Details

Other Title:

Xicaques

Subjects:

Jicaque language -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Indians of Central America -- Honduras -- Languages.
Indians of Central America.
Jicaque language.
Honduras.
Language and languages.
Honduras -- Languages.

Form/Genre:

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

Language:

Spanish and Jicaque, with two words of Nahuatl; and a few words in English among Berendt's annotations.

Biography/History:

Served as United States consul to Buenos Aires from 1840 to 1845; appointed consul general of Nicaragua in the United States in 1851. Was a partner in the Honduras Interoceanic Railway Company, formed in the early 1850s. E. G. Squier, who acted as agent and secretary for the latter company, describes Edwards as its last active agent, at the time that Edwards communicated information about the Jicaque Indians and their language.

Summary:

Vocabulary list of 37 words, and the numbers 1 to 10, and 20, in Spanish and Jicaque (Xicaque), transcribed by C. Hermann Berendt, from a brief article published in November 1858 by E.G. Squier under the title Les indiens xicaques du Honduras, in Nouvelles annales des voyages (vol. 4, p. 133-136; Berendt notes the source on the title page). Squier's article mainly consisted of a direct quotation from a communication that he received from Amory Edwards about the Jicaque Indians, which included the Jicaque vocabulary (p. 135). Whereas the article was in French and conveyed French vocabulary with the Jicaque equivalents, Berendt translates the French words into Spanish. Berendt also includes a narrative passage in Spanish, attributed to Squier (p. 2), which describes the areas of Honduras where the Jicaque Indians were living at that time, with 5,000 of them in the department of Yoro, and 1,000 in that of Santa Bárbara. The passage is a free translation of selected information about the Jicaque Indians contained in the part of Squier's article that directly quotes from Edwards. A few annotations by Berendt include two words in Nahuatl (tliltic, mazatl; p. 3) that are similar to the Jicaque.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from title page (p. 1).
This was the eighth of 19 manuscripts formerly bound together, probably by Daniel Garrison Brinton, and now disbound (Items 129-136, 143, 145, 146, 151-155, and 157-159). The bound volume had the spine title: Languages of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Pagination: Paper, ii + 3 + i leaves; [1-3], 4-5, [6 (blank)]; contemporary pagination in ink, upper outer corners.
Layout: Vocabulary written in 2 columns of 19 lines, with Spanish on the left and Jicaque on the right.
Script: Written in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt.
Binding: Contemporary paper covers; sewn.
Origin: Written sometime between the publication of E. G. Squier's article in 1858 and C. Hermman Berendt's death in 1878.

Penn Provenance:

From the collection of C. Hermann Berendt, later acquired by Daniel Garrison Brinton (ex libris stamp on the verso of front free endpaper in the bound volume that once contained the present item).

Cited in:

Described in Brinton, Daniel Garrison. Catalogue of the Berendt Linguistic Collection (Department of Archaeology and Paleontology, University of Pennsylvania, 1900), p. 27 (no. 136).
Described in Weeks, John M. "Karl Hermann Berendt: Colección de manuscritos lingüistícos de Centroamérica y Mesoamérica," Mesoamérica 36 (Dec. 1998), p. 653 (no. 78).
Described in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), p. 68-70 (no. 388, document 8).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 136

Contributor:

Berendt, C. Hermann (Carl Hermann), 1817-1878, former owner.
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison), 1837-1899, former owner.

OCLC:

537167603