able to pronunce Nezas paragprh i like 15 seconds, but with the Latinzed nahuatl it took me like about 45 seconds and I wasn't even sure if i got the pronuncation right.
한글 이전의 고대한국어.....우리 학자들 연구가 필요해.....아메리카가 한반도라는 진실의 역사가 밝혀진다.....
멕시코 = 맥이족이 사는곳 몬테레이가 신라계림이다...