It's amusing how peoples everywhere throughout history refer to their neighbors as "those who talk weird"

The guy who turned into a Maya was a badass

I spent hours reading through and thinking about your comments this morning. This is some of the best discussion I've seen. You are proving you're an amazing KZfaq community.

Your pronunciation of the nahuatl terms is great!

The word cacique was also brought by the Spanish to the Philippines to refer to the ruling class there -- or the people they had to cooperate with in order to successfully colonize the islands.

Liked for pronouncing Mexica correctly and noting that aztec and mexica are not the same. You are a pro.

There's a reason Tlaxcala has a tortilla in its glyph, tlaxcalli literally means tortilla in nahuatl.

As a Mexican, I loved this video. Its great to see our history explored from a linguists view.

I really don't know why but I love learning about the Native cultures, from North America to MesoAmerica. I want more!

Excellent!

Fun fact: The words tomato, chocolate and chili come from the Nahuatl language!

4:15

Amazing coverage of that stage of my country's history, you cover many things any Mexican wouldn't expect from a foreigner, and you do it superbly! Keep up the good job.

Cacique is a common word we use here in Brasil to refer to indigenous chiefs. It's actually pretty cool to know where it comes from

I have always wondered how the Spaniards learned Mesoamerican languages. I mean they had no way of reading it and all they could do is listen to it, this also brought up how

Fun fact, Malinche had a son with Cortés after taking Tenochtitlan, who then entered a knightly order back in Europe.

There is a TV series Called "Hernán" about the conquest of Mexico, and the series uses real yokot'an mayan and aztec nahuatl. It think i'ts on amazon prime.

Cool! That plague you describe in less than a second is the real reason behind the defeat of the Aztecs and Spanish dominion over Mexico. Without it, it would've been almost impossible to take the city, even with a massive army and a 100 translators. The plague swept through Tenochtitlan in the early months of 1521 during which the Spanish were gathering their strength in Tlaxcala. This plague was estimated to have killed or sickened close to 20% of the population of the tightly-packed city, a large number of them healthy warriors and young women. It also led to a huge amount of anxiety, fear and despondency, as the city dwellers, their health providers and religious leaders had never seen such disease(s) before, freaking them out in the process. Psychologically shell-shocked from this epic disaster, it was hard for the Aztecs to then mount an organized, strong defense of their city. So the city fell quickly. These epidemics and plagues continued to sweep through central Mexico for another 100 years or so, collapsing the pre-Columbian population of around 20 million by almost 90% in some regions. This is why the small band of Spanish were able to take over so easily--Old World diseases did 99% of the work in the conquest.

That "Chontal" vs "Yokot'an" thing has a parallel in the AngloSaxon history of Britain. The modern English word "Welsh" (describing the people of Wales) has its roots in the AngloSaxon word "waelisc" (pronounced "Wah-lish") meaning foreigner or stranger tongue. On the flipside, the Welsh word for "Welsh" is "Cymraeg" (pronounced "Cum-raig" with the "y" being like the "oo" in "book" and the "rae" said like the English word "rye") which means comrade or countryman tongue. "They are foreigners" versus "We are countrymen".

As a latinametican, great! I love your videos and this is awesome. Please in the future talk about southamerican languages like quechua, aymara or mapüzungun.