Nahuatl Orthography - Carochi's Transcription

Carochi's Transcription

In the 17th century the Jesuit grammarian Horacio Carochi in 1645 wrote a grammar on the Classical Nahuatl language. For this purpose he developed an orthography for Classical Nahuatl, which was exceptional in that it was the first description of Nahuatl that consistently marked both vowel length and glottal stop (saltillo). His orthography was subsequently used in works and documents by some Jesuits but did not gain wide usage due to decrees by Charles II banning the use of indigenous languages in his empire and the later expulsion of the Jesuits from New Spain in 1767. His orthography was further refined by Michel Launey in his grammar of Classical Nahuatl. This transcription shows vowel length by adding a macron above the long vowel : <ā, ē, ī, ō>. And it shows saltillo by marking the preceding vowel with a grave accent <à, ì, è, ò> if it is medial or a circumflex if it is final <â, î, ê, ô,>. Some other transcriptions mark saltillo as an