Language as a Portal: Nahautl
If you’ve been paying attention then you’ll notice that I use an indigenous language on this site. Why is that and how did I come across it?
I grew up as a Spanish speaker. My mom was a 1st generation immigrant from Northern Mexico, and although she spoke English when she needed to, at home we spoke in Spanish. Growing up in a non-English speaking family shaped my world differently. Those who are bilingual or multilingual may know what I’m talking about when I say that you develop different versions of yourself when you switch to a different language. Songs, food, interactions, gossip, all play out differently because language is connected to culture. Your mannerisms change, even the way you want to express love, anger or gratitude comes out different. Language is coded with important information that has been passed down by lineages dating as far back as the language itself.
Take for example the Chinese language, one of the oldest written languages in history that is still used today, unlike Latin or ancient Greek. It’s at least 6,000 years old. Mandarin is also cited as the one hardest languages to learn, up there with Arabic. This means that the Chinese and others that speak Mandarin are exchanging over 6,000 years worth of coded information. In essence, language is connected to indigeneity. How you learn about the land, how to heal, how to describe plants and animals around you are all embedded in language. Now when people were severed from their language, they also were severed from their wisdom, teachings and way of life.
I was introduced to the Nahuatl language through several of my teachers, found at the MINKA mystery school in Brooklyn, NY. Nahuatl is frequently associated with the Aztecs and while this was their language, it predates the Aztec empire. It is also associated with Toltec tradition, another Meso-American indigenous culture from Central Mexico. Learning Toltec ways of prayer, song and mysticism transformed the way I saw myself and moved me further away from the colonized way of thinking. While Spanish is my mother tongue, it is still a colonized language, passed down from the conquistadores. By switching from English to Spanish, I was simply switching out one colonizer for another. I can’t say for certain that my indigenous roots in Mexico trace back to the Uto-Aztecan peoples and that I’m reclaiming one of my ancestral languages, but it feels like a reclamation nonetheless. It’s a reminder that there are other ways of being, thinking and knowing.
What is a colonized way of thinking? It’s the belief that there is a singular way of being that is superior to all else. Take for example the famous French philosopher René Descartes who coined, “I think, therefore, I am” and compare it to South African, Zulu language and the philosophy of Ubuntu that states, “I am because you are.” Which were we taught to learn in school? And notice how we live in a hyper-individualized society. Breaking away from colonized ways of thinking, means re-thinking our isolation and connection to everything. It’s a portal into ancient and timeless knowledge and I’m here for it!
If you’d like to learn more about Nahuatl language, check out this Nahuatl dictionary and support indigenous speaking peoples in revitalizing their languages.
