Historical Transcription Methodologies
When the Spanish friars began transcribing Nahuatl into the Latin alphabet they, naturally, made use of Spanish language practices as a basis for the Nahuatl script. While the voiceless postalveolar affricate /t͡ʃ/ (English
Thus, Nahuatl written in the Latin alphabet is very similar to that of Spanish with a few exceptions:
- Words are stressed on the second-to-the-last vowel (excluding
) - does not occur as an independent vowel.
represents /ʃ/ (as it did in Spanish; the Spanish phoneme transcribed with later shifted to a voiceless velar fricative, now written in most cases, while the Náhuatl phoneme transcribed with remained unchanged). represents a geminated . is /t͡ɬ/, a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate. This is a type of sound not found in any European languages but commonly found in indigenous North and Central American languages. and both represent /kʷ/.
Read more about this topic: Nahuatl Orthography
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