Brotan Las Flores

Brotan las flores, está frescas, medran abren su corolla.

The flowers are budding, they are fresh and thriving, open your corolla.

From poem number 33. La Flor y El Canto (Title by the book's author) -- page 56. The Aztec author is unknown and the poem comes from Chalco.

From poem number 37. Flores Nuevas (Title by the book's author) -- page 58. The Aztec author is unknown and the poem comes from Huexotzinco.

The text of this song was taken from lines found in two different poems in the book La Literatura De Los Aztecas, by Angel M. Garibay K., who translated the original Nahuatl language into Spanish. I translated the Spanish language version of the poetic lines into English.

a   like a in English father, e.g., brotan, están, corola.
e   when stressed, like a in English pay, e.g., frescas, medran.
     when unstressed, like in English bet, e.g., están, abren,
i    like i in English machine or ee in fee t, e.g., mil, tiempo, amarillo.
o   like o in English obey, e.g., brotan, sólo.
u   like u in English rule e.g., su.
ll   The ll consonant in Spanish sounds like the y in English yet, e.g., llegaron,
     amarillas (in Spanish America, the American Southwest).
r   A single flap of the tongue, e.g, flores, corola, brotan.

The acute accent denotes word stress only e.g., pétalos, sólo.

Michael D. Mendoza
April 24, 1995

Click here to see a sample.

Click here to listen to a recording (MP3).