We Speak Aztecan

In its March 14th online edition, the Houston Chronicle of Texas wrote an article titled, “In Aztecan or Urdu, we are talking.” The report was an examination of the numbers of languages now being spoken in Houston and other big cities. Quoting from the article: "Does your neighbor speak Aztecan? Or maybe Urdu? Probably not, but either is more likely to be the case in Houston than in most other metro areas. We have 340 Aztecan-speakers, second only to Los Angeles. Dallas has 225." While I can’t vouch for Houston, I know there are no “Aztecan” speakers here in Los Angeles. Náhuatl (Naah-wa-tuhl) was the language spoken by the Aztec nation, and today over 1.5 million of their descendents continue to speak in that dialect. While language specialists recognize the “Uto-Aztecan language family” as a common but varied root linguistic stock shared throughout the Southwestern US (Aztlán) and Mexico, a tongue used by indigenous nations as diverse as the Hopi, Shoshone, Huichol, and Yaqui… it’s doubtful that is what the Houston Chronicle had in mind. While some in the Lone Star State may imagine “Texan” as the root linguistic stock of American English, and so with no trouble can envision “Aztecan” as an actual distinct language -others are not so confused.

But another take on the Houston Chronicle article has to do with the mentality of colonialism. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, and more importantly in this context, it is spoken in US occupied Afghanistan. The Houston Chronicle presumes enough Americans will recognize Urdu as a language simply because the US has thousands of troops stationed in Afghanistan. That the Chronicle can make such an assumption concerning a country halfway around the world, while remaining ignorant of the languages spoken in its own backyard, is indicative of a mindset that could do with some challenging.