Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl (also known simply as Aztec or Nahuatl) is any of the variants of Nahuatl, spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a "lingua franca" at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the subsequent centuries, it was largely displaced by Spanish and evolved into some of the modern Nahuan languages in use today (other modern dialects descend more directly from other 16th-century variants). Although classified as an extinct language, Classical Nahuatl has survived through a multitude of written sources transcribed by Nahua peoples and Spaniards in the Latin
Aztec codices Aztec codices Aztec codices ( ) are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Nahuas in pictorial and/or alphabetic form. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices mostly do not in fact use the codex form (that of a modern paperback) and are, or originally were, long folded sheets. These sheets were typically made from stretched deerskin or from the fibers of the agave plant. They also differ from European books in that they mostly consist of images and pictograms; they were not meant to symbolize spoken or written narratives. Particularly important colonial-era