Nahuas

Nahuas are Indigenous peoples of Mexico and parts of Central America whose languages belong to the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Nahua communities share historical and linguistic connections but have diverse identities and traditions.

Nahuan languages: A branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken by Nahua peoples. Nahua identity is closely connected to these related languages, including regional varieties.
Uto-Aztecan migration: The prehistoric dispersal of Uto-Aztecan-speaking populations across parts of western North America and Mexico. It provides a broad linguistic context for the spread of Nahuan languages.
Nahuatl: A major Nahuan language with a long literary history and numerous contemporary varieties. Nahuatl is the best-known Nahuan language, though Nahuas also speak other languages.
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire: The campaign that brought the Mexica-led Aztec Empire under Spanish rule between 1519 and 1521. The conquest transformed political power across Nahua regions.
Uto-Aztecan languages: A language family whose members are spoken across western North America and Central America. Nahuan languages belong to this wider family.
Toltecs: A Mesoamerican people associated with the city of Tula and influential traditions in central Mexico. Later Nahua accounts connected Toltec culture with prestigious ancestral knowledge and rulership.
Classical Nahuatl: The historical variety of Nahuatl used in central Mexico during the early colonial period. Its texts preserve evidence about some Nahua communities and institutions.
New Spain: The Spanish colonial viceroyalty established in much of the Americas from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Nahua communities lived under its institutions and colonial rule.
Nahua identity: A set of identities shaped by language, community, history, and local self-identification among Nahua people. It distinguishes shared connections from the diverse identities of individual Nahua communities.
Chichimeca: A historical label applied to diverse peoples of northern and central Mexico, including some Nahua-speaking groups. The term appears in accounts of migrations and the settlement of central Mexico.

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