Indian Languages Database
Record Details
Historia antigua de Megico: sacada de los mejores historiadores españoles, ye de los manuscritos, y de las pinturas antiguas de los indios.
London: R. Ackermann; impreso por Carlos Wood, 1826
Physical Description: 2 v. : ill., maps ; 26 cm. (8vo) v.1: xxxi, [1], 432 p., [20] leaves of plates (some folded) ; v.2: iv, 449, [3] p., [2] leaves of plates (1 folded)
Call number: B826/ C617h
Accession number: 05898
Notes: Contains Nahuatl vocabulary relating to natural history; religious, calendrical, and numerical systems; and abstract concepts.
Natural history vocabulary includes terms for flora, fauna, and minerals (v.1, p. 15-72) and “Catalogo de los cuadrupedos americanos” (v.2, p. 303-311), a list of over 100 animals including many native terms.
Terms for deities, festivals, years, months, and days (v.1, p. 265-269, 272-273, 399-415), are supplemented by related vocabulary in “Esplicacion de las figuras oscuras” (v.1, p. [416]-422), an exegesis of symbols used for calendar wheels, cities, and kings (illustrated on leaves facing v.1, p. 265, 266, and 369), and in “Carta de D. Lorenzo Hervás al autor, sobre el calendario megicano” (v.1, p. [423]-429).
“Lengua Megicana” (v.2, p. 375-383) contains Nahuatl numerical terms and a “Catalogo de voces Megicanos que significan ideas metafisicas y morales”, listing over 50 terms in Nahuatl with Italian equivalents in parallel columns.
“Catalogo de algunos autores europeos, y criollos, que han escrito sobre la doctrina y moral cristianas, in las lenguas de Anahuac” (v.2, p. 394-397) groups authors under 15 languages: Megicana, Otomita, Tarasca, Zapoteca, Mizteca, Maya, Totonaca, Popoluca, Matlazinca, Huajteca, Mige, Kiche, Cakciquel, Taraumara, Tepehuana);
“Autores de gramaticas y diccionarios de las lenguas de Anahuac” (p. 397-399) includes all the same languages with the exception of Kiche.
Chiefly a synthesis derived from other published sources, especially Torquemada. Translation by José Joaquín de Mora from the Italian of author’s Storia antica del Messico, first published, Cesena, 1780.
Digital facsimile copy of book available.
Languages: Nahuatl
Genre: Vocabulary
Region: Spanish America
