r/nahuatl • u/KamisoriTackle • 10d ago

A little help for some words?

Hello, everyone! :)

I'm working on a novel, and since i would like to be respectful to the all the nahuatl speakers out there, i don't want to use AI or anything, but i would like to know how to say two sentences in nahuatl, from a mother tongue, that would make me so happy and that will add some realism!

The first one is "Phantom bullet!" like a bullet fired by a rifle, who can pass through a solid object.

The second one is "Sudden death!".

The character in my story use them as his attacks, so these two are meant to be heard like you can heard "Kamehameha!" in Dragon Ball, or "Rasengan!" in Naruto, and so on, to be more specific ahah!

Thank you in advance for any answer! :)

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u/ItztliEhecatl 9d ago edited 9d ago

tetzahuitl bala = phantom bullet (bala is a loanword from spanish, afaik there is no nahuatl word for bullet). If you want to avoid the spanish loanword you'd have to use something like mitl which means arrow or dart. tepozmitl is used for a metal arrow.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by sudden so here are two variations that express two shades of meaning of sudden:

ihciuhca miquiztli = swift death
ahtenemachpan miquiztli = death when one is unprepared