Nahuatlan

[ nah-waht-luhn ]

noun

1. Nahuatl in all its dialects, often taken as a group of languages, spoken in large areas of central Mexico and El Salvador and in various small, widely dispersed areas throughout southern Mexico and Central America.

adjective

1. of or relating to Nahuatl or Nahuatlan.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Nahuatlan¹

First recorded in 1900–05; Nahuatl + -an

Example Sentences

In Mexico and Central America interest is centred chiefly in two great ethnical groups—the Nahuatlan and Huaxtecan—whose cultural, historical, and even geographical relations are so intimately interwoven that they can scarcely be treated apart.

From Project Gutenberg

As in Mexico many of the Nahuatlan tribes remained little better than savages to the last, so in Colombia the civilised Muyscans were surrounded by numerous kindred tribes—Coyaima, Natagaima, Tocaima and others, collectively known as Panches—who were real savages with scarcely any tribal organisation, wearing no clothes, and according to the early accounts still addicted to cannibalism.

From Project Gutenberg

They told him that they were Niquirans—a wandering, gypsy-like tribe of the Nahuatlan stock; and that, as they had heard of the discovery of a gold-mine at the village which they were approaching, where everyone might go and help himself, they thought—being in the neighbourhood—they might as well bring away a few sackfuls of the metal.

From Project Gutenberg

Powers has recorded many of the myths of various stocks in California, and the old Spanish writings give us a fair collection of the Nahuatlan myths of Mexico, and Rink has presented an interesting volume on the mythology of the Innuits; and, finally, fragments of mythology have been collected from nearly all the tribes of North America, and they are scattered through thousands of volumes, so that the literature is vast.

From Project Gutenberg

These, however, are grouped into some twelve or more linguistic families, among whom may be mentioned in order of their numerical importance the Nahuatlan, Otomian, Zapotecan, Mayan, Tarascan, Totonacan, Piman, Zoquean, and others, including the Serian and the Athapascan, or Apache.

From Project Gutenberg