Language Encounters: Toward a Better Comprehension of Contact-Induced Lexical Change in Colonial Nahuatl Cover Image

Language Encounters: Toward a Better Comprehension of Contact-Induced Lexical Change in Colonial Nahuatl
Language Encounters: Toward a Better Comprehension of Contact-Induced Lexical Change in Colonial Nahuatl

Author(s): Justyna Olko
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: KSIĘGARNIA AKADEMICKA Sp. z o.o.
Keywords: Nahuatl; Spanish; language contact; language change; colonial period; cross‑cultural transfer

Summary/Abstract: The extensive corpus of colonial Nahuatl texts lights on almost every sphere of colonial life and cross‑cultural interactions between the Europeans/Spaniards and the indigenous world. This corpus contains rich language data related to contact‑induced change that reveal a simultaneous, prolonged use of neologisms and loanwords, a widespread “Nahuatlization” of foreign terms as well as adoption of Spanish ideas and cultural stereotypes. The linguistic phenomena discussed in the present paper focus on lexical change, neologization, meaning change, borrowing and the creation of calques. These language innovations reveal the nuances of the complex process of cross‑cultural translation, the receptivity of European influence, the domestication of the new and the survival of traditional language resources.

  • Issue Year: 12/2015
  • Issue No: 38
  • Page Range: 35-52
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: English