Aztlan Affirmed, Part VI: Uto-Aztecan Homeland?

Previous articles in this series have explored what indigenous sources had to say about Aztlan, the legendary homeland of the Mexica. We also learned about Colhuahcan, the mountain containing Chicomoztoc’s seven caves.

Motēuczōma I claimed his sorcerers found the Mexica place of origin. But what does modern science say?

Comparative historical linguistics (and similar branches in anthropology, archaeology, and genetics) have robust, well honed tools. Using them, we know that the language of the Mexica — Nahuatl, still spoken by 1.5 million people in Mexico and Central American — derives from an ancient tongue we call Proto-Uto-Aztecan.

It’s the source of many languages. Here are some others still in use:

Shoshoni, Paiute, Comanche, Luiseño, Tongva, Hopi, O’odham, Tepehuan, Yaqui, Cora, Huichol, Pipil, Tarahumara, etc. (around 30 in total).

In the distant past, all these were one language. The ancestors of their modern speakers were one people.

The Uto-Aztecans.

The general consensus is that this nation lived around 5,500 years ago (3500 BCE) in the US Southwest, most probably (from their vocabulary) in the area of Southern Utah, Southern Nevada, and Central/Southern California.

About a thousand years later, around 2500 BCE, they had split into northern and southern groups. Southern Uto-Aztecans lived in what is now Northwest Mexico.