Linguistic colonization and Nahua decolonial subversion in the 16th century

Abstract

The political colonization of the Americas in the sixteenth century was accompanied by an early linguistic colonization. Whereas political colonization could establish some hegemonic foci in early stages, linguistic colonization would encounter indigenous resistances within the field of language and thought. In sublime form and under an apparently Christianized rhetorical figure, some indigenous sectors would generate decolonial critical discourses. In a trilingual Latin-Castilian-Nahuatl context, the indigenous intellectuals of the Colegio de Tlatelolco would be located in an “in-the-middle space”, or epistemic nepantla, in which they would be able to enter and leave the colonial-decolonial discourse.