Examples of Nahuatl in the following topics:
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- The city's broad central avenue, called "Avenue of the Dead" (a translation from its Nahuatl name Miccoatli), is flanked by impressive ceremonial architecture, including the immense Pyramid of the Sun (third largest in the World after the Great Pyramid of Cholula and the Great Pyramid of Giza) and the Pyramid of the Moon.
- The Aztecs believed they were tombs, inspiring the Nahuatl name of the avenue.
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- The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors, and described Toltec culture emanating from Tōllān [ˈtoːlːaːn] (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization.
- Indeed, in the Nahuatl language the word "Tōltēcatl" [toːlˈteːkat͡] (singular) or "Tōltēcah" [toːlˈteːkaʔ] (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan."
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- In 1521 Hernán Cortés, along with a large number of Nahuatl-speaking indigenous allies, conquered Tenochtitlan and defeated the Aztec Triple Alliance under the leadership of Hueyi Tlatoani Moctezuma II.
- Although the form of government is often referred to as an empire, in fact most areas within the empire were organized as city-states, known as "altepetl" in Nahuatl.
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- There are still 1.5 million people who speak the Aztec language of Nahuatl, and part of the Mexica migration story appears on the Mexican flag.
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- The name "Mitla" is derived from the Nahuatl name "Mictlán," which was the place of the dead or underworld.
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- Like all other Mesoamerican cultures, the
Aztecs played a variant of the Mesoamerican ballgame, named "tlachtli" or "ollamaliztli" in Nahuatl.