Details

Subjects:

Sabino Uc, José, 1856-.
Itzá dialect -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Mayan languages -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Maya language -- Texts.
Maya language.
Mayan languages.
Itzá dialect.
Indians of Central America -- Guatemala -- Languages.
Indians of Central America.
Guatemala.
Language and languages.
Guatemala -- Languages.

Form/Genre:

Texts.
Codices.
Glossaries.
Manuscripts, Spanish.
Manuscripts, Latin American.
Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Controlled vocabularies.

Language:

Itzá dialect, Spanish, and Maya.

Biography/History:

Ethnologist C. Hermann Berendt traveled to Petén, Guatemala, in 1866 and 1867 on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution.

Summary:

List of approximately 120 vocabulary words and phrases in the Itzá dialect of Maya spoken in Petén, with Spanish equivalents. In most instances Berendt also notes the corresponding Maya form found in what he refers to as the Providence dictionary, that is, the Diccionario de Motul, in the John Carter Brown Library, which he had copied in 1864 (see Ms. Coll 700, Item 1). On the first page of notes (f. 1r), Berendt describes where the dialect is spoken, naming villages in Partido de las Sabanas; Partido de Dolores; and Partido del Centro. Opposite, on the inside upper cover of the original notebook (inside the later binding; f. 1v) are a few faded notes in Spanish; and, at the back (f. 17v), is a short text, apparently the Lord's prayer, in Maya, or a Mayan dialect. A larger sheet that was pasted on the inside lower cover of the original notebook and folded to size, has, on one side, a schematic drawing or map, and a note in German, in the hand of Berendt: Sabino's life story told by himself in Maya language, 1866. On the other side is the said autobiographical text by José Sabino Uc. The text, which appears to be in Berendt's hand, contains the date 1871, and a reference to Sacluk; it includes emendations in ink and pencil. The sheet has been removed and is housed in separate folder shelved with the manuscript.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from cover of notes, inside later binding (f. 1r).
Foliation: Paper, 18; modern pencil foliation.
Layout: Written in 21-23 lines, in double-page spreads, with Itzá words (under the heading Peten) on the left-hand page, followed by the Spanish equivalent, both in black ink; and corresponding Maya words on the right-hand page in red ink.
Script: Written in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt.
Binding: Late 19th-century half leather.
Origin: Written in Sacluk, Guatemala, in 1866 and 1867 (Sacluk was renamed La Libertad in 1880). The accompanying autobiographical note was apparently written in 1871.

Penn Provenance:

From the collection of C. Hermann Berendt, later acquired by Daniel Garrison Brinton (ex libris stamp on first page of notes, f. 2r).

Cited in:

Described in Weeks, John M. "Karl Hermann Berendt: Colección de manuscritos lingüistícos de Centroamérica y Mesoamérica," Mesoamérica 36 (Dec. 1998), p. 683 (no. 187).
Described in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), p. 70 (no. 390).

Publications about:

Means, Philip Ainsworth. History of the Spanish conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas (Cambridge, Mass.: The Museum, 1917); Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. 7. Appendix II, The dialect of Peten, p. 188-191. Includes a transcription of Berendt's Itzá vocabulary and Maya equivalents, with an English translation of the title page and of the Spanish equivalents.
Bolles, David. "An autobiographical note written by José Sabino Uc in Yucatec Mayan in 1871" (Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, 2005; available online). Transcription, English translation, and discussion of the autobiographical text on the sheet accompanying the manuscript.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 190

Contributor:

Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison), 1837-1899, former owner.

OCLC:

155933078