Nahuatlato (interpreter)

A nahuatlato was an interpreter who worked between Nahuatl and Spanish in New Spain. The word is a Spanish rendering of a Nahuatl expression for speaking Nahuatl, and colonial documents also spell it naguatato. Over time it was used more loosely for interpreters in general. Spanish writers of the conquest more often called an interpreter a lengua, literally "tongue".

When the word was first used, and whether anyone applied it to the interpreters of 1519, still needs checking. It should not be assumed that Malintzin or Aguilar were called nahuatlatos at the time.

When Cortés landed in 1519, no one in the expedition spoke Nahuatl. Jerónimo de Aguilar, a Spaniard shipwrecked years earlier, had lived among Maya speakers in Yucatán. Malintzin, a Nahuatl speaker who also spoke a Maya language, was among the women given to the Spanish in Tabasco. Together they formed a relay. Spanish went into Maya through Aguilar, Maya into Nahuatl through Malintzin, and the reply came back the same way. She later worked directly in Spanish. When that began cannot be dated securely.

After the conquest, the colonial courts and administration needed interpreters permanently. Indigenous communities brought lawsuits, petitions and complaints, and interpreters were appointed to carry them.

Interpreting in 1519 was not word-for-word. Each link in the chain chose words, softened or sharpened them, and bridged gaps of meaning between languages and between political worlds. Formal Nahuatl speech to rulers and lords used reverential forms that Spanish had no close match for.

In the colonial courts, the interpreter translated testimony and documents and was expected to swear to translate faithfully. A case could turn on that translation, and the people whose words were being carried often had no way to check it.

• The Road to Tenochtitlán, 1519. The relay of Aguilar and Malintzin opened the march, and Malintzin interpreted when Cortés met Motecuhzoma on 8 November 1519.