Pronouncing Nahuatl

In my “Mexican X” articles, I’ve talked a lot about the pronunciation of “x” in Medieval Spanish and in Classical Nahuatl. But I get questions all the time about how other combinations of letters sound, so I think I’ll explain.

Vowels are the easiest place to start.

Nahuatl has eight, 4 short and 4 long. (I mean *literally* long for those brought up with the bizarre English phonetic transcription system taught in US public schools.)

Short vowels.