Tay naja nitajtaketzki achtu tik Nawat / Mis primeras palabras en nahuat / My First Words in Nahuat

A collection of powerful poems, in Nahuat, Spanish and English, that celebrate Indigenous life and language despite efforts to eradicate them. These poems are a moving and eloquent description of how great poet Jorge Argueta came to know the almost extinct language of his ancestors.The poems tell stories of Jorge’s life growing up in the Salvadoran village of Witzapan, where his own grandmother taught him his first words in Nahuat.There are poems about the clay used to construct the village, the trees that grow in the countryside, the corn used to make tortillas and pupusas, and the Tepechapa River.Beautiful illustrations painted by Salvadoran artist El Aleph accompany each poem. In the early 1930s, the government of El Salvador massacred many Nahuat people and banned them from speaking the language, attempting to eradicate their Indigenous identity.Despite the ban, village elders continued to keep the language and culture alive.Today there are many efforts to reintroduce the Nahuat la