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 language in El Salvador. Nahuat readers can share in Jorge's childhood world of Witzapan. So can we, whether in the original or through the Spanish and English translations of his poems.

Key Text Features

author's note

poems

illustrations

glossary

table of contents

translations

Correlates to the Common Core States Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3

Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.4

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.7

Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).

EL ALEPH SÁNCHEZ is a Salvadoran fine artist, a member of the Wixnamickcin artistic group (the ancestral Nahuat word for "companions"). His art has been exhibited around the world, often specifically to represent El Salvador. He illustrated the book Olita y Manyula: El gran cumpleaños / Olita and Manyula: The Big Birthday, written by Jorge Argueta, which was an International Latino Book Award honor book. El Aleph is a member of the Festival Internacional de Poesía Infantil Manyula.

ELIZABETH BELL lives in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. Her translations have appeared in the City Lights anthologies Light from a Nearby Window (Mexican poetry) and Island of My Hunger (Cuban poetry), among other publications. She translated the middle-grade novel in verse Caravan to the North by Jorge Argueta.

JORGE ARGUETA, a Nahua from El Salvador and Poet Laureate Emeritus of San Mateo County, is a prize-winning author of more than twenty children's books. His book Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and was named to USBBY's Outstanding International Books List, ALA Notable Children's Books and the Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices. Jorge is the founder of the International Children's Poetry Festival Manyula and the Library of Dreams, a non-profit organization that promotes literacy in El Salvador. Jorge divides his time between San Francisco, California, and El Salvador.