The Role of Nahuatl in the Formation of Mesoamerica as a Linguistic Area

Bibliographic Data

ID7534638
AuthorsCecil H Brown (corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume1
Issue2
Pages171-204
Publication date2011-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage Dynamics and Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2210-5824 • E-ISSN: 2210-5832
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/221058212x643969
OpenAlexW174546095
LanguageEN
Citations received12

A number of attributes widely shared by languages of the culture region known as Mesoamerica have been identified by Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark (1986) as diagnostic of a linguistic area. Distributions of shared traits, including some features not previously recognized, suggest that Mesoamerica's development as a linguistic area at least in part involved diffusion of traits from Nahuatl, a regional lingua franca, to other Mesoamerican languages. While this could have occurred at any time from the beginning of the Postclassic period (c. 900 ce) until well after the arrival of the Spanish (1519 ce), the few clues at hand suggest the major diffusional interval to have been late, either in post-contact times or, if earlier, in the immediately preceding Late Postclassic era

Archaeology · Geography · Lingua franca · Linguistics · Mesoamerica · Nahuatl · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Latin American history and culture · Philosophy · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies

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