Talk:Nahuatl

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Nahuatl is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 13, 2008.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
August 2, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
October 14, 2007	Good article reassessment	Delisted
February 22, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
March 9, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed
April 6, 2008	Featured article candidate	Promoted
Current status: Featured article

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Cacao and Chocolate being Nahuatl words

The source given to attribute these is very controversial in linguistic studies. The Kaufman & Justeson 2009 source currently in the article is dedicated to debunking it. I have written out an outline of what the literature says on the chocolate talk page re; cacao, but the Nahuatl origin of chocolate is also contested, and it is not true that "there is no real doubt that the word chocolate comes from Nahuatl." I am not saying it isn't, just that it needs some attribution or recognition of it being contentious. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 12:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this up. I read the relevant sections of Hill 2019, which you mentioned in your outline - Hill says the debate is ultimately about whether cacao/kakawa was a loan from Nahuatl into Mixe-Zoquean or vice-versa, and thus whether or not it's originally a Nahuatl word. Is there any debate as to whether cacao and chocolate entered Spanish via Nahuatl? I think I recall reading that "chocolate"'s etymology is somewhat uncertain. Erinius (talk) 07:33, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FA concerns

I am reviewing this article for URFA/2020, and I am concerned that this article no longer meets the featured article criteria. Some of my concerns are listed below:

The lead, at six paragraphs, is longer than what is recommended at MOS:LEADLENGTH
There is a lot of uncited text, including entire paragraphs and the entire "Numerals" section,
I do not think the "Sample text" section should be in the article, as there are several examples in various sections.
The "Demography and distribution" section needs to be updated.

Is anyone interested in fixing up this article, or should it go to WP:FAC? Z1720 (talk) 21:35, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to take a look, thanks for the heads-up. Remsense诉 21:52, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami, do you recall a particular source being used for the § Morphology and syntax §§ Numerals section? Remsense诉 19:03, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't, but the info isn't unique to whatever source I used. For example, in Silver & Miller (1998) American Indian Languages, p.64, they have "cempohualtzonxiquipilli" for 64 million (slightly different orthography), with the prefix cen- for "one unit of" and the rest of the morphemes as we explain them. That is, you can continue to count beyond that in units of pohualtzonxiquipilli.

I also can't tell you if my source had the orthography we have now, or if I normalized it to match the article. Given how variable Nahuatl orthography is, it should be normalized across the bulk of this article, with a section on the variation. — kwami (talk) 01:50, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Remsense诉 01:50, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"poaltzonxiquipilli" is probably the source's orthography, given that it's dated "poal" rather than more usual "pohual" or "powal". Regardless, it diverges from the article and IMO should be retransliterated to match, even if that means a linguistic transcription rather than orthography. — kwami (talk) 01:56, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Added citations, haven't updated/normalized orthography. I believe the source you'd used was Thomas (1902), just based on spelling. Erinius (talk) 10:31, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to the list of concerns — as this edit by Meerkat77 made me realize, a lot of the sources in "20th and 21st centuries" are fairly outdated at this point. Erinius (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes--the field is moving quickly, I think. Meerkat77 (talk) 19:55, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Remsense, Kwamikagami, Meerkat77, and Erinius: Is work continuing to fix up this article? It seems like the above conversation highlights an additional concern about new sources on this topic that might not have been incorporated into the article yet. If no one is continuing to improve this article, would anyone be interested in nominating this article to WP:FAR, since as subject matter experts you can highlight the concerns more effectively than me? Z1720 (talk) 15:00, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would really like to, as we have precious few linguistics FA, but I simply do not have the expertise to really save this one. Remsense ‥ 论 18:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been working on it and I wouldn't really consider myself an expert - but I do have a few sources I could try adding into this article and to Nahuatl orthography and I could maybe try looking for more modern sources and citations for unsourced content? Erinius (talk) 02:12, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am definitely not an expert; I can help by suggesting some further sources, I think. Possibly the Endangered Language Association could be asked to contribute a worker on this since I do know they've developed a small community of Nahuatl speakers in NYC. I wouldn't feel qualified to lead this but it does seem like a good idea to fix it up for FA. Meerkat77 (talk) 12:58, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry: Endangered Language Alliance, info@elalliance.org, (917) 386-8774. I will try calling and emailing for help. Meerkat77 (talk) 13:01, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]