The Uto-Aztecan languages are a family of indigenous languages of the Americas , consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico . The name of the language family reflects the common ancestry of the Ute language of Utah and the Nahuan languages (also known as Aztecan) of Mexico.
121-519: Nahuatl ( English: / ˈ n ɑː w ɑː t əl / NAH -wah-təl ; Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈnaːwat͡ɬ] ), Aztec , or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family . Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahuas , most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in
242-490: A pitch accent , such as Nahuatl of Oapan, Guerrero . Many modern dialects have also borrowed phonemes from Spanish, such as /β, d, ɡ, ɸ/ . In many Nahuatl dialects vowel length contrast is vague, and in others it has become lost entirely. The dialect spoken in Tetelcingo (nhg) developed the vowel length into a difference in quality: Most varieties have relatively simple patterns of allophony . In many dialects,
363-655: A brightening of 'ochraceous' tones – deep orange or brown – towards the Pacific coast ( C. l. ochropus , C. l. umpquensis ), a reduction in size in Aridoamerica ( C. l. microdon , C. l. mearnsi ) and a general trend towards dark reddish colors and short muzzles in Mexican and Central American populations. [REDACTED] Coyotes occasionally mate with domestic dogs , sometimes producing crosses colloquially known as " coydogs ". Such matings are rare in
484-510: A chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc ; Cantares Mexicanos , a collection of songs in Nahuatl; a Nahuatl-Spanish/Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by Alonso de Molina ; and the Huei tlamahuiçoltica , a description in Nahuatl of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe . Grammars and dictionaries of indigenous languages were composed throughout
605-542: A coyote from Mexico represented the purest specimens. The coyotes from Alaska, California, Alabama, and Quebec show almost no wolf ancestry. Coyotes from Missouri, Illinois, and Florida exhibit 5–10% wolf ancestry. There was 40% wolf to 60% coyote ancestry in red wolves, 60% wolf to 40% coyote in Eastern timber wolves, and 75% wolf to 25% coyote in the Great Lakes wolves. There was 10% coyote ancestry in Mexican wolves and
726-526: A deep sea green colour small and piercing. Their [claws] are rather longer than those of the ordinary wolf or that common to the Atlantic states, none of which are to be found in this quarter, nor I believe above the river Plat. The coyote was first scientifically described by naturalist Thomas Say in September ;1819, on the site of Lewis and Clark's Council Bluffs, 24 km (15 mi) up
847-407: A few hundred people, perhaps only a few dozen". According to the 2000 census by INEGI, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1.45 million people, some 198,000 (14.9%) of whom are monolingual. There are many more female than male monolinguals, and women represent nearly two-thirds of the total number. The states of Guerrero and Hidalgo have the highest rates of monolingual Nahuatl speakers relative to
968-449: A genetic relation between Corachol and Nahuan (e.g. Merrill (2013) ). Kaufman recognizes similarities between Corachol and Aztecan, but explains them by diffusion instead of genetic evolution. Most scholars view the breakup of Proto-Uto-Aztecan as a case of the gradual disintegration of a dialect continuum. Below is a representation of the internal classification of the language family based on Shaul (2014) . The classification reflects
1089-501: A great deal of autonomy in the local administration of indigenous towns during this period, and in many Nahuatl-speaking towns the language was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. A large body of Nahuatl literature was composed during this period, including the Florentine Codex , a twelve-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún ; Crónica Mexicayotl ,
1210-422: A language family since the early 1900s, and six subgroups are generally accepted as valid: Numic , Takic , Pimic, Taracahitic , Corachol , and Aztecan . That leaves two ungrouped languages: Tübatulabal and Hopi (sometimes termed " isolates within the family"). Some recent studies have begun to question the unity of Taracahitic and Takic and computer-assisted statistical studies have begun to question some of
1331-535: A language label, the term Nahuatl encompasses a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects within the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (Indigenous Languages Institute) recognizes 30 individual varieties within the "language group" labeled Nahuatl. The Ethnologue recognizes 28 varieties with separate ISO codes. Sometimes Nahuatl
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#17327658022791452-608: A local priest, noted that the "wolves" encountered there were smaller and less daring than European wolves. Another account from the early 1800s in Edwards County mentioned wolves howling at night, though these were likely coyotes. This species was encountered several times during the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806), though it was already well known to European traders on the upper Missouri . Meriwether Lewis , writing on 5 May 1805, in northeastern Montana , described
1573-422: A more slender skull and skeleton than the modern coyote. Ronald Nowak found that the early populations had small, delicate, narrowly proportioned skulls that resemble small coyotes and appear to be ancestral to C. latrans . C. lepophagus was similar in weight to modern coyotes, but had shorter limb bones that indicate a less cursorial lifestyle. The coyote represents a more primitive form of Canis than
1694-464: A mutation that first arose in domestic dogs. A population of non-albino white coyotes in Newfoundland owe their coloration to a melanocortin 1 receptor mutation inherited from Golden Retrievers . Coyotes have hybridized with wolves to varying degrees, particularly in eastern North America . The so-called " eastern coyote " of northeastern North America probably originated in the aftermath of
1815-532: A northern branch including all the languages of the US and a southern branch including all the languages of Mexico, although it is still being discussed whether this is best understood as a genetic classification or as a geographical one. Below this level of classification the main branches are well accepted: Numic (including languages such as Comanche and Shoshoni ) and the Californian languages (formerly known as
1936-898: A part of their efforts, missionaries belonging to several religious orders —principally Jesuits , as well as Franciscan and Dominican friars—introduced the Latin alphabet to the Nahuas. Within twenty years of the Spanish arrival, texts in Nahuatl were being written using the Latin script. Simultaneously, schools were founded, such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in 1536, which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Native Americans and priests. Missionaries authored of grammars for indigenous languages for use by priests. The first Nahuatl grammar, written by Andrés de Olmos ,
2057-433: A person approaches them they frequently bark, their note being precisely that of the small dog. They are of an intermediate size between that of the fox and dog, very active fleet and delicately formed; the ears large erect and pointed the head long and pointed more like that of the fox; tale long ... the hair and fur also resembles the fox, tho' is much coarser and inferior. They are of a pale reddish-brown colour. The eye of
2178-542: A reference to the many vocalizations they produce. ᒣᐢᒐᒑᑲᓂᐢ ( Mescacâkanis ) Perro de monte Isapaippü Itsappü Sedet Domestic dog [REDACTED] Gray wolf [REDACTED] Coyote [REDACTED] African wolf [REDACTED] Golden jackal [REDACTED] Ethiopian wolf [REDACTED] Dhole [REDACTED] African wild dog [REDACTED] Side-striped jackal [REDACTED] Black-backed jackal [REDACTED] Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford , one of
2299-507: A selected bibliography of grammars, dictionaries on many of the individual languages.( = extinct ) In addition to the above languages for which linguistic evidence exists, it is suspected that among dozens of now extinct, undocumented or poorly known languages of northern Mexico, many were Uto-Aztecan. A large number of languages known only from brief mentions are thought to have been Uto-Aztecan languages that became extinct before being documented. An "Aztec–Tanoan" macrofamily that unites
2420-480: A single language is highly political. In the past, the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs has been called Aztecan . From the 1990s onward, the alternative designation Nahuan has been frequently used instead, especially in Spanish-language publications. The Nahuan (Aztecan) branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions: General Aztec and Pochutec. General Aztec encompasses
2541-592: A spectrum of Nahuan languages are spoken in scattered areas stretching from the northern state of Durango to Tabasco in the southeast. Pipil, the southernmost Nahuan language, is spoken in El Salvador by a small number of speakers. According to IRIN-International, the Nawat Language Recovery Initiative project, there are no reliable figures for the contemporary numbers of speakers of Pipil. Numbers may range anywhere from "perhaps
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#17327658022792662-626: A typical Nahuan language. In some dialects, the /t͡ɬ/ phoneme, which was common in Classical Nahuatl, has changed into either /t/ , as in Isthmus Nahuatl , Mexicanero and Pipil , or into /l/ , as in Michoacán Nahuatl . Many dialects no longer distinguish between short and long vowels . Some have introduced completely new vowel qualities to compensate, as is the case for Tetelcingo Nahuatl . Others have developed
2783-475: A very long period of development alongside other indigenous Mesoamerican languages , they have absorbed many influences, coming to form part of the Mesoamerican language area . Many words from Nahuatl were absorbed into Spanish and, from there, were diffused into hundreds of other languages in the region. Most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico, which the Spanish heard mentioned for
2904-421: A vowel i to prevent consonant clusters and one without it. For example, the absolutive suffix has the variant forms -tli (used after consonants) and -tl (used after vowels). Some modern varieties, however, have formed complex clusters from vowel loss. Others have contracted syllable sequences, causing accents to shift or vowels to become long. Most Nahuatl dialects have stress on the penultimate syllable of
3025-453: A word. In Mexicanero from Durango, many unstressed syllables have disappeared from words, and the placement of syllable stress has become phonemic. The Nahuatl languages are polysynthetic and agglutinative , making extensive use of compounding, incorporation and derivation. Various prefixes and suffixes can be added to a root to form very long words—individual Nahuatl words can constitute an entire sentence.. The following verb shows how
3146-461: Is Shoshoni , which is spoken as far north as Salmon, Idaho , while the southernmost is the Nawat language of El Salvador and Nicaragua . Ethnologue gives the total number of languages in the family as 61, and the total number of speakers as 1,900,412. Speakers of Nahuatl languages account for over 85% of these. The internal classification of the family often divides it into two branches:
3267-563: Is a howl made by solitary individuals. Humans are the coyote's greatest threat, followed by cougars and gray wolves. Despite predation by gray wolves, coyotes sometimes mate with them, and with eastern, or red wolves, producing " coywolf " hybrids. In the northeastern regions of North America, the eastern coyote (a larger subspecies, though still smaller than wolves) is the result of various historical and recent matings with various types of wolves. Genetic studies show that most North American wolves contain some level of coyote DNA. The coyote
3388-581: Is a Spanish borrowing of its Nahuatl name coyōtl pronunciation ) comes from the historian Francisco Javier Clavijero 's Historia de México in 1780. The first time it was used in English occurred in William Bullock 's Six months' residence and travels in Mexico (1824), where it is variously transcribed as cayjotte and cocyotie . The word's spelling was standardized as "coyote" by
3509-537: Is a prominent character in Native American folklore, mainly in Aridoamerica , usually depicted as a trickster that alternately assumes the form of an actual coyote or a man. As with other trickster figures, the coyote uses deception and humor to rebel against social conventions. The animal was especially respected in Mesoamerican cosmology as a symbol of military might. After the European colonization of
3630-399: Is also applied to the Nawat language of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Regardless of whether Nahuatl is considered to refer to a dialect continuum or a group of separate languages, the varieties form a single branch within the Uto-Aztecan family, descended from a single Proto-Nahuan language . Within Mexico, the question of whether to consider individual varieties to be languages or dialects of
3751-583: Is debated among linguists. Lyle Campbell (1997) classified Pipil as separate from the Nahuatl branch within general Aztecan, whereas dialectologists such as Una Canger , Karen Dakin, Yolanda Lastra , and Terrence Kaufman have preferred to include Pipil within the General Aztecan branch, citing close historical ties with the eastern peripheral dialects of General Aztec. Current subclassification of Nahuatl rests on research by Canger (1980) , Canger (1988) and Lastra de Suárez (1986) . Canger introduced
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3872-579: Is gray-brown, with reddish legs, ears, and flanks. No significant differences exist between eastern and western coyotes in aggression and fighting, though eastern coyotes tend to fight less, and are more playful. Unlike western coyote pups, in which fighting precedes play behavior, fighting among eastern coyote pups occurs after the onset of play. Eastern coyotes tend to reach sexual maturity at two years of age, much later than in western coyotes. Eastern and red wolves are also products of varying degrees of wolf-coyote hybridization. The eastern wolf probably
3993-497: Is longer and denser than in southern forms, with the fur of some Mexican and Central American forms being almost hispid (bristly). Generally, adult coyotes (including coywolf hybrids) have a sable coat color, dark neonatal coat color, bushy tail with an active supracaudal gland , and a white facial mask. Albinism is extremely rare in coyotes. Out of a total of 750,000 coyotes killed by federal and cooperative hunters between March 1938 and June 1945, only two were albinos. The coyote
4114-665: Is probably derived from the word nāhuatlahtōlli [naːwat͡ɬaʔˈtoːliˀ] ('clear language'). The language was formerly called Aztec because it was spoken by the Central Mexican peoples known as Aztecs ( Nahuatl pronunciation: [asˈteːkaḁ] ). During the period of the Aztec empire centered in Mexico- Tenochtitlan the language came to be identified with the politically dominant mēxihcah [meːˈʃiʔkaḁ] ethnic group, and consequently
4235-586: Is still debate about whether to accept the proposed basic split between "Northern Uto-Aztecan" and "Southern Uto-Aztecan" languages. Northern Uto-Aztecan corresponds to Powell's "Shoshonean", and the latter is all the rest: Powell's "Sonoran" plus Aztecan. Northern Uto-Aztecan was proposed as a genetic grouping by Jeffrey Heath in Heath (1978) based on morphological evidence, and Alexis Manaster Ramer in Manaster Ramer (1992) adduced phonological evidence in
4356-527: Is the most-spoken variety. All varieties have been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish. No modern Nahuan languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Under Mexico's General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples , promulgated in 2003, Nahuatl and
4477-579: Is the only living descendant of the variety of Nahuatl once spoken south of present-day Mexico. During the 7th century, Nahuan speakers rose to power in central Mexico. The people of the Toltec culture of Tula , which was active in central Mexico around the 10th century, are thought to have been Nahuatl speakers. By the 11th century, Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, with settlements including Azcapotzalco , Colhuacan and Cholula rising to prominence. Nahua migrations into
4598-514: Is typically smaller than the gray wolf, but has longer ears and a relatively larger braincase , as well as a thinner frame, face, and muzzle. The scent glands are smaller than the gray wolf's, but are the same color. Its fur color variation is much less varied than that of a wolf. The coyote also carries its tail downwards when running or walking, rather than horizontally as the wolf does. Coyote tracks can be distinguished from those of dogs by their more elongated, less rounded shape. Unlike dogs,
4719-524: The American jackal , prairie wolf , or brush wolf , is a species of canine native to North America . It is smaller than its close relative, the gray wolf , and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf . It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Eurasia ; however, the coyote is generally larger. The coyote is listed as least concern by
4840-616: The International Union for Conservation of Nature , due to its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America. The species is versatile, able to adapt to and expand into environments modified by humans; urban coyotes are common in many cities. The coyote was sighted in eastern Panama (across the Panama Canal from their home range) for the first time in 2013. The coyote has 19 recognized subspecies . The average male weighs 8 to 20 kg (18 to 44 lb) and
4961-477: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec call their language mela'tajtol ('the straight language'). Some speech communities use Nahuatl as the name for their language, although it seems to be a recent innovation. Linguists commonly identify localized dialects of Nahuatl by adding as a qualifier the name of the village or area where that variety is spoken. On the issue of geographic origin, the consensus of linguists during
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5082-619: The Mexican Plateau , pre-Nahuan groups probably spent a period of time in contact with the Uto-Aztecan Cora and Huichol of northwestern Mexico. The major political and cultural center of Mesoamerica in the Early Classic period was Teotihuacan . The identity of the language(s) spoken by Teotihuacan's founders has long been debated, with the relationship of Nahuatl to Teotihuacan being prominent in that enquiry. It
5203-545: The Nahuan languages . The homeland of the Uto-Aztecan languages is generally considered to have been in the Southwestern United States or possibly Northwestern Mexico. An alternative theory has proposed the possibility that the language family originated in southern Mexico, within the Mesoamerican language area , but this has not been generally considered convincing. Uto-Aztecan languages are spoken in
5324-530: The Quaternary extinction event . Compared to their modern Holocene counterparts, Pleistocene coyotes ( C. l. orcutti ) were larger and more robust, likely in response to larger competitors and prey. Pleistocene coyotes were likely more specialized carnivores than their descendants, as their teeth were more adapted to shearing meat, showing fewer grinding surfaces suited for processing vegetation. Their reduction in size occurred within 1,000 years of
5445-781: The Takic group, including Cahuilla and Luiseño ) account for most of the Northern languages. Hopi and Tübatulabal are languages outside those groups. The Southern languages are divided into the Tepiman languages (including O'odham and Tepehuán ), the Tarahumaran languages (including Raramuri and Guarijio ), the Cahitan languages (including Yaqui and Mayo ), the Coracholan languages (including Cora and Huichol ), and
5566-668: The Zapatista Army of National Liberation and indigenous social movements) led to legislative reforms and the creation of decentralized government agencies like the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) with responsibilities for the promotion and protection of indigenous communities and languages. In particular,
5687-610: The 1880s. The English pronunciation is heard both as a two-syllable word (with the final "e" silent) and as three-syllables (with the final "e" pronounced), with a tendency for the three-syllable pronunciation in eastern states and near the Mexican border, and outside the United States, with two syllables in western and central states. Alternative English names for the coyote include "prairie wolf", "brush wolf", "cased wolf", "little wolf" and "American jackal". Its binomial name Canis latrans translates to "barking dog",
5808-518: The 20th century was that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in the southwestern United States. Evidence from archaeology and ethnohistory supports the thesis of a southward diffusion across the North American continent, specifically that speakers of early Nahuan languages migrated from Aridoamerica into central Mexico in several waves. But recently, the traditional assessment has been challenged by Jane H. Hill , who proposes instead that
5929-504: The 20th century, Mexican educational policy focused on the Hispanicization of indigenous communities, teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of indigenous languages. As a result, one scholar estimated in 1983 that there was no group of Nahuatl speakers who had attained general literacy (that is, the ability to read the classical language) in Nahuatl, and Nahuatl speakers' literacy rate in Spanish also remained much lower than
6050-575: The Americas , it was seen in Anglo-American culture as a cowardly and untrustworthy animal. Unlike wolves, which have seen their public image improve, attitudes towards the coyote remain largely negative. Coyote males average 8 to 20 kg (18 to 44 lb) in weight, while females average 7 to 18 kg (15 to 40 lb), though size varies geographically. Northern subspecies, which average 18 kg (40 lb), tend to grow larger than
6171-597: The Atlantic Coast wolves, 5% in Pacific Coast and Yellowstone wolves, and less than 3% in Canadian archipelago wolves. If a third canid had been involved in the admixture of the North American wolf-like canids, then its genetic signature would have been found in coyotes and wolves, which it has not. In 2018, whole genome sequencing was used to compare members of the genus Canis . The study indicates that
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#17327658022796292-575: The Central group, while Lastra de Suárez (1986) places them in the Eastern Periphery, which was followed by Kaufman (2001) . The terminology used to describe varieties of spoken Nahuatl is inconsistently applied. Many terms are used with multiple denotations, or a single dialect grouping goes under several names. Sometimes, older terms are substituted with newer ones or with the speakers' own name for their specific variety. The word Nahuatl
6413-519: The Maya Kʼicheʼ people . As Tenochtitlan grew to become the largest urban center in Central America and one of the largest in the world at the time, it attracted speakers of Nahuatl from diverse areas giving birth to an urban form of Nahuatl with traits from many dialects. This urbanized variety of Tenochtitlan is what came to be known as Classical Nahuatl as documented in colonial times. With
6534-571: The Missouri River from the mouth of the Platte during a government-sponsored expedition with Major Stephen Long . He had the first edition of the Lewis and Clark journals in hand, which contained Biddle's edited version of Lewis's observations dated 5 May 1805. His account was published in 1823. Say was the first person to document the difference between a " prairie wolf " (coyote) and on
6655-445: The Nahuatl and Pipil languages. Pochutec is a scantily attested language, which became extinct in the 20th century, and which Campbell and Langacker classify as being outside general Aztec. Other researchers have argued that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery. Nahuatl denotes at least Classical Nahuatl, together with related modern languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil in this group
6776-428: The Nahuatl language was often described as mēxihcacopa [meːʃiʔkaˈkopaˀ] (literally 'in the manner of Mexicas') or mēxihcatlahtolli 'Mexica language'. Now, the term Aztec is rarely used for modern Nahuan languages, but linguists' traditional name of Aztecan for the branch of Uto-Aztecan that comprises Nahuatl, Pipil, and Pochutec is still in use (although some linguists prefer Nahuan ). Since 1978,
6897-501: The New Philology, such that there is a 2001 English translation of Carochi's 1645 grammar by James Lockhart . Through contact with Spanish the Nahuatl language adopted many loan words, and as bilingualism intensified, changes in the grammatical structure of Nahuatl followed. In 1570, King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain to facilitate communication between
7018-515: The North American mountain ranges and adjacent lowlands of the western United States in the states of Oregon , Idaho , Montana , Utah , California , Nevada , and Arizona . In Mexico , they are spoken in the states of Sonora , Sinaloa , Chihuahua , Nayarit , Durango , Zacatecas , Jalisco , Michoacán , Guerrero , San Luis Potosí , Hidalgo , Puebla , Veracruz , Morelos , Estado de México , and in Mexico City . Classical Nahuatl ,
7139-475: The Quaternary extinction event, when their large prey died out. Furthermore, Pleistocene coyotes were unable to exploit the big-game hunting niche left vacant after the extinction of the dire wolf ( Aenocyon dirus ), as it was rapidly filled by gray wolves, which likely actively killed off the large coyotes, with natural selection favoring the modern gracile morph. In 1993, a study proposed that
7260-461: The Spanish and natives of the colonies. This led to Spanish missionaries teaching Nahuatl to Amerindians living as far south as Honduras and El Salvador. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language; a large corpus dating to the period remains extant. They include histories, chronicles, poetry, theatrical works, Christian canonical works, ethnographic descriptions, and administrative documents. The Spanish permitted
7381-584: The Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl . It is among the most studied and best-documented Indigenous languages of the Americas . Today, Nahuan languages are spoken in scattered communities, mostly in rural areas throughout central Mexico and along the coastline. A smaller number of speakers exists in immigrant communities in the United States. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are not mutually intelligible . Huasteca Nahuatl , with over one million speakers,
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#17327658022797502-703: The United States . Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE. It was the language of the Mexica , who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history . During the centuries preceding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire , the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico. Their influence caused
7623-483: The United States has resulted in the establishment of small Nahuatl speaking communities in the United States , particularly in California, New York, Texas , New Mexico and Arizona . Nahuan languages are defined as a subgroup of Uto-Aztecan by having undergone a number of shared changes from the Uto-Aztecan protolanguage (PUA). The table below shows the phonemic inventory of Classical Nahuatl as an example of
7744-490: The United States, some linguists are warning of impending language death . At present Nahuatl is mostly spoken in rural areas by an impoverished class of indigenous subsistence agriculturists. According to the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 51% of Nahuatl speakers are involved in the farming sector and 6 in 10 receive no wages or less than the minimum wage. For most of
7865-488: The Uto-Aztecan language family originated in central Mexico and spread northwards at a very early date. This hypothesis and the analyses of data that it rests upon have received serious criticism. The proposed migration of speakers of the Proto-Nahuan language into the Mesoamerican region has been placed at sometime around AD 500, towards the end of the Early Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology . Before reaching
7986-512: The Uto-Aztecan languages with the Tanoan languages of the southwestern United States was first proposed by Edward Sapir in the early 20th century, and later supported with potential lexical evidence by other scholars. This proposal has received much criticism about the validity of the proposed cognate sets and has been largely abandoned since the end of the last century as unproven. Coyote The coyote ( Canis latrans ), also known as
8107-412: The age of 35 days, with eastern coyote pups having longer legs than their western counterparts. Differences in dental development also occurs, with tooth eruption being later, and in a different order in the eastern coyote. Aside from its size, the eastern coyote is physically similar to the western coyote. The four color phases range from dark brown to blond or reddish blond, though the most common phase
8228-410: The anterior ones near the wrist; tail bushy, fusiform, straight, varied with gray and cinnamon, a spot near the base above, and tip black; the tip of the trunk of the tail, attains the tip of the os calcis , when the leg is extended; beneath white, immaculate, tail cinnamon towards the tip, tip black; posterior feet four toed, anterior five toed. The first published usage of the word "coyote" (which
8349-657: The arrival of the Spanish in 1519, Nahuatl was displaced as the dominant regional language, but remained important in Nahua communities under Spanish rule. Nahuatl was documented extensively during the colonial period in Tlaxcala , Cuernavaca, Culhuacan, Coyoacan, Toluca and other locations in the Valley of Mexico and beyond. In the 1970s, scholars of Mesoamerican ethnohistory have analyzed local-level texts in Nahuatl and other indigenous languages to gain insight into cultural change in
8470-438: The assumptions made, that all of the North American wolves and coyotes diverged from a common ancestor about 51,000 years ago. However, the proposed timing of the wolf / coyote divergence conflicts with the discovery of a coyote-like specimen in strata dated to 1 Mya. The study also indicated that all North American wolves have a significant amount of coyote ancestry and all coyotes some degree of wolf ancestry, and that
8591-570: The average female 7 to 18 kg (15 to 40 lb). Their fur color is predominantly light gray and red or fulvous interspersed with black and white, though it varies somewhat with geography. It is highly flexible in social organization, living either in a family unit or in loosely knit packs of unrelated individuals. Primarily carnivorous , its diet consists mainly of deer , rabbits , hares , rodents , birds , reptiles , amphibians , fish , and invertebrates , though it may also eat fruits and vegetables on occasion. Its characteristic vocalization
8712-581: The colonial era via linguistic changes, known at present as the New Philology . Several of these texts have been translated and published either in part or in their entirety. The types of documentation include censuses, especially one early set from the Cuernavaca region, town council records from Tlaxcala, as well as the testimony of Nahua individuals. As the Spanish had made alliances with Nahuatl-speaking peoples—initially from Tlaxcala , and later
8833-569: The colonial period, but their quality was highest in the initial period. The friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible in practice, so they concentrated on Nahuatl. For a time, the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained relatively stable, but in 1696, Charles II of Spain issued a decree banning the use of any language other than Spanish throughout the Spanish Empire . In 1770, another decree, calling for
8954-479: The common ancestor of the coyote and gray wolf has genetically admixed with a ghost population of an extinct, unidentified canid. The "ghost" canid was genetically close to the dhole , and had evolved after the divergence of the African wild dog from the other canid species. The basal position of the coyote compared to the wolf is proposed to be due to the coyote retaining more of the mitochondrial genome from
9075-436: The conquered Mexica of Tenochtitlan—Nahuatl continued spreading throughout Mesoamerica in the decades after the conquest. Spanish expeditions with thousands of Nahua soldiers marched north and south to conquer new territories. Jesuit missions in what is now northern Mexico and the southwestern United States often included a barrio of Tlaxcaltec soldiers who remained to guard the mission. For example, some fourteen years after
9196-506: The coyote in these terms: The small wolf or burrowing dog of the prairies are the inhabitants almost invariably of the open plains; they usually associate in bands of ten or twelve sometimes more and burrow near some pass or place much frequented by game; not being able alone to take deer or goat they are rarely ever found alone but hunt in bands; they frequently watch and seize their prey near their burrows; in these burrows, they raise their young and to them they also resort when pursued; when
9317-401: The coyote's usual characteristics . F 1 hybrids tend to be intermediate in form between dogs and coyotes, while F 2 hybrids (second generation) are more varied. Both F 1 and F 2 hybrids resemble their coyote parents in terms of shyness and intrasexual aggression. Hybrids are fertile and can be successfully bred through four generations. Melanistic coyotes owe their black pelts to
9438-415: The decision to split up the previous Taracahitic and Takic groups, that are no longer considered to be valid genetic units. Whether the division between Northern and Southern languages is best understood as geographical or phylogenetic is under discussion. The table contains demographic information about number of speakers and their locations based on data from The Ethnologue . The table also contains links to
9559-500: The early 1900s Alfred L. Kroeber filled in the picture of the Shoshonean group, while Edward Sapir proved the unity among Aztecan, "Sonoran", and "Shoshonean". Sapir's applications of the comparative method to unwritten Native American languages are regarded as groundbreaking. Voegelin, Voegelin & Hale (1962) argued for a three-way division of Shoshonean, Sonoran and Aztecan, following Powell. As of about 2011, there
9680-474: The elimination of the indigenous languages, did away with Classical Nahuatl as a literary language. Until the end of the Mexican War of Independence in 1821, the Spanish courts admitted Nahuatl testimony and documentation as evidence in lawsuits, with court translators rendering it in Spanish. Throughout the modern period the situation of indigenous languages has grown increasingly precarious in Mexico, and
9801-652: The extermination of gray and eastern wolves in the northeast, thus allowing coyotes to colonize former wolf ranges and mix with the remnant wolf populations. This hybrid is smaller than either the gray or eastern wolf, and holds smaller territories, but is in turn larger and holds more extensive home ranges than the typical western coyote. As of 2010 , the eastern coyote's genetic makeup is fairly uniform, with minimal influence from eastern wolves or western coyotes. Adult eastern coyotes are larger than western coyotes, with female eastern coyotes weighing 21% more than male western coyotes. Physical differences become more apparent by
9922-633: The federal Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ['General Law on the Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples', promulgated 13 March 2003] recognizes all the country's indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as national languages and gives indigenous people the right to use them in all spheres of public and private life. In Article 11, it grants access to compulsory intercultural bilingual education . Nonetheless, progress towards institutionalizing Nahuatl and securing linguistic rights for its speakers has been slow. Today,
10043-413: The first time by their Nahuatl names. English has also absorbed words of Nahuatl origin , including avocado , chayote , chili , chipotle , chocolate , atlatl , coyote , peyote , axolotl and tomato . These words have since been adopted into dozens of languages around the world. The names of several countries, Mexico, Guatemala and possibly Nicaragua , derive from Nahuatl. As
10164-538: The foremost authorities on carnivore evolution, proposed that the genus Canis was the descendant of the coyote-like Eucyon davisi and its remains first appeared in the Miocene 6 million years ago (Mya) in the southwestern US and Mexico. By the Pliocene (5 Mya), the larger Canis lepophagus appeared in the same region and by the early Pleistocene (1 Mya) C. latrans (the coyote)
10285-465: The form of a sound law. Terrence Kaufman in Kaufman (1981) accepted the basic division into Northern and Southern branches as valid. Other scholars have rejected the genealogical unity of either both nodes or the Northern node alone. Wick R. Miller 's argument was statistical, arguing that Northern Uto-Aztecan languages displayed too few cognates to be considered a unit. On the other hands he found
10406-428: The genomic structure and admixture of North American wolves, wolf-like canids, and coyotes using specimens from across their entire range that mapped the largest dataset of nuclear genome sequences against the wolf reference genome. The study supports the findings of previous studies that North American gray wolves and wolf-like canids were the result of complex gray wolf and coyote mixing. A polar wolf from Greenland and
10527-403: The gray wolf, as shown by its relatively small size and its comparatively narrow skull and jaws, which lack the grasping power necessary to hold the large prey in which wolves specialize. This is further corroborated by the coyote's sagittal crest , which is low or totally flattened, thus indicating a weaker bite than the wolves. The coyote is not a specialized carnivore as the wolf is, as shown by
10648-428: The lachrymal sac black-brown; rostrum cinnamon, tinctured with grayish on the nose; lips white, edged with black, three series of black seta; head between the ears intermixed with gray, and dull cinnamon, hairs dusky plumbeous at base; sides paler than the back, obsoletely fasciate with black above the legs; legs cinnamon on the outer side, more distinct on the posterior hair: a dilated black abbreviated line on
10769-558: The language of the Aztecs , and its modern relatives are part of the Uto-Aztecan family. The Pipil language , an offshoot of Nahuatl , spread to Central America by a wave of migration from Mexico, and formerly had many speakers there. Now it has gone extinct in Guatemala , Honduras , and Nicaragua , and it is nearly extinct in western El Salvador , all areas dominated by use of Spanish. Uto-Aztecan has been accepted by linguists as
10890-755: The larger chewing surfaces on the molars , reflecting the species' relative dependence on vegetable matter. In these respects, the coyote resembles the fox-like progenitors of the genus more so than the wolf. The oldest fossils that fall within the range of the modern coyote date to 0.74–0.85 Ma (million years) in Hamilton Cave, West Virginia; 0.73 Ma in Irvington, California; 0.35–0.48 Ma in Porcupine Cave, Colorado, and in Cumberland Cave, Pennsylvania. Modern coyotes arose 1,000 years after
11011-471: The long-held assumptions and consensuses. As to higher-level groupings, disagreement has persisted since the 19th century. Presently scholars also disagree as to where to draw language boundaries within the dialect continua . The similarities among the Uto-Aztecan languages were noted as early as 1859 by J. C. E. Buschmann , but he failed to recognize the genetic affiliation between the Aztecan branch and
11132-497: The national average. Nahuatl is spoken by over 1 million people, with approximately 10% of speakers being monolingual . As a whole, Nahuatl is not considered to be an endangered language; however, during the late 20th century several Nahuatl dialects became extinct. The 1990s saw radical changes in Mexican policy concerning indigenous and linguistic rights. Developments of accords in the international rights arena combined with domestic pressures (such as social and political agitation by
11253-665: The next page of his journal a wolf which he named Canis nubilus ( Great Plains wolf ). Say described the coyote as: Canis latrans . Cinereous or gray, varied with black above, and dull fulvous, or cinnamon; hair at base dusky plumbeous, in the middle of its length dull cinnamon, and at tip gray or black, longer on the vertebral line; ears erect, rounded at tip, cinnamon behind, the hair dark plumbeous at base, inside lined with gray hair; eyelids edged with black, superior eyelashes black beneath, and at tip above; supplemental lid margined with black-brown before, and edged with black brown behind; iris yellow; pupil black-blue; spot upon
11374-440: The northeastern city of Saltillo was founded in 1577, a Tlaxcaltec community was resettled in a separate nearby village, San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala , to cultivate the land and aid colonization efforts that had stalled in the face of local hostility to the Spanish settlement. Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala with the help of tens of thousands of Tlaxcaltec allies, who then settled outside of modern Antigua Guatemala . As
11495-425: The number of cognates among Southern Uto-Aztecan languages to suggest a genetic relation. This position was supported by subsequent lexicostatistic analyses by Cortina-Borja & Valiñas-Coalla (1989) and Cortina-Borja, Stuart-Smith & Valiñas-Coalla (2002) . Reviewing the debate, Haugen (2008) considers the evidence in favor of the genetic unity of Northern Uto-Aztecan to be convincing, but remains agnostic on
11616-429: The numbers of speakers of virtually all indigenous languages have dwindled. While the total number of Nahuatl speakers increased over the 20th century, indigenous populations have become increasingly marginalized in Mexican society. In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. By 2000, this figure had fallen to 1.49%. Given the process of marginalization combined with the trend of migration to urban areas and to
11737-556: The other 63 indigenous languages of Mexico are recognized as lenguas nacionales ('national languages') in the regions where they are spoken. They are given the same status as Spanish within their respective regions. Nahuan languages exhibit a complex morphology , or system of word formation, characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination . This means that morphemes – words or fragments of words that each contain their own separate meaning – are often strung together to make longer complex words. Through
11858-451: The place of articulation of a following consonant. The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate [t͡ɬ] is assimilated after /l/ and pronounced [l] . Classical Nahuatl and most of the modern varieties have fairly simple phonological systems. They allow only syllables with maximally one initial and one final consonant. Consonant clusters occur only word-medially and over syllable boundaries. Some morphemes have two alternating forms: one with
11979-573: The possibility that other Mesoamerican languages were borrowing vocabulary from Proto-Nahuan much earlier than previously thought. In Mesoamerica the Mayan , Oto-Manguean and Mixe–Zoque languages had coexisted for millennia. This had given rise to the Mesoamerican language area . After the Nahuas migrated into the Mesoamerican cultural zone, their language likely adopted various areal traits, which included relational nouns and calques added to
12100-451: The red wolf and eastern wolf are highly admixed with different proportions of gray wolf and coyote ancestry. Genetic studies relating to wolves or dogs have inferred phylogenetic relationships based on the only reference genome available, that of the Boxer dog. In 2017, the first reference genome of the wolf Canis lupus lupus was mapped to aid future research. In 2018, a study looked at
12221-571: The region from the north continued into the Postclassic period . The Mexica were among the latest groups to arrive in the Valley of Mexico; they settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco , subjugated the surrounding tribes, and ultimately an empire named Tenochtitlan . Mexica political and linguistic influence ultimately extended into Central America, and Nahuatl became a lingua franca among merchants and elites in Mesoamerica, such as with
12342-496: The rest. He ascribed the similarities between the two groups to diffusion. Daniel Garrison Brinton added the Aztecan languages to the family in 1891 and coined the term Uto-Aztecan. John Wesley Powell , however, rejected the claim in his own classification of North American indigenous languages (also published in 1891). Powell recognized two language families: "Shoshonean" (encompassing Takic, Numic, Hopi, and Tübatulabal) and "Sonoran" (encompassing Pimic, Taracahitan, and Corachol). In
12463-662: The scheme of a Central grouping and two Peripheral groups, and Lastra confirmed this notion, differing in some details. Canger & Dakin (1985) demonstrated a basic split between Eastern and Western branches of Nahuan, considered to reflect the oldest division of the proto-Nahuan speech community. Canger originally considered the central dialect area to be an innovative subarea within the Western branch, but in 2011, she suggested that it arose as an urban koiné language with features from both Western and Eastern dialect areas. Canger (1988) tentatively included dialects of La Huasteca in
12584-522: The southern subspecies of Mexico, which average 11.5 kg (25 lb). Total length ranges on average from 1.0 to 1.35 m (3 ft 3 in to 4 ft 5 in); comprising a tail length of 40 cm (16 in), with females being shorter in both body length and height. The largest coyote on record was a male killed near Afton, Wyoming , on November 19, 1937, which measured 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) from nose to tail, and weighed 34 kg (75 lb). Scent glands are located at
12705-670: The states of Puebla , Veracruz , Hidalgo , San Luis Potosí , and Guerrero . Significant populations are also found in the State of Mexico , Morelos , and the Federal District , with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango . Nahuatl became extinct in the states of Jalisco and Colima during the 20th century. As a result of internal migration within the country, Nahuatl speaking communities exist in all states in Mexico. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into
12826-695: The term General Aztec has been adopted by linguists to refer to the languages of the Aztecan branch excluding the Pochutec language . Speakers of Nahuatl generally refer to their language as either Mexicano or with a cognate derived from mācēhualli , the Nahuatl word for 'commoner'. One example of the latter is the Nahuatl spoken in Tetelcingo , Morelos, whose speakers call their language mösiehuali . The Pipil people of El Salvador refer to their language as Nāwat . The Nahuas of Durango call their language Mexicanero . Speakers of Nahuatl of
12947-462: The total Nahuatl speaking population, at 24.2% and 22.6%, respectively. For most other states the percentage of monolinguals among the speakers is less than 5%. This means that in most states more than 95% of the Nahuatl speaking population are bilingual in Spanish. According to one study, how often Nahuatl is used is linked to community well-being, partly because it is tied to positive emotions. The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in
13068-408: The unknown extinct canid. As of 2005 , 19 subspecies are recognized. Geographic variation in coyotes is not great, though taken as a whole, the eastern subspecies ( C. l. thamnos and C. l. frustor ) are large, dark-colored animals, with a gradual paling in color and reduction in size westward and northward ( C. l. texensis , C. l. latrans , C. l. lestes , and C. l. incolatus ),
13189-522: The upper canines of coyotes extend past the mental foramina . At the time of the European colonization of the Americas, coyotes were largely confined to open plains and arid regions of the western half of the continent. In early post-Columbian historical records, determining whether the writer is describing coyotes or wolves is often difficult. One record from 1750 in Kaskaskia, Illinois , written by
13310-530: The upper side of the base of the tail and are a bluish-black color. The color and texture of the coyote's fur vary somewhat geographically. The hair's predominant color is light gray and red or fulvous , interspersed around the body with black and white. Coyotes living at high elevations tend to have more black and gray shades than their desert -dwelling counterparts, which are more fulvous or whitish-gray. The coyote's fur consists of short, soft underfur and long, coarse guard hairs. The fur of northern subspecies
13431-572: The validity of Southern Uto-Aztecan as a genetic grouping. Hill (2011) also considered the North/South split to be valid based on phonological evidence, confirming both groupings. Merrill (2013) adduced further evidence for the unity of Southern Uto-Aztecan as a valid grouping. Hill (2011) also rejected the validity of the Takic grouping decomposing it into a Californian areal grouping together with Tubatulabal. Some classifications have posited
13552-432: The variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan to become a prestige language in Mesoamerica. Following the Spanish conquest, Spanish colonists and missionaries introduced the Latin script , and Nahuatl became a literary language . Many chronicles , grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in it during the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on
13673-412: The verb is marked for subject , patient , object , and indirect object: ni- I- mits- you- teː- someone- tla- something- makiː give Uto-Aztecan language family The Uto-Aztecan language family is one of the largest linguistic families in the Americas in terms of number of speakers, number of languages, and geographic extension. The northernmost Uto-Aztecan language
13794-522: The vocabulary, and a distinctly Mesoamerican grammatical construction for indicating possession. A language which was the ancestor of Pochutec split from Proto-Nahuan (or Proto-Aztecan) possibly as early as AD 400, arriving in Mesoamerica a few centuries earlier than the bulk of Nahuan speakers. Some Nahuan groups migrated south along the Central American isthmus, reaching as far as Nicaragua. The critically endangered Pipil language of El Salvador
13915-515: The voiced consonants are devoiced in word-final position and in consonant clusters: /j/ devoices to a palato-alveolar sibilant /ʃ/ , /w/ devoices to a glottal fricative [h] or to a labialized velar approximant [ʍ] , and /l/ devoices to a fricative [ɬ] . In some dialects, the first consonant in almost any consonant cluster becomes [h] . Some dialects have productive lenition of voiceless consonants into their voiced counterparts between vowels. The nasals are normally assimilated to
14036-633: The wild, as the mating cycles of dogs and coyotes do not coincide, and coyotes are usually antagonistic towards dogs. Hybridization usually only occurs when coyotes are expanding into areas where conspecifics are few, and dogs are the only alternatives. Even then, pup survival rates are lower than normal, as dogs do not form pair bonds with coyotes, thus making the rearing of pups more difficult. In captivity, F 1 hybrids (first generation) tend to be more mischievous and less manageable as pups than dogs, and are less trustworthy on maturity than wolf-dog hybrids . Hybrids vary in appearance, but generally retain
14157-622: The wolves of North America display skull traits more similar to the coyote than wolves from Eurasia. In 2010, a study found that the coyote was a basal member of the clade that included the Tibetan wolf , the domestic dog , the Mongolian wolf and the Eurasian wolf , with the Tibetan wolf diverging early from wolves and domestic dogs. In 2016, a whole-genome DNA study proposed, based on
14278-494: Was a result of a wolf-coyote admixture, combined with extensive backcrossing with parent gray wolf populations. The red wolf may have originated during a time of declining wolf populations in the Southeastern Woodlands , forcing a wolf-coyote hybridization, as well as backcrossing with local parent coyote populations to the extent that about 75–80% of the modern red wolf's genome is of coyote derivation. Like
14399-663: Was in existence. They proposed that the progression from Eucyon davisi to C. lepophagus to the coyote was linear evolution. C. latrans and C. aureus are closely related to C. edwardii , a species that appeared earliest spanning the mid- Blancan ( late Pliocene ) to the close of the Irvingtonian (late Pleistocene), and coyote remains indistinguishable from C. latrans were contemporaneous with C. edwardii in North America. Johnston describes C. lepophagus as having
14520-451: Was presumed by scholars during the 19th and early 20th centuries that Teotihuacan had been founded by Nahuatl-speakers of, but later linguistic and archaeological research tended to disconfirm this view. Instead, the timing of the Nahuatl influx was seen to coincide more closely with Teotihuacan's fall than its rise, and other candidates such as Totonacan identified as more likely. In the late 20th century, epigraphical evidence has suggested
14641-545: Was published in 1547—3 years before the first grammar in French, and 39 years before the first one in English. By 1645, four more had been published, authored respectively by Alonso de Molina (1571), Antonio del Rincón (1595), Diego de Galdo Guzmán (1642), and Horacio Carochi (1645). Carochi's is today considered the most important colonial-era grammar of Nahuatl. Carochi has been particularly important for scholars working in
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