Nahuatl Revival Project--Fresno, CA
Once upon a time ago, I dreamed of going to Mexico and studying the linguistics of Nahuatl, the ancient language of the Aztecs. I did my undergraduate linguistics phonology paper on ancient Nahuatl poetry and found that, most likely, Nahuatl poets did indeed count syllables to measure poetry. I was intrigued. Also, I am of Mexican (slash-East Indian) descent and I was curious and a little obsessed with Aztec history.
So anyways, I went to CSU Fresno with hopes of one day becoming a graduate student and somehow raising enough money to travel to Mexico as a visiting linguistics student. That never happened. Oddly, what did happen is that Mexican Nahuatl came to me.
During the winter break, after I had dropped my aspiration of doing my MA thesis on Nahuatl (as I had indeed become a graduate student in linguistics at California State University, Fresno), I decided to give it one last go--I persuaded my graduate coordinator into supervising an independent studies course on the linguistics of Nahuatl. In particular, I wanted to study revitalization methods that UC Berkeley and other universities use to save endangered languages. My graduate coordinator agreed on the condition that I get other students to attend an in-person class where we would study together and try to revive it as a group. So I bought Classical Nahuatl textbooks and poetry books and started thinking about ways to teach a language I myself did not speak a word of.
About two weeks or less before the start of the semester, nobody had enrolled in the course and I decided to cancel the class and just retake a class in computer science. Luckily, my supervisor talked me out of it and told me to give it a few weeks after the semester started before quitting. I agreed.
By chance, I mentioned my independent studies course topic to one of my thesis committee members who I had enlisted because he taught field methods (the branch of linguistics where the linguist goes out into the world and asks a native speaker if they can study their production of their native language for weeks, months, even years at a time). To put things in perspective, my thesis was on Khmer syntax (language of Cambodia), and I had long since given up hope of doing it on Nahuatl. He nodded and said, “oh are you taking my class? Did [my supervisor] tell you that I’m bringing in a Nahuatl speaker for field methods?”
That is the story of how I wound up taking an unnecessary elective I did not need to graduate called field methods, along with my independent studies course in reviving Nahuatl for my final semester in the Master’s program. From mid-January to mid-May, my field methods class studied the phonetics, syntax, and morphology of Nahuatl, the Guerrero region dialect (not all Nahuatl dialects are understandable across different dialects of Nahuatl, so one person might understand one different dialect of Nahuatl but not understand a second different dialect of Nahuatl).
Anyways, my independent studies class was kind of a mess, as I had exactly two days after field methods class met to design a lesson plan for non-linguists based on what was learned in linguistics class. However, the Nahuatl Revival Project’s facebook page got some attention, for some reason. I watched the number of visits grow. It scared me. I felt like a failure for not having more students in my class. I also felt like this was the only opportunity to do my part in reviving an endangered language. It was like a calling, or rather, fate. All the pieces landed in my lap at the same time and there was no way I could just walk away from Nahuatl. I emailed other endangered language linguists and some actually returned my emails and provided encouragement and even classroom resources like small grammar worksheets and links to videos!
Months after I had graduated and was no longer enrolled in classes, I decided to start making screencasts out of what we had learned in field methods, as I had reached only a few students in Fresno, California for in-person meetings. I decided it was easier to make short, 10 minute lessons out of a couple of sentences used to illustrate grammar concepts. I don’t know if I did a good job, but like I said, I couldn’t just walk away.
Months after I started making screencasts, I made a last effort to track down the native speaker of Guerrero Nahuatl and voila! I was given his contact information, he texted me one day saying he’d been told I wanted to talk to him, and we arranged for paid private language lessons. We’ve had one two hour session, so far, but I plan on doing sessions at least two or three times a month until I’ve racked up a decent amount of linguistic knowledge on Nahuatl.
I would do it every week except I am a little broke at the moment and can’t afford 80 dollars a month to pay the speaker---yet---but hopefully soon I will not be broke and then I can continue with my lessons!
I do this not for profit, as everything I put out is free of charge (in fact, I paid for tuition to take field methods. I paid for my independent studies course. I paid the native speaker to teach me, too). I am putting my money and time into this project because I believe the community--the world---everybody needs this language documented and put into language learning lessons. I know this is particularly important to linguists and to people to whom Nahuatl is (or would have been if it weren’t for the Spanish colonization) a heritage language.
The federal government helped pay for most of my education and I am determined to make sure they get their money’s worth out of me. The students who did take the time to come to my class also put their faith and time into me and I am determined to make sure they get what they wanted out of it. Lastly, the native speaker is putting his trust in me to do right by his language and to keep documenting the language of Nahuatl for future generations. I can’t let them down.
