New Nahuatl Alphabet

[champagnesheik]

I just read an article in this past Sunday's LA Times about a man teaching Nahuatl here in Southern California

Comments

[mad_pig]

I did a websearch and found a dozen-odd hits for the name David Vázquez Hernández, but nothing on his alphabet or script.

Is it a reform of the traditional Spanish-based Latin orthography? I do remember reading about a more "phonetic" spelling. Some of the reforms (with V = any vowel):

ca, co, cu, que, qui > kV
za, zo, zu, ce, ci > sV
huV > wV and Vuh > Vw
cuV > kwV and Vuc > Vkw(I think)

So Nahuatl is spelled Nawatl. And yes, "tl" is still "tl".

But that might be someone else who came up with that.

[mad_pig]

Oops, there's still no "u" in Classical Nahuatl. My bad.

[allegrox]

There's no real reason to change the "tl", and I can't think of how else to spell it. The digraph represents a voiceless alveolar plosive with a lateral release.

[mad_pig]

Absolutely not. Unless someone insists on using a single letter for voiceless lateral affricate/voiceless lateral-release alveolar stop. Only one I can think of is lambda with a stroke through the upper stem, and that's only seen in languages of the Pacific Northwest.

(I thought Nahuatl had a voiceless lateral affricate, but you may be right.)

[tecpaocelotl]

I have seen it. It's incredible. I learned Nahuatl from him.