AHC: Nahuatl-speaking Europeans

I'm sure some of the Conquistadors learnt to speak at least passable Nahautl.
Natively, I meant.

And they don't have to be born in the continent of Europe, they just have to have European ancestry. Though if you want to find out a way to make literal Europeans natively speak Nahuatl, go ahead :p.
 
Three Aztecs immigrate to Spain, acquire Spanish citizenship.
Done.
In fact, this might have happened OTL sometime. What's my prize?
 
Well, in British and French colonized lands, you often had individuals desert their crappy lives in small settlements with unstable living conditions and go native in order to survive, and in many cases certain tribes were happy to take them in. Sometimes entire groups would do this, the Roanoke colonists for example.

So you'd have to make the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica less organized and militaristic.
 
for my ASB ATL, teh Aztecs aren't wiped out and, in the mid-19th century, regain independence as an ally of the United States. not only would some Americans move to the Aztec Empire where their descendants would likely speak Nahuatl as a second language, but there's also the criollos (who form a significant minority of Aztecs) who are ethnic Europeans (mostly of Spanish descent) who also speak Nahuatl as their first language

as a note, ITTL, Modern Nahuatl is a composite language of mostly historical Nahuatl with lots of loanwords from Spanish and one or two from Anglish (a more Germanic version of English because of a failed Norman invasion in 1066, and thus no French influences on the language) because, while they eventually became independent, the Aztecs and other natives were still under the control of Spain for over three hundred years
 
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If you mean the Europeans assimilating into the greater Nahua community then you need less immigration from Spain and more of an effort to integrate the old Nahua nobility while they retain their language. From there demographic pressures will likely lead to the conquistadors end up assimilating into Nahua culture with time and eventually speaking the language primarilly.
 
Nahuatl was used as a lingua general in New Spain until the 1700s. It was then royal decree made Spanish official.

So ITTL Nahuatl remains the lingua general and eventually official language of Mexico, eventually the Irish-Mexicans come, assimilate and adopt it as their own.
 
Nahuatl was used as a lingua general in New Spain until the 1700s. It was then royal decree made Spanish official.
So ITTL Nahuatl remains the lingua general and eventually official language of Mexico, eventually the Irish-Mexicans come, assimilate and adopt it as their own.
thanks for this; it'll be important for justifying why Nahuatl persists in my ATL :D
 
Natively, I meant.

And they don't have to be born in the continent of Europe, they just have to have European ancestry. Though if you want to find out a way to make literal Europeans natively speak Nahuatl, go ahead :p.

Oh, well that's very easy then. I'm sure there's quite a few now.

The most obvious way would be liaisons with or, much as I hate to say it, rape of Nahuatl women by Conquistadors.

edit: d'oh, okay, I've fairly obvious you meant "entirely European ancestry" rather than "has some European ancestry."

Ok, that's not techically too hard either. Have some Spanish colonists or soldiers run off and live with the Nahuatl. However, in order to have native speakers, there would have to be a child of two of these Spanish colonists, who grow up among the Nahuatl. People like that would be a real rarity, though, so I'm not sure it fits your challenge.
 
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Nahuatl was used as a lingua general in New Spain until the 1700s. It was then royal decree made Spanish official.

So ITTL Nahuatl remains the lingua general and eventually official language of Mexico, eventually the Irish-Mexicans come, assimilate and adopt it as their own.

A Nahua speaking mexico will likely not be called Mexico, it will probably have some kind of Nahuatl name.
 
actually, the indigenous name that the Aztecs had for themselves was the Mexica, iirc; the form may be different, but in all likelihood it would still fundamentally be named Mexico (personally, i only named it Aztlan/Aztec Empire in my ASB ATL for the rule of cool ;))
 

thanks for this; it'll be important for justifying why Nahuatl persists in my ATL :D


...Nahuatl is still around IOTL. In fact, some is even spoken in regions that were never under Aztec rule. I don't know if that's because of native populations being moves after the conquest, Spanish missionaries using Nahuatl to preach in (like they used Quechua and Guarani in South America), both or some other reason.
 
...Nahuatl is still around IOTL. In fact, some is even spoken in regions that were never under Aztec rule. I don't know if that's because of native populations being moves after the conquest, Spanish missionaries using Nahuatl to preach in (like they used Quechua and Guarani in South America), both or some other reason.

In the case of Quechua, it's both. Many Quechua laborers were forced to work in the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador and Peru and other places that were never part of the Inca domains.
 
In Paraguay, I have heard stories abiout persons of pure European ancestry who use Guarani as their first language, so it's not ASB to suggest that the same could be the case in Mexico with only minor historical adjustments.
 
A Nahua speaking mexico will likely not be called Mexico, it will probably have some kind of Nahuatl name.

Mexico is Nahuatl from meshíhka

actually, the indigenous name that the Aztecs had for themselves was the Mexica, iirc; the form may be different, but in all likelihood it would still fundamentally be named Mexico (personally, i only named it Aztlan/Aztec Empire in my ASB ATL for the rule of cool ;))

Aztlan was the place where according to their legends they came from. Anahuac was what they called the Valley of Mexico, and later came to mean the empire.

...Nahuatl is still around IOTL. In fact, some is even spoken in regions that were never under Aztec rule. I don't know if that's because of native populations being moves after the conquest, Spanish missionaries using Nahuatl to preach in (like they used Quechua and Guarani in South America), both or some other reason.

Little of both, and because the Nahua merchant class, the Pochteca would travel widely and Nahuatl was a kind of lingua franca throughout the area. Even if people didn't speak it, they would have known about much more than Spanish at first.
 
Aztlan was the place where according to their legends they came from. Anahuac was what they called the Valley of Mexico, and later came to mean the empire.
i know; my point was that more that i intentionally went for the less-realistic name because it sounds cooler and am acknowledging that realistically it would probably be named some variation of Mexico or, as you said, Anahuac
 
Little of both, and because the Nahua merchant class, the Pochteca would travel widely and Nahuatl was a kind of lingua franca throughout the area. Even if people didn't speak it, they would have known about much more than Spanish at first.
Nahuatl names spread even further, and there's an inordinate amount of towns with Nahuatl names in Guatemala because of the Tlaxcalteca allies of the Spanish who'd tell the Spanish the names of the towns they were taking in their own language.
 
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