Aztecan languages

The Aztecan or Nahuan languages are a branch of the Uto-Aztecan family defined by a shared sound change, Whorf's law, that changed an original *t to /tɬ/ before *a in the branch's daughter languages, some of which later shifted this sound further or reversed it. The languages are spoken across El Salvador, Nicaragua and several Mexican states, including Puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Durango, Hidalgo, Morelos, San Luis Potosí and the State of Mexico, by roughly 1.7 million Nahua people in total. The Mexican government and Ethnologue both treat the branch's modern varieties as thirty distinct languages rather than dialects of a single Nahuatl, since many are not mutually intelligible and differ in grammar; the largest, Eastern and Western Huasteca Nahuatl, each have about 450,000 speakers, followed by Guerrero Nahuatl at roughly 200,000 and Highland Puebla Nahuatl at about 125,000. Classification schemes divide the branch either into an eastern and western grouping or into a conservative periphery surrounding a more innovative center near Mexico City.