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95-518: The city of Tapachula is the capital of the Soconusco region of Chiapas, commonly called the “pearl of the Soconusco”. The name “Tapachula” comes from Nahuatl and means “between the waters”, due to the area's frequent flooding. It is located on a low-lying coastal plain, fed by various small rivers, about 120 meters (393’) above sea level. Tapachula is Mexico's main border city with Guatemala in

190-493: 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,

285-511: 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

380-542: A city as he fought to force the region back under Mexican control. The city was occupied by French troops during the French Intervention in Mexico until 1865 when they were expelled by Sebastián Escobar. The current municipality was created in 1915, with Tapachula as the governing entity. It was declared the provisional capital of Chiapas by forces loyal to Victoriano Huerta in 1924. The first air route to

475-409: 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

570-501: 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 ,

665-535: 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

760-1230: A number of other communities which cover a combined area of 303 km. It borders the municipalities of Motozintla, Cacahoatán, Tuxtla Chico, Frontera Hidalgo, Suchiate, Tuzantán, Huehuetán and Mazatán with the Pacific on the south and Guatemala to the northwest. As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 320,451. The municipality had 574 localities, the largest of which (with 2010 populations in parentheses) were: Tapachula (Tapachula de Córdova y Ordóñez) (202,672), Puerto Madero (San Benito) (9,557), Vida Mejor I (6,460), Álvaro Obregón (5,717), Los Cafetales (3,054), Raymundo Enríquez (3,049), Carrillo Puerto (2,676), classified as urban, and Veinte de Noviembre (2,184), El Encanto (1,726), José María Morelos (1,717), Viva México (1,691), Llano de la Lima (1,579), Nuevo Pumpuapa (Cereso) (1,431), Cebadilla 1ra. Sección (1,384), Los Palacios (1,217), Congregación Reforma (1,132), Octavio Paz (1,124), Acaxman (1,099), San Nicolás Lagartero (1,071), Tinajas 1ra. Sección (1,055), Cantón Villaflor (1,046), Pavencul (1,039), and Cebadilla 2da. Sección (1,000), classified as rural. The cuisine of

855-716: A number of rivers and streams that flow from the Sierra Madre de Chiapas over the coastal plain to the Pacific Ocean. The main rivers are the Huehuetán, the Coatán and the Cuilco. There are eighty-two communities considered to be at high risk to natural disasters due to flooding of rivers and insufficient roadways to evacuate. Fifty-two of these located on riverbanks of three rivers: Coatán, Texcuyuapan and Cahoacán. Much of

950-588: A number of significant large homes near this same area built in the 1960s in Art Deco style such as the La Portaviandas building. Outside the city downtown, the structures just about all date from the latter 20th century on due to recent growth. The historic center is marked by a large, tree-lined plaza called Parque Miguel Hidalgo. The center of this plaza contains an octagon kiosk with Baroque ironwork with some Moorish influence. Parque Miguel Hidalgo

1045-899: 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 ,

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1140-519: A section of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and west onto the coastal plain to the Pacific with an average altitude of 170 metres or 560 feet above sea level. The main ecosystems in the municipality include low growth rainforest, medium growth rainforest and oak -pine forests. Many of these forest areas have been over exploited with significant loss of both plant and animal life. Ecological reserves include El Cabildo-Amatán, El Gancho-Murillo and part of

1235-482: 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

1330-593: 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

1425-489: A strong and very visible police presence in the city, along with special security measures for major events (such as the Feria Internacional Tapachula ). The city has had a strong Chinese presence since around 1900, when a number of people from the country came to México to work for the coffee businesses of the area. Most of the descendants of these first immigrants have since dispersed throughout

1520-649: A substantial population of undocumented migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America who are fleeing violence or unemployment in their home countries. The presence of this vulnerable population has made Tapachula a hub of human trafficking , both sex trafficking and labor trafficking. From 2015, the Cafetaleros de Tapachula have represented the city in the Ascenso MX , the second division of Mexican football. The municipality stretches over

1615-628: 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

1710-475: 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

1805-423: 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

1900-455: 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

1995-534: A worker migration pattern which has been studied. About 63% of the municipality's workforce is in commerce and services, well above the averages for the region and the state. This sector includes tourism. The city's main attractions are in and around its main square called the Parque Miguel Hidalgo, with the rest of attractions located in or near the municipality. Most foreign visitors to the city are from Guatemala, which include those who come to visit

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2090-450: 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

2185-584: 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

2280-665: 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

2375-607: Is the center of the city surrounded by the old and new municipal palaces, the Perez Porta and the Teatro al Aire Libre (Open Air Theater), which often has marimba concerts. The main monumental buildings of the area surround this plaza and include the old and new municipal palaces, the Perez Portal and the Teatro al Aire Libre (Open Air Theater). The San Agustín parish church dates from the 18th century, established to honor

2470-529: 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

2565-580: 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

2660-479: 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

2755-486: The Mam . About sixty three percent of the municipality's population is Catholic with about 19 percent professing some other type of Christianity. Most of the rest state that they have no faith. This is about average for the state. Of those over age fifteen, about twenty percent have not finished primary school, about sixteen percent have only a primary school education, with about 49% with some level higher than this. As of 2000,

2850-621: 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

2945-596: The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Chiapas unveiled a monument in a ceremony to commemorate the Bible at Los Cerritos Park. Dozens of local government officials, religious leaders, and church members attended the ceremony. The project and the monument were applauded as a community achievement and a historical moment that marks religious freedom. The intent of the project by the church was to recognize

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3040-529: The Tapachula International Airport . The first Feria Internacional Tapachula was held in 1963 with the name of Primera Gran Exposición Agrícola, Ganadera, Comercial e Industrial del Soconusco. It has been held yearly since then with participants from the region, the state of Chiapas, Mexico and other countries. The purpose of the fair is to promote the products of the region along with its cultural heritage. About eighteen percent of

3135-669: 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,

3230-519: 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

3325-506: 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

3420-574: The Bible as the guide to the society and to bring awareness to the public in the reading of the Scriptures. The monument was the eighth memorial built by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Chiapas. Monuments were previously unveiled since 2018 in the following cities: Palenque , Hiuxtla , Malpaso, Pichucalco , Cintalapa , and Usumacinta. Since Tapachula is a major border crossing between Mexico and Guatemala, it contains

3515-575: 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

3610-618: The Mam never developing major civilization. The city of Tapachula was founded as a tribute collection center for the Aztecs in 1486 by a military leader named Tiltototl, sent by Ahuitzotl to conquer the Soconusco. The Soconusco region has produced cacao since 2000 BC. After the Spanish conquest , it was administered under the Kingdom of Guatemala . This region was larger than it is today, with

3705-522: 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

3800-449: 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

3895-429: 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,

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3990-503: 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

4085-602: The Pacific coast region, even though it is located some kilometers away from the border itself. The main commercial border crossing is in Ciudad Hidalgo , about 40 km (24 mi) away. Nonetheless, it is the principal port for the shipment of goods and for people traveling between México and the rest of Central America further south, making it economically and socially similar to cities on the US southern border such as Laredo, Texas or San Diego, California . The flow of goods through

4180-481: The San Juan market. The Casa de la Comunidad China (Chinese Community House) is located Cuarta Avenida Sur. The structure is dedicated to education about Chinese culture and was reopened in 2012 after renovations. Tapachula signed a sister city agreement with Dongying , China in 2011. Most of the city's monumental structures in the historic center were built in the first decades of the 20th century, although there are

4275-399: The Soconusco region, but there is still Asian immigration to Tapachula to this day. Most modern immigrants work in commerce rather than in agriculture or hard labor. The most visible evidence of Asian presence is the significant number of Chinese and other Asian restaurants in the city, especially in the downtown. A number of businesses selling Chinese food and imported items are concentrated in

4370-402: The Soconusco, declared its own independence from Spain and Guatemala in 1821, and away from Mexico in 1824. However, for most of the rest of the 19th century, the Soconusco would be disputed territory between Mexico (as part of Chiapas) and Guatemala, until a final border was drawn between the two countries in 1888. In the meantime, Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna declared Tapachula

4465-462: 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

4560-566: The Tacaná Volcano. The climate varies by altitude from hot in the low coastal areas to temperate in the higher elevations. There is a small area with a cold climate as part of the Tacaná Volcano . Precipitation also varies by altitude. The climate of the city area is hot and humid most of the year. The area is one of the rainiest in the world with annual rainfall in the mountains of about 3,900 millimetres or 150 inches drained by

4655-705: 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,

4750-597: 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

4845-543: 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

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4940-492: 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

5035-494: 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

5130-579: The area combined with local agricultural output makes Tapachula one of the most important cities in the state, socioeconomically, with one of the highest per capita incomes in the state of Chiapas. As its wealth is relatively recent, since the late 19th century, Tapachula is mostly a modern-developed city. Like border cities of the United States, Tapachula and other communities in the area have experienced their share of problems with illegal immigration, human trafficking, drug smuggling and violence, with most illegal aliens coming from Central America. This has led to

5225-615: The area's beaches. Others mostly consist of those on their way to or from the same country. Despite the area's economic connection with Guatemala, most businesses here do not accept the quetzal for payment. Area attractions within reach of the city and municipality include the Izapa archeological site, El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, the La Encrucijada Reserve, the Cuilco River cascades and the Tacaná Volcano. Aside from

5320-657: 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

5415-464: The average age is twenty two years. The average rate of population growth is just over two percent, about on par with that of the state. Population density is only 3.17 people per square kilometer, far under the 52 per square km for the state. Because of its proximity to neighboring Guatemala, the Tapachula area has absorbed a number of ethnicities from this country but the main indigenous group remains

5510-522: The capital of Soconusco region in 1794, replacing Escuintla . In 1809, shortly before the start of the Mexican War of Independence , Tapachula protested the high rate of taxation to Spanish authorities to no avail. During the war, it was officially declared a town in 1813, and a parish in 1818, with the San Agustín parish church established in 1819. At the end of the war, Tapachula, as capital of

5605-603: The city of Tapachula and the mangrove sanctuaries on the coast. About 45 cruise ships visited the port in 2011. Nahuatl 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

5700-413: The city was established in 1929, connecting it with Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Mexico City. Tapachula became a diocese separate from Chiapas in 1957 covering the entire Chiapas coast area. It was reaffirmed as the capital of the Soconusco region in 1983. In 1984, a coat of arms was chosen for the city, designed by Edgar José Cabrera Arriaga. The growth of the city and its economy has presented problems in

5795-509: The city, the other major economic center in the municipality is the new major port of Port Chiapas , with cruise ships beginning to stop here in 2007. This is part of a state and region led effort to attract visitors to area attractions, especially the Coffee Route. This has attracted German and other European visitors to see plantations started by their countrymen over a century ago. Other attractions marketed to cruise ship tourists include

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5890-408: The city. The municipal cemetery is notable as a testament to the immigrant past of the area, with gravestones with German names and Chinese characters. The best examples of both date from the late 19th to early 20th century. One of Tapachula's most famous natives is the actress and singer Bibi Gaytan , who first achieved stardom in the 1990s. The city of Tapachula is the governmental authority for

5985-586: 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

6080-447: 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

6175-437: 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

6270-404: The early 21st century. The city during this time has grown outward, surrounding industrial structures such as petroleum storage facilities belonging to PEMEX and a terminal of the Chiapas-Mayab railroad. This raised questions of safety until both were moved further outside of the city limits in 2011. (PEMEX is still inside the city; it has never been moved outside of the city.) In September 2019,

6365-417: 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

6460-570: 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,

6555-418: 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

6650-564: The flood control of the area was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Stan in 2005. . The municipality is considered to have a medium level of socioeconomic marginalization. As of 2000, there were 61,444 residences, of which over 72% were the property of the residents. The average household size was 4.36 inhabitants. About one quarter of the homes have dirt floors, thirteen percent have wood floors and about sixty two with cement or stone floors. Walls generally consist of cement block with about fourteen percent having wood walls. About sixty percent of

6745-404: The municipality had an illiteracy rate of 12.36%, down from 16.32% in 1990. There are 578.84 kilometers of highway most of which are rural roads maintained by state and federal authorities. The main highway in the area is Federal Highway 200 which follows the coastline of Chiapas. The name comes from the Nahuatl phrase “Tapachollan” which means ”between the waters”. The official name of the city

6840-538: The municipality varies greatly as the topography extends from the ocean into the mountains. Main annual events include Chinese New Year , San Benito, the Feria Tapachula, San Agustín, Jesús de la Buena Esperanza and San Miguel. The population of the municipality represents about forty percent of the entire population of the Socunusco region. Over sixty percent of the population is under the age of thirty and

6935-555: 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

7030-442: 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

7125-429: 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

7220-557: 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

7315-532: The patron saint of the city, Augustine . It is a simple construction with a red Spanish tile roof, supported by wood beams. The facade is a simple Neoclassical with six Ionic order columns, three on each side of the entrance, joined by false arches. The top of the facade has two bell towers. This design is based on the Teopisca church. The church became a cathedral in 1958, shortly after the Tapachula diocese

7410-453: 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

7505-575: 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

7600-407: The quality of its engravings. The Casa de Cultura was built in 1929 as the municipal palace when the city was prosperous because of the surrounding coffee plantations. Although the style is Art Deco, the facade is decorated with Oaxacan style fretwork , images of Aztec warriors and stylized serpents along with the Mexican and state coats of arms. Today, the building functions as a cultural center for

7695-631: 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

7790-426: The roofs are made with metal/asbestos laminate. Tapachula accounts for much of Chiapas' economic activities as the economic center of the Soconusco economic region and as a port for commerce between Mexico and Central America. Hurricane Stan severely damaged the rail line through here connecting Oaxaca and Chiapas with Guatemala, with repairs still ongoing as of 2011. Tapachula is served by commercial airlines using

7885-662: 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

7980-670: 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

8075-755: 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

8170-464: 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

8265-433: 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

8360-554: The very south of the old extension now part of Guatemala. As such, Tapachula became a border area, first among the Spanish colonial authorities of New Spain , Chiapas and the Captaincy General of Guatemala . For example, when the Diocese of Chiapas was created in 1539, it included the Tapachula area. However, the Soconusco region had political differences with all of these authorities at one time or another. Tapachula became

8455-523: 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

8550-516: 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

8645-430: The working population works in agriculture and livestock. About twenty three percent of these workers are not paid a salary. About sixteen and a half percent work in mining and manufacturing. The municipality is part of a region dedicated to the growing and export of cash crops, especially coffee and tropical fruit. The harvest cycles, along with the usual boom and bust economic cycles associated with such farming has spurred

8740-440: Was changed to "Tapachula de Córdova y Ordóñez" in 1997 in honor to priest Fray Matías de Córdova y Ordóñez . The first people to settle in the area migrated from the south in Central America and most likely are the ancestors of today's Mam people. The Olmecs dominated the area, driving many Mam to migrate back south. The Toltecs arrived next but never completely subjugated the native peoples. However, these conquests resulted in

8835-491: Was established but that status has since been ceded to the San José Cathedral, consecrated in 2009. The Soconusco Archeological Museum faces Parque Hidalgo. This building houses a number of pieces from the various archeological sites of the region, especially Izapa and several coastal sites. One special piece is a skull covered in gold and incrusted with turquoise . Another is a stele called Number 25, because of

8930-452: 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

9025-548: 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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