After the Conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521 and before Alonso de Molina finished his Nahuatl dictionary in 1571, how much opportunity did Mexica and other Nahuatl speaking groups have to travel or serve on large ships enough to produce a cacophony of words to be included in Molina's dictionary?

by Mictlantecuhtli

Just a cursory search on Oregon.edu's online dictionary has produced a number of words related to ships and boats like steering with a rudder, the rib of a ship, and the sail of a boat. The root word, acalli which can mean canoe as well as ship and boat, seems to have been used to make all sorts of words related to ships rather than using the loan word navío taken from nave.

I'm wondering how many people may have had experience with ships enough to have these words enter the lexicon to such a degree for Molina to include them in his dictionary.

For those wondering, I've included the list below.

acalacana - to calm the boat or ship

acalco - relating to boats; in a boat; in the boat

acalcuexcochtli - stern of a boat or ship

acalhuelteca - to steer the ship with the rudder

acalhueltecac - he who steers the ship with the rudder

acalhueltecani - he who governs or guides the ship using the rudder

acalhuelteconi - the rudder or other steering device on a ship or boat

acalhuia - to send something in a boat or ship; to go about in a boat or ship for recreation

acaliyayaliztli - the well of a boat or ship

acalla yayaliztli - the lower cavity of a ship, where water penetrates and accumulates; the bilge

acallancoani - cargo or passage on a boat or ship

acallanehuani - a shipment or passage on a ship

acallanehui - a person who ships things

acallanehuia - to transport by ship

acallanpanaliztli - shipwreck, where the boat breaks up

acallapanaliztli - a shipwreck; where the ship breaks up on the rocks

acallapani - to experience a shipwreck, with the boat breaking up

acallaxtlahuilli - load, cargo, freight on as ship

acallaxtlahuiloni - a shipment, freight on a boat

acalli cemmantihuitz - fleet of ships

acalli - ship, boat, canoe, etc

acalmaitl - the rib of a ship

acalmiatl - the flank of a ship

acalnemachiliani - he who steers the ship

acalquachpanitl - the sail of a boat or ship

acaltema - to put a cargo on a ship, or launch a ship and put something in it

acaltetl tlatilincateconi - ballast of a boat or ship

acalyacatl - the prow of a boat or ship

atlan nontlatoxahua - to lighten a ship’s load in the storm

atlan tepehua - to unload or to lighten a ship

atlan tlaza - to unload or to lighten a boat or ship

atlantoxahua - to unload or to lighten a ship or boat

metzhuehueloa - to dislocate one’s ship

nopan tlapani in acalli - to get in a shipwreck

toxahua - to unload or lighten a ship

DoorToSummer

I'm curious why you believe that these words required the presence of large (ocean-going?) ships? It seems to me that most if not all could just as easily be used in the description of small boat traffic on lakes and rivers as well.

gallbleeder

Aside from what /u/DoorToSummer said, I would be careful about interpreting these words from an Anglophone perspective. the Nahuatl languages are highly agglutinative and polysynthetic, which means that where in English we might say:

"I shall make somebody give something to you"

In classic Nahuatl you would use simply one word. A single heavily inflected verb:

"nimitsteːtlamakiːltiːs"

Broken up as follows:

/ni-mits-teː-tla-makiː-ltiː-s/

I-you-someone-something-give-CAUSATIVE-FUTURE

Therefore a lot of these words you list are in fact just the natural agglutinative process in languages like Nahuatl in which existing words are combined and inflected to form new words.