Grammar

📝 How to read this page

This is a short, sourced reference to the structure of Classical Nahuatl, written for English speakers. Every rule below is backed by an academic source (see the note under each card) and every Nahuatl word shown is attested in the course dictionary. Pronunciation is given in the lessons as IPA; vowel length and the glottal stop matter, so read the phonetic transcription carefully.

📝 Vowels and vowel length

Classical Nahuatl has four vowel qualities — a, e, i, o. Vowel length is meaningful: a long vowel can change a word's meaning. In this course, length is shown only in the phonetic transcription (the ː mark), never in the spelling, so the written form stays faithful to the dictionary.

• • atl — water
• • pilli — child / noble

📝 The saltillo (glottal stop)

The saltillo is a glottal stop, the catch in the throat in English "uh-oh". It is written as an h after a vowel. It often marks plurals and the past tense.

• • cihuatl — woman

📝 The absolutive suffix

A noun standing on its own (not possessed) ends in an "absolutive" suffix. It is -tl after a vowel, -tli after a consonant, -li after a final l, -in for a small class of nouns, or nothing at all.

• • atl — water
• • tochtli — rabbit
• • calli — house
• • michin — fish
• • chichi — dog

📝 The little word "in"

"in" is the most frequent word in Nahuatl. It works as a definite article ("the"), as a subordinating particle (introducing relative and subordinate clauses), and as a deictic ("this/that"). In colonial manuscripts it is very often spelled "yn".

• • in — the / particle

📝 Nouns are sentences — there is no verb "to be"

A noun carrying a subject prefix is already a complete sentence. ni-tlacatl means "I am a person"; calli can mean "it is a house". Nahuatl has no separate copula ("to be") for this — the prefix does the work.

• • tlacatl — person / man
• • calli — house

📝 Subject prefixes

Every predicate — noun or verb — takes a subject prefix: ni- (I), ti- (you, singular), Ø- (he/she/it), ti- (we), am-/an- (you, plural), Ø- (they). The third person has no prefix, only a plural marker. The same prefixes work on nouns and on verbs.

• • tlacatl — person
• • cihuatl — woman

📝 Plural and animacy (instead of gender)

Nahuatl has no masculine/feminine gender. Instead, nouns are animate or inanimate. Only animate nouns — people, animals, some celestial and divine beings — can take a plural; inanimate nouns never change. The plural endings are -tin and -meh.

• • oquichtli — man / male
• • tochtli — rabbit

📝 Saying "not" (ahmo) — and the verb "ca"

Negation is ahmo ("not"; also spelled amo). Do not confuse it with the verb ca, which means "to be (located), to be somewhere". They look alike but do different jobs.

• • ahmo — not
• • ca — to be (located)

📝 Joining with "īhuān"

īhuān (also huān) means "and / together with". It is also a possessed relational noun: no-huān means "with me".

• • ihuan — and / with
• • huan — with

📝 Possession

A possessed noun drops its absolutive suffix and takes a possessive prefix: no- (my), mo- (your sg.), ī- (his/her/its), to- (our), amo- (your pl.), īn-/īm- (their). So calli "house" becomes no-cal "my house".

• • calli — house
• • nacatl — meat
• • cihuatl — woman

📝 Relational nouns (instead of prepositions)

Nahuatl has no prepositions. Instead it uses possessed "relational nouns", many of them derived from body-part words. They attach to a possessive prefix: for example no-cal-pan means "on my house".

• • -pan — on top of, above, in the time of
• • -co — in, at
• • -tlan — under, beside, near, at
• • -huān — together with, in the company of
• • calli — house

📝 Question words and pointing words

Common question words are: āc / aquin (who), tlein (what), quen (how), can / campa (where). The word cuix introduces a yes/no question. Pointing (deictic) words include nican (here) and ompa / oncan (there).

• • aquin — who
• • tlein — what
• • campa — where
• • nican — here
• • cuix — yes/no question