Nahuatl orthography

Since the early 16th century, Nahuatl has been written in an orthography in Latin script based on Spanish spelling conventions, with overall the same values for letters in both orthographies. Over the centuries, Latin script was utilized to record a large body of Nahuatl prose and poetry, which somewhat mitigated the devastating loss of the thousands of Aztec manuscripts that were burned by Spanish missionaries.

Printed and manuscript texts in Nahuatl generally display a lot of orthographical variety, as there was no official institution that developed and promoted a standard. The spelling as used in ecclesiastical circles between 1570 and 1650 showed the highest degree of stability, and this spelling, and the language variety written in it, are considered "classical".

A new orthography was introduced in 1950 in the weekly magazine Mexicatl Itonalama. This orthography is currently used to write some of the modern Nahuatl dialects.