Classical Nahuatl/Incorporation of Foreign Words
Due to the phonology of Nahuatl not covering all possible sounds in Spanish, foreign words that are incorporated into Nahuatl are made to fit Nahautl's phonology using the closest Nahuatl phoneme.
| Conversion table | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spanish Sound | Nahuatl Sound | Reasoning |
| guerrero | quellelo | |
| gobernador | copelnatol | |
| medio | melio | medial position exception |
| caballo | cahuallo | medial position exception |
| doña | toya | one form of substitution for "ñ" |
| doña | tona | one form of substitution for "ñ" |
| Fabian | papia | F turns into a P |
| José | Xoce | normal substititution |
| cristiano, cruz | quixtiano, coloz | Nahuatl cannot start with two consonants. If a Spanish word starts with two consonants, the "r" sound in dropped. |
| mula | mola | |
| batan | patan | |