#if anuone has any mexican-native wuestions u can ask and ill try to answer to the best of my abiltiies

[kn11ves]

hey so after hearing an utterly horrific pronunciation of the word "nahuatl" that scared me straight out of my native skin ("nah-wah-toll", he said) just as a pointer whenever you read a nahuatl word the ending "-tl" is pronounced sort of like a hiss with a tongue touching the roof of your mouth? its not nah-wah-toll, its not even nah-wah like a lot of mexicans believe, the "tl" sound comes from the way you push air through your mouth from the back of your throat

the way i figure how to make the "TL" sound is to put your tongue on the roof of your mouth. now, without removing your tongue from the roof, try making the sound of an "h" with a mouth halfway closed. you should feel the way the air blows through both of your cheeks and comes out sounding like a lisp-sound. thats the point! the hiss definitely sounds like a lisp. you may need to practice this a bunch to get the sound right

there isnt an phonetic equivalent to "tl" i can figure how to write out for you because "tl" is a sound of its own. you have to say na-hua-TL its already written the way its supposed to be read! the only problem is that people do not know how to pronounce the "tl" sound and will make approximations which i know its tough but it is wrong (though ill take nah-wah over NAH-WAH-TOLL)

this is a YT shorts of a man saying "nahuatl" and different nahuatl words and how theyre pronounced

this is a 7 minute video of a man who guides you on HOW to make the noise "tl"

some reminders while im at it:

-we are not aztecs, we do not speak aztec. we are native mexicans (most of us. im not speaking about immigrants to mexico obviously) and most of us who speak an indigenous language speak nahuatl, so we may call ourselves nahua or descendants from the mexica

-though not everyone speaks nahuatl, there are 68 different indigenous ethnic groups in mexico we have. variety.

-certain dialects of nahuatl spoken in michoacan or just southern mexico for example may choose to prefer the "T" in nahuatl words and pronounce say ahuacatl as "A-wah-cat" or maybe prefer the "L" sound and say "A-wah-cal". it really depends

-(pet peeve but) AXOLOTL is "ah-sho-lo-tl" and not "axe-ah-loddel"

-no u are not saying the word in english and therefore are going to pronounce it like a yank

-if you can say rendezvous like "ron-deh-vu" and not like "ren-des-voos" then you can say nuahuatl words the way theyre meant to be said!! our language has gotten so eroded and the only way we can keep it alive is by trying to say things as theyre meant to ok