little contact with the rest of Mesoamerica. Probably as a result of their isolationist policy the Purépecha language is the only language of Mesoamerica to not show any of the traits associated with the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. In Guerrero the Tlapanecs of Yopitzinco speaking the Oto-Manguean Tlapanec language remained independent of the Aztec empire as did some of the Oaxacan cultures such as the Mixtecs of Tututepec and the Zapotec of Zaachila. In the late postclassic around 1400 CE Zapotecs of Zaachila moved into the Isthmus of Tehuantepec creating a wedge of Zapotec speaking settlements between the former neighbors the Mixe and the Huave who were pushed into their current territories on the edges of the Isthmus. Colonial period (1521–1821) The Spanish arrival in the new world turned the linguistic situation of Mesoamerica upside down. And from then on the indigenous languages have been subject to varying policies imposed on them by the colonial rule. The first impact came from the decimation of the indigenous population by diseases brought by the Europeans. Within the first two centuries of Spanish rule Mesoamerica experienced a dramatic population decline and it is well documented that several small linguistic groups became completely extinct already during the 16th century. The policies that contributed most to a change in the linguistic situation of Mesoamerica were the policies used for conversion of Indians to Christianity. The first victim of this process was the native writing systems which were banned and prohibited and the existing texts destroyed – the pictorial scripts were see as an idolatry by the Catholic Church. At first missionaries favoured the teaching of Spanish to their prospect converts but from 1555 the first Mexican Council established the policy that the Indians should be converted in their own languages and that parish priests should know the indigenous language of their parishioners. This called for a massive education of clergymen in native languages and the church undertook this task with great zeal. Institutions of learning such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco which was inaugurated in 1536 and which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Indians and priests were opened. And missionary grammarians undertook the job of writing grammars for the indigenous languages in order to teach priests. For example, the first grammar of Nahuatl, written by Andrés de Olmos, was published in 1547 – three years before the first grammar