Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Colección de lenguas
indígenas
Inscribed 2007
What is it
A collection of 166 books comprising 128 titles which
are either written in, or are studies of, indigenous
Amerindian languages from the 16th to the 19th
centuries.
Why was it inscribed
Amerindian societies relied on oral traditions
supplemented by pictographs as their means
of transmitting information; consequently there are few
records of the languages of Central America before the
area came under Spanish rule from the early 16th century
onwards. The span of the collection’s publication dates
also reveals the development of those languages as they
encountered the Castilian spoken and imposed by the
new Spanish establishment.
Where is it
Biblioteca Pública del Estado de Jalisco, Jalisco, Mexico
The Colección de Lenguas Indígenas (‘Collection
of Indigenous Languages’) represents the first systematic
study ever undertaken by incomers and colonizers of the
languages of the people in their new territorial holdings.
They allow access to seventeen of the native languages
of Mesoamerica from the Early Modern period onwards,
recording their vocabulary, grammar, phonetic renderings
of words and accents and notes of their use in everyday
speech. Some of the languages are now extinct while
174 Colección de lenguas indígenas
others which are still spoken today – for example Nahuatl –
are represented here in earlier or classical form.
The books were largely written to serve European clerics
in their dealings with local people. Various religious orders
– Franciscans, Jesuits and Dominicans – divided between
them geographical responsibility for the territory’s
conversion, while ordinary clergy ministered to the people.
As a result, the titles in the collection tend to fall into
two categories: those with strictly linguistic information;
and those detailing the means of communicating and
explaining Christianity in the native languages. In
addition to books of grammar and bilingual dictionaries,
the collection contains catechisms, confessional books,
books of doctrine and sermons, and books of instruction
for teaching people how to read.
Local people acted as translators and intermediaries with
the Europeans, and the books were printed locally in the
viceroyalty of New Spain.
The collection officially came into government
possession in 1859 after Mexico’s republican government,
whose forces had two years previously executed the
country’s Emperor Maximilian, and seized all Church
property in Mexico with the sole exception of churches. The
monasteries were dissolved and their holdings – buildings,
lands and possessions – seized. Many monastic library
collections were lost in the ensuing culling and pillaging.
This listed collection came from seven monasteries
in western Mexico. Some of the books in the collection
are very rare, with few other known examples in publicly
accessible collections. However, it is not complete as it was
initially received: some titles seem to have disappeared
while others were incorporated from the date of the
earliest inventory in 1873.
Tzapotla, Chalchiuchtli, Cioapipilti and Tlaculteutl,
the ancient gods of the Mexicans. �