Continuity and Change in Modern Nahuatl Word Formation

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of Nahuatl coinages for six artifacts: ‘bicycle,’ ‘car,’ ‘clock,’ ‘key,’ ‘pen,’ and ‘umbrella,’ as attested in interviews with speakers from four communities in Mexico. These artifacts have been selected because of their shared characteristics: the terms for them do not belong to the core vocabulary; they tend to be referred to with Spanish loanwords or with terms created ad hoc using descriptive phrases; the non-borrowed terminology for them is highly varied. The analysis reveals that, despite the ongoing process of language shift and pervasive borrowing from Spanish, new terminology continues to be created in Nahuatl both innovatively and according to established patterns of word formation inherited from previous stages of language contact. This suggests that even a situation of language marginalization, displacement and massive substitutive borrowing, does not impair speakers’ ability to create new lexemes according to established patterns, or the ability to innovate morphosemantic patterns.