Welcome to lesson number 8!
Guess what? Some of my Nahuatl classmates found this online course and have decided they will check it out even tho they are studying the actual course in real life with me haha, that’s very flattering, thank you all. Bienvenidos todos mis compañeros de la clase de náhuatl con el temachtiani Galdino. Como ven estoy editando (quitando, agregando y reacomodando) toda la información que nos da el profe para hacerla más digerible y amena, pero juro que no lo hago a ciegas. Tengo estudios que trato de aplicar aquí lo mejor posible. Ximopanolti y espero que sirva de apoyo.

So let’s talk about the articles. Good news: there is just one article in Nahuatl, for all words, singular or plural: IN. This is because it was not originally an article the way we know it in our indoeuropean languages. But nowadays we can say it is the closest equivalent to what we know as articles. So here we have some examples:
In calli (the house)
In caltin (the houses)
In tlamachtilli (the pupil)
In tlamachtiltin (the pupils)
In metztli ( the moon)
In metztin (the moons)
In telpocatl (the young man)
In telpocameh (the young men)
In the previous lesson we learnt ININ and INON. Sometimes they are also used without the first “IN”, so that leaves us with the short versions IN and ON. Those are the demonstrative pronouns this and that. Unlike the article IN, they do have plurals: ININQUE (these) and INONQUE (those). In some variants you can also hear ninque/ nonque, or inime / inome. Here we have some examples:
Inin piltontli = this boy
Inon cihuaton = this girl
Inon cihuatl = that woman
Inon tlacatl = that man
Ininque cocone = these kids
Inonque ichpocameh = those girls (young women)
Inin xochicualli = this fruit
Inon quema = that one, yes
Inon amo = that one, no/ not that one
Inin amo cuallica = that is not good
Ininque notlamachtilhuan = these are my pupils
Tlen quihtoznequi inin? = what does this mean?
Tlen quihtoznequi on tlahtolli? = what does that word mean?
Now we are finally going to start studying verbs

As we already saw, the personal pronouns are (depending on the level of speech and variant):
Nehuatl / Nehua / Neh (I)
Tehuatl/ Tehua/ Teh (You)
Yehuatl/ Yehua/ Yeh (He/she/it)
Tehuan/ Tehuantin (We)
Anmehuan/ Anmehuantin (You all)
Yehuan/ Yehuantin (They)
Aquin = who?
Ayac = nobody
With these alone, we can already say things like:
Aquin yehuatl? = Who is he/she?
Yehuatl nocneuh = He/she is my friend
Aquin tehuatl? = Who are you?
Ayac? = Nobody?
Now, just like French, Nahuatl has a second row of pronouns that we will use to conjugate verbs, by adding them to the verb as a prefix:
Ni (for Nehuatl)
Ti (for Tehuatl)
Yehuatl doesn’t have a pronoun for conjugations
Ti (for Tehuan)
An (for Anmehuan)
Yehuan doesn’t have a pronoun for conjugations
That was the first element we need for conjugating transitive verbs. The second one is the object. There are several objects which would be the equivalent to (to) me, (to) you, (to) people, (to) something, (to) oneself, etc. The most neutral object we have is C/QUI, which would mean (to) him/her/it.
The third and final element we need for conjugating transitive verbs is… a conjugated verb. As a general rule, the only modification a verb will have when conjugating it in present tense, is an H ending in the three persons of the plural (we, you, they). So let’s get practical and conjugate the verb Palehuia (to help):
PALEHUIA (to help/ he or she helps)
Nehuatl nicpalehuia = I help him/her/it
Tehuatl ticpalehuia = You help him/her/it
Yehuatl quipalehuia = He or she helps him/her/it
Tehuan ticpalehuiah = We help him/her/it
Anmehuan anquipalehuiah = you (all) help him/her/it
Yehuan quipalehuiah = they help him/her/it
It is not necessary to say the main personal pronoun, because you already have the conjugation pronoun there when conjugating a verb. So you can just say nicpalehuia to mean “I help him”.
The difference of usage between C and QUI as the object “him/her/it”, is mostly phonetic. Most of the time you can’t just put two consonants together and say CPalehuia or ANCPalehuiah.
So, following these same rules, let’s see the verb Nequi (to want):
NEQUI (to want/ he wants)
Nicnequi (I want him/her/it)
Ticnequi (you want him/her/it)
Quinequi (he or she wants him/her/it)
Ticnequih (we want him/her/it)
Anquinequih (you all want him/her/it)
Quinequih (they want him/her/it)
Nahuatl can be a bit redundant, in this sense:
Nicnequi inon = I want that (I want it, that)
Nicnequi on xochicualli = I want that fruit (I want it, that fruit)
Nicnequi yehuatl = I want him/her (I want him, HIM)
Etc.
So, I hope you liked this lesson, see you next Tuesday!
