Otomi & San Miguel
In 2005, a Mexican team of researchers excavated one of the richest and most important archeological sites in Mexico, La Canada De La Virgin near San Miguel. Replete with pyramidal structures that rival those of Teotihuacan and Maya civilizations, the purpose of the ancient site was to align with, and to observe, the movements of the celestial bodies. The site served as an accurate calendar, marking precise points of the seasons, indicating when to cultivate, to hunt, and to gather. The site was also a burial place for the elite, and, of course, a place for human sacrifice. The structure was built circa 800 AD by the Otomi, an ethno-linguistic group of uncertain origin. The Otomi are among the original inhabitants of Mesoamerica, and their legacy is evident everywhere in Mexico art, and culture.
The Otomi language is a part of the Oto-Pamean branch of Mesoamerican languages. In 3,500 BC, the Oto-Pamean language group broke with what is considered the mother-source of nearly all indigenous languages of Mexico, Oto-Manguean. In much the same way as Romance languages are related by having a common source in Europe, Otomi languages have a shared origin in Mesoamerica. At present, modern Otomi, along with its family of languages and dialects, is spoken by more than 200,000 people in Mexico, primarily in the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Queretaro, and Guanajuato.
Though Pre-Columbian Otomi had no formal writing system. the ideographic writing of the Aztecs (Nahuatl speakers) could be read in Otomi as well as in Nahuatl. The following is a Nahualt poem in the Otomi language with translations in both Spanish and English.
NAHUALT < nah-wah >
Xi makwäni:
Xi makwäni ga möhö,
Xi makwäni, ga möhö. Ga tsog u h u ya d o ni ne ya thuhu, Götho nu’ä ‘b u i jar ximhöi.
¡Makwäni ga möhö,
Makwäni ga möhö!
SPANISH
De verdad,
De verdad nos vamos,
De verdad nos vamos.
Dejamos las flores y los cantos,
Todo lo que existe en la tierra.
De verdad nos vamos
De verdad nos vamos!
ENGLISH
Truly,
Truly we go,
Truly we go.
We leave behind the flowers and the songs,
And all that exists in the land.
Truly we go.
It remains uncertain what connection Otomi speakers of the past had with various ancient civilizations, but most researchers believe that an Otomi language was widely spoken in the greatest of all Mesoamerican civilizations, Teothiuacan.
TRIVIA – one half of the 300 indigenous languages in Mexico can be found in Oaxaca.
Go to Wikipedia.com and search Oto-Maguean to delve deeper into the origen of Mexico’s ancient languages.