The Nahuas ( ) are a Uto-Nahuan ethnic group and one of the Indigenous people of Mexico, with Nahua minorities also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest Indigenous group in Mexico, as well as the largest population out of any North American Indigenous people group who are native speakers of their respective Indigenous language. Amongst the Nahua, this is Nahuatl. When ranked amongst all Indigenous languages across the Americas, Nahuas list third after speakers of Guaraní and Quechua.Ethnologue (2021)
The Mexica (Aztecs) are of Nahua ethnicity, as are their historical enemies and allies of the Spaniards: the Tlaxcallans (Tlaxcaltecs). The Toltecs which predated both groups are often thought to have been Nahua as well. However, in the pre-Columbian period Nahuas were subdivided into many groups that did not necessarily share a common identity.
Their Nahuan languages, or Nahuatl, consist of many variants, several of which are mutually intelligible. About 1.5 million Nahuas speak Nahuatl and another million speak only Spanish. Fewer than 2,000 native speakers of Nawat remain in El Salvador & Nicaragua.
It is suggested that the Nahua peoples originated near Aridoamerica, in regions of the present day Mexican states of Durango and Nayarit or the Bajío region. They split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. The Nahua then settled in and around the Basin of Mexico and spread out to become the dominant people in central Mexico. However, Nahuatl-speaking populations were present in smaller populations throughout Mesoamerica.
Nomenclature The name is derived from the Nahuatl word-root , which generally means "audible, intelligible, clear" with different derivations including "language" (hence "to speak clearly" and both "something that makes an agreeble sound" and "someone who speaks well or speak one's own language").Kartunnen 1992, p. 157-158. It was used in contrast with , "to speak unintelligibly" or "speak a foreign language".Kartunnen 1992, p. 203. Another, related term is (singular) or (plural) literally "Nahuatl-speaking people".
The Nahuas are also sometimes referred to as Aztecs. Using this term for the Nahuas has generally fallen out of favor in scholarship, though it is still used for the Aztec Empire. They have also been called (singular), (plural)Kartunnen 1992, p. 145. or in Spanish "Mexicans", after the Mexica, the Nahua tribe which founded the Aztec Empire.
Distribution
In Mexico
+Total number of Nahuatl speakers in the 2020 Mexican CensusLanguageTotal persons 3 years & older speaking an Indigenous language% of total Indigenous speakers 3 years & older in MexicoTotal Indigenous speakers 3 years & older who do not speak SpanishMonolingual rate (%)Náhuatl1,651,95822.4%111,7976.8% +Speakers over 5 years of age in the ten states with most speakers (2000 census). Absolute and relative numbers.Source: INEGI (2000). Percentages given are in comparison to the total population of the corresponding state.RegionTotalsPercentagesFederal District37,4500.44%Guerrero136,6814.44%Hidalgo221,6849.92%Mexico (state)55,8020.43%Morelos18,6561.20%Oaxaca10,9790.32%Puebla416,9688.21%San Luis Potosí138,5236.02%Tlaxcala23,7372.47%Veracruz338,3244.90%Rest of Mexico50,1320.10%Total:1,448,9371.49%
The Mexican government does not categorize its citizens by ethnicity, but only by language. Statistical information recorded about the Nahua deals only with speakers of the Nahuatl language, although unknown numbers of people of Nahua ethnicity have abandoned the language and now speak only Spanish. Other Nahuas, though bilingual in Nahuatl and Spanish, seek to avoid widespread anti-Indigenous discrimination by declining to self-identify as Nahua in INEGI's decennial census. Nor does the census count as Indigenous children under 5 (estimated to be 11–12% of the Indigenous population). An INI-Conepo report indicates the Mexican Indigenous population is nearly 250% greater than that reported by INEGI.
As of 2020, Nahuatl is spoken across Mexico by an estimated 1.6 million people, including 111,797 monolingual speakers. This is an increase from 1.4 million people speakers total but a decrease from 190,000 monolingual speakers in 2000. The state of Guerrero had the highest ratio of monolingual Nahuatl speakers, calculated at 24.8%, based on 2000 census figures. The proportion of monolinguals for most other states is less than 5%.Put another way, more than 95% of the Nahuatl-speaking population also speak at least one other language, most usually Spanish. See corresponding tables in INEGI (2000), p. 43.
The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Guerrero. Significant populations are also found in México State, Morelos, and Mexico City, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Nahuatl was formerly spoken in the states of Jalisco and Colima, where it became extinct during the 20th century. As a result of internal migrations within the country, all Mexican states today have some isolated pockets and groups of Nahuatl speakers. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the United States has resulted in the establishment of a few small Nahuatl-speaking communities, particularly in Texas, New York and California.Flores Farfán (2002), p. 229
64.3% of Nahuatl speakers are literate in Spanish compared with the national average of 97.5% for Spanish literacy. Male Nahuatl speakers have 9.8 years of education on average and women 10.1, compared with the 13.6 and 14.1 years that are the national averages for men and women, respectively.
In Central America In El Salvador, the 2024 census counted 29,445 Nahuas/Pipiles.Crece el número de salvadoreños que se reconocen indígenas (2024) However, some Indigenous organizations claim that the real population is significantly higher. Their Nawat language is endangered, but undergoing a revival.
In Nicaragua, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs counted 20,000 Nahuas/Nicaraos in 2022. The International Labour Organization also counted 20,000 Nicaraos. However, DNA analysis has proven that the Nahua admixture in the modern Nicaraguan gene pool is high, especially among western Nicaraguans, both whites and Mestizos alike, making the number of Nahua descendants much higher. Fully Indigenous Nahuas can be found all over the western half of Nicaragua. They also spoke the Nawat language before it became critically endangered in Nicaragua in the late 1800s.
In Costa Rica, a small population of Nahuas inhabit Bagaces and other parts of Guanacaste province. They are descended from Nicaraos who migrated and displaced the Huetares who originally inhabited Bagaces. They spoke the Nawat language before it went extinct in Costa Rica.
In Honduras, different sources give estimates of 6,339 persons of Nahua ethnicity. They are concentrated in Olancho, in the municipalities of Catacamas, Gualaco, Guata, Jano and Esquipulas del Norte. Nawat is extinct here. However, unlike the Nahuas of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica who fled central and southern Mexico during the post-classical era due to famine, societal collapse, civil wars, and invasions from enemy forces, the Nahuas of Olancho are descended from pochtecas who were sent to Central America by Ahuizotl of Tenochtitlan at the start of the modern era in 1501 CE to establish trade relations with the Indigenous peoples of Central America. There were some Nahua communities in other parts of Honduras in the 16th century, but they have since disappeared.
Geography
At the turn of the 16th century, Nahua populations occupied territories ranging across Mesoamerica as far south as Panama.Fowler (1985, p.38). However, their core area was Central Mexico, including the Valley of Mexico, the Toluca Valley, the eastern half of the Balsas River basin, and modern-day Tlaxcala and most of Puebla, although other linguistic and ethnic groups lived in these areas as well. They were also present in large numbers in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, southeastern Veracruz, and Colima and coastal Michoacan. Classical Nahuatl was a lingua franca in Central Mexico before the Spanish conquest due to Aztec hegemony,Sarah Cline, "Native Peoples of Colonial Central Mexico" in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Mesoamerica. Volume II, Part 2. Edited by Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. MacLeod. New York: Cambridge University Press 2000, p. 187. and its role was not only preserved but expanded in the initial stage of colonial rule, encouraged by the Spaniards as a literary language and tool to convert diverse Mesoamerican peoples. There are many Nahuatl place names in regions where Nahuas were not the most populous group (including the names of Guatemala and several Mexican states), due to Aztec expansion, Spanish invasions in which Tlaxcaltecs served as the main force, and the usage of Nahuatl as a lingua franca.
The last of the southern Nahua populations today are the Pipil of El Salvador, the Nahua of Honduras and the Nicarao of Nicaragua. Nahua populations in Mexico are centered in the middle of the country, with most speakers in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero and San Luis Potosí. However, smaller populations are spread throughout the country due to recent population movements within Mexico. Within the last 50 years, Nahua populations have appeared in the United States, particularly in New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston.Flores Farfán (2002, p.229).
History
Pre-conquest period
Archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence suggest that the Nahuas originally came from the deserts of northern Mexico (Aridoamerica) and migrated into central Mexico in several waves.Canger (1980, p.12) The presence of the Mexicanero people (who speak a Nahuatl variant) in this area until the present day affirms this theory. Before the Nahuas entered Mesoamerica, they were probably living for a period of time in northwestern Mexico alongside the Cora and Huichol peoples.Kaufman (2001, p.12). The first group of Nahuas to split from the main group were the Pochutec who went on to settle on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca possibly as early as 400 CE.Suárez (1983, p. 149). From the Nahua quickly rose to power in central Mexico and expanded into areas earlier occupied by Oto-Manguean, Totonacan and Huastec peoples.Kaufman (2001). Through their integration in the Mesoamerican cultural area the Nahuas adopted many cultural traits including maize agriculture and urbanism, religious practices including a ritual calendar of 260 days and the practice of human sacrifices and the construction of monumental architecture and the use of logographic writing.
Around 1000 CE the Toltec people, normally assumed to have been of Nahua ethnicity, established dominion over much of central Mexico which they ruled from Tollan Xicocotitlan.Porter Weaver. 1993. pp. 388-412