Early Mesoamerican language contact and lexical borrowing involving Nahuatl

Proposals of borrowings have been used as important arguments in favor of various hypotheses about cultural and linguistic diffusion between the various ethnolinguistic groups of Mesoamerica. Yet in many cases borrowings have been proposed without testing for alternative family-internal etymologies. But just as proposals of cognacy should be evaluated critically, borrowing proposals should also be subjected to critical scrutiny; after all chance resemblance is equally likely between unrelated languages as between languages thought to be related. This chapter looks critically at Terrence Kaufman’s proposals of borrowings into proto-Nahuatl, from Totonacan, Téenek and Mixe-Zoquean languages. For many of these proposed borrowings, family-internal etymologies can be proposed that are at least equally likely as the borrowing scenario. Having evaluated Kaufman’s proposals, Totonacan remains as a significant donor of vocabulary into proto-Nahuatl, while Mixe-Zoquean appears a negligible source of vocabulary, and the few items of likely Mixe-Zoquean origin potentially borrowed only indirectly. Additionally, a number of new borrowing proposals are presented, between proto-Nahuatl and early Otopamean varieties. It is concluded that during its early development, proto-Nahuatl was most likely in contact with Totonacan and Otopamean languages. These conclusions have various ramifications for the likely geographical position of the pre-Nahuan speech community, increasing the likelihood that Nahuatl developed in Central Mexico rather than further to the North.