<p> The Nahuatl language spoken by Aztec/Mexica continues to be spoken throughout Central Mexico and in the Huasteca region. Variation within the Huasteca has yet to be fully explored, and this study integrates a questionnaire published by Lastra and interviews I conducted with native speakers representing different communities. The data produced from this were used to find features that distinguish different towns and then were analyzed using cladistics, a phylogenetic method used by biologists to propose a hypothesis of the evolutionary relationships among species, and which has also been used by linguists. The output suggests there is a large split between northwest and southeast regions of the Huasteca, and that the northeast villages compose a subregion on their own. One can trace the relationships between communities on the output tree and follow a path backwards towards Central Mexico, suggesting a north-east migration.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1526912 |
| Date | 31 October 2014 |
| Creators | Garcia, John |
| Publisher | California State University, Long Beach |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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