Brief guide of the Nahuatl Learning Environment

The Nahuatl Learning Environment—an electronic resource that seeks to integrate lexicon, grammar, and corpora (organized in a cultural encyclopedia)—can be accessed at http://nahuatl.ldc.upenn.edu You should use your username and password if you have one. If not: Username: guest; Password: nahuatl. If you would like a permanent username and password, please write to me at jonathan.amith@yale.edu

Project map: A project map can be viewed by clicking Site Map at the bottom of the home page. A schematic representation of the integrative goals of the project can be viewed by linking to Related Projects on the footer and then to “Schematic overview of the structure of the Nahuatl Learning Environment and the attempt to link lexicon, grammar, and corpus.”

Lexicon: From the Home Page (woman on horse) click on Lexicon and Dictionary Search Page. As an example, set Ameyaltepec Nahuatl begins with and then type in pol in the final column. Submit. To look for English words pull down English Sense in the first column, Contains Word in the middle column, and type in, for example, happy. Submit. A tutorial covers additional points regarding queries and the user interface.

Grammar: A grammar in progress can be viewed from the homepage and clicking on Grammar, then, from the Grammar homepage, on ReferenceGrammar. (Additional sections include one of Exercises and one on Articles and manuscripts by the author). The manner in which the grammar can be linked to the lexicon is illustrated by clicking on ReferenceGrammar and then, at the bottom of the page, Example of Embedded cgi-query. The paragraphs that appear have hyperlinked queries to a lexical database. This is a model presentation of how indigenous language grammar can be interfaced with a lexical database.

Encyclopedia: This section will contain the Nahuatl textual (audio and written) corpus arranged according to cultural domain. At present the most advanced stage is that of botanical plants. From the Home Page follow the links to Encyclopedia> Botany & Zoology > Plants: By Botanical family. There you may view pages on each family, which are being elaborated as the floristic inventory is completed. For a text example go to Burseraceae and Temini:xka:tsi:n. Eventually all species will have at least one accompanying text.

Parser and lookup: From the Home Page (woman on horse) one may also follow the links to Encyclopedia > Stories > Bu:rroh We:wentsi:n (illustration on left). There are six stories that are provisionally up (click on any arrow in the left column to access the HTML transcription). A music-note icon at the top activates the downloading of the mp3 sound file. This project is presently being worked on.

The goal (perhaps one year away) is to provide automatic computer analysis of Nahuatl texts, analyzing each word and linking it to a dictionary.

Right now the user can do this manually. For example, click on any story. Then, as an example, look at the Dictionary Lookup/Parser/Gloss Lookup at the top (header). In Parser type in nimitspale:wi:s and submit. A box will pop up as follows:

Word: nimitspale:wi:s
Parse: n-mits-pale:wi:-s
Gloss: 1SgS-2SgO-pale:wia-fut.sg
Root verb: pale:wia
Form: Transitive Oapan verb

The word is the word submitted. Parse divides it into its constituent morphemes and the gloss gives the meaning of each morpheme. The root verb gives just that, the root verb. It is clickable and a click will take the user to the dictionary entry for this word. Form states that it is a Transitive Oapan verb. Then there is a paradigm of the most unmarked form of the verb, with 3rd-person subject and 3rd-person object.

Eventually, as stated, the goal will be to use the parser to process Nahuatl texts. A preiminary result is found on the story Te:lpakatsi:n i:pan istlakati se: lamatsi:n. The first prototype parser was run through the text for word recognition. Despite errors, an idea of how the final product will work can be obtained by clicking on the link for o:ka:tila:n at the end of the second line. An analysis of this word is created in a new page; the root verb is isolated (a:tila:na) with an automatic link to the dictionary, and an inflectional table of this verb is produced for 3rd-person singular subject and object.

Pedagogical possibilities of this tool are vast. The parser can be used to test students’ attempts to analyze complex morphology, to process vast amounts of texts for in-class use and on-line education, and to create learning materials from new dialects (that will involve only slight adjustments in the morphological grammar).

See also: Yale-Chicago Nahuatl Institute; Total Immersion Nahuatl