Spanish language challenge

With a PoD as late as possible, make a United States covering the same territory as OTL but where Spanish is like German or Russian,,,few people speak it or have media available in it.

Surviving Aztec Empire. USA schoolchildren would learn high school Nahuatl instead of high school Spanish.

Anthony Appleyard said:

Surviving Aztec Empire. USA schoolchildren would learn high school Nahuatl instead of high school Spanish.

Click to expand...

Hey, you know - we could even do this without a surviving empire. In Paraguay, for example, 95% of the population is fully bilingual in Guarani, even though only about 40,000 pure-blooded Guarani remain in Paraguay (out of a population of 6 million). The reason for this, it seems, is that the Guarani actively encouraged their women to marry the Spanish settlers, resulting in a unique cultural fusion.

First we can get rid of Bishop Diego de Landa. He, in particular, was responsible for much of the destruction of native culture - five thousand idols and 27 codexes in July of 1652 alone. While he wasn't all bad (he did protest the cruel treatment of the aboriginals, and is the authoritative source for Mayan culture in that period) his convenient disappearance would probably allow for much more to survive (only 20 pre-Cortez MSS survive, and roughly 200 from the period following contact).

At the same time, we should assume a larger role for the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagun (1499-1590) - such as an authoritative translation of the Bible into Nahuatl (Sahagun had mastered the language and wrote a few books in it, but most of these were censured by the provincial of his order). Portions of a Bible in Nahuatl do survive from his time (MS 1692 of the Schoyen Collection), so it isn't unlikely that one could have been produced and perhaps even popularized.

By the 20th century, we would have a largely Christian, predominantly Nahuatl-speaking nation to the immediate south of the US. Many would be bilingual in Spanish, but I suspect that the onset of nationalism would result in a greater revival of interest in the Aztec heritage of the region, especially if more had survived. Perhaps English might even supplant Spanish as the interlanguage between various ethnic groups in Mexico.