Current Situation and Endangerment
According to ethnologue.com, Náhuatl has 30 variants in contemporary usage. It has been in use in some form or another consistently since the Late Classic Period in Mexico around AD 600. Endangeredlanguages.com lists contemporary Náhuatl as "at risk" while Simons and Lewis (2013) place this language in the "threatened" category and UNESCO refers to it as "vulnerable".
Recent research by Anonby and Eberhard (2016) corroborate this claim by placing the language at the far left end of their "Language Ecology Continuum" which measures the sustainability of languages based upon their relationship to their environments both social and psychological. Several 2016 ethnographies of language revitalization provide some hope for the sustainability of language, however, as they highlight how the acquisition of historical ethnic lineage information inspires speakers of the language to retain it by providing insight into contemporary culture by situating it within a context of ethnic historicity (Schwartz and Dobrin 2016). The acquisition of this lost culture, according to Anonby and Eberhard (2016), moves the language closer to the sustainability end of their continuum. Recent (Wright-Carr 2007) and upcoming (Sebok 2018) research is working to unveil indigenous cultural information located within colonial period Aztec documents toward this end.
History and Decline
Náhuatl was the lingua franca of the Aztec Triple Alliance at the time of Spanish contact in 1519. Learning this language with the help of indigenous allies proved to be an invaluable asset in conquering the capital city of Tenochtitlán in 1521 (Daniel 1992). After gaining some semblance of governance in what became known as the Territories of New Spain, King Phillip II made a decree that Náhuatl should exist as the official language of those territories. During this period, Náhuatl became a literary language and there are many colonial-period texts still in existence from this time (Suárez 1983).
Two decrees made in 1696 and 1770 called for the destruction of any indigenous language and outlawed the use of any language but Spanish in Spanish-occupied territories (Lockhart 2001). During the 51 year period between 1770 and 1821 - the year of Mexican independence - the Náhuatl language was outlawed and speakers of the language were persecuted. The public attitudes toward the language rightfully declined and shifted toward Spanish.
Even though this period of persecution lasted only 51 years, the speed at which information transference and language shift can take place, decimated the speaking population of Náhuatl, a decisive blow from which it was never able to recover.
Threats: Implicit and Explicit
Currently, the largest threats to the language are regional, national and international. Looking at the language through the 14 criteria presented by Anonby and Eberhard (2016), language shift has already begun to invade the language as evidenced by the single dominant language in direct contact with it, Spanish. As Spanish is currently in the top three most widely spoken languages in the world and also constitutes the National language of Mexico, this threat grows in power as international business trickles down to the national and regional levels.
Grenoble and Whaley (1998) assert that there are myriad factors involved in language endangerment and language shift and each of them affects the rate of language change to a different degree. The local and international factors involved in the shift of Náhuatl are primarily its close contact with the powerful Spanish language and the historic cultural autonomy with the Aztec empire that increase positive attitudes about Náhuatl - and thus, its sustainability - immeasurably.
Despite being in contact with a major global language, Náhuatl continues to be taught in schools. According to mexicolore.co.uk, Náhuatl is "one of the most widely offered in schools. Particularly in regions where the language continues to be dominant, the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla, Morelos and parts of Guerrero, many schools offer instruction in the language." This not only supports evidence that Náhuatl has a very large speaker-base for being in the endangered category but indicates where the threat to the language is located. Náhuatl is not threatened, at this point, by a lack of speakers but by its contact with a globally-dominant language and the lack of linguistic capital it holds in the larger societal context.
New Exposure for Náhuatl in the Media
Not long prior to this writing, Náhuatl made a rare appearance in a prominent American network television series titled American Crime. In the third episode of the third season, an entire scene takes place in the Aztec language. Rather than portraying an immigrant worker in America without a visa as speaking Spanish, the show's writers chose to make the scene more realistic by having the actor speak in a less prestigious tongue often used by Mexicans living in the rural areas of Central America. This appearance of the Náhuatl language in mainstream, global media, while associating it with illegal immigration - a hot topic in the current political climate - does expose Americans to a language as yet unknown outside of its speaking domain.