Tlatequitiltilīlli tēixnāmiquiliztli:64.140.158.61

Niltze! Welcome to Wikipedia in Nahuatl. Thanks for your suggestions. We really need long discussions to fix in the better possible way some of the current drawbacks of Nahuatl as a written language and it is good having different kinds of opinion on the many topics about it.

ABOUT VOWEL LENGTH

You mention the need to make distinctions between long and short vowels in Nahuatl. I agree that vowel length is a relevant feature of the language but I think we really need the opinion of fluent Nahuatl speakers on that matter. Diacritics are not usually welcome in general if the written language can do well without them: there are many cases of this; for example, in Amharic (a thoroughly written language of Ethiopia since the 19th century) they use double consonants in speech in a way that changes meaning of the words and situations, but double consonants never appear in the written language; in Arabic, vowels are necessary in spoken language but they are scarcely represented (generally they are used only in the Koran and dictionaries); in Spanish (my mother tongue) stress is a relevant feature but a vast quantity of Spanish-speakers can do quite well without using them when writing and th message is 99.9% perfectly conveyed... There are more cases like this.

Anyway, I am not against using some kind of diacritic to mark vowel length, but I think we should listen to the points of view of as many Nahuatl-speakers as possible before settling any general rule. They are the ones who should decide if it is worth doing or it is not. - Tochpapalotl (Piolinfax) 09:59, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

P.S.: I'll move your opinion in Ling:u'istica to Wikipedia:Tlatlahtoaloyan, the place to dicuss general topics.