Details

Other Title:

Lengua parrastah

Subjects:

Ulva dialect -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Tawahka dialect (Honduras) -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Indians of Central America -- Nicaragua -- Languages.
Indians of Central America.
Language and languages.
Tawahka dialect (Honduras).
Ulva dialect.
Nicaragua -- Languages.
Nicaragua.

Form/Genre:

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

Language:

Spanish and Ulva, with a few words in Tawahka.

Biography/History:

Born in Masaya, Nicaragua, in 1827; ordained a Catholic priest in Léon in 1853, and served as curate in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

Summary:

Two handwritten manuscripts of Victor Jesus Noguera, of vocabulary entries, including numbers and phrases, in Spanish and Parrastah (Parrasta), a dialect of Ulva (Ulba) language, including some notes about the dialect. The first manuscript contains only about 100 entries, in Parrastah and Spanish, arranged under headings that refer to parts of speech; the second manuscript is in a similar format but with the order of the languages reversed, and comprises approximately 300 entries. It appears that the second manuscript is an expanded version of the first; neither list is alphabetized. The 2 manuscripts are bound together with 2 cover letters from Noguera to C. Hermann Berendt, which accompanied his sending of the respective items to Berendt (addressed to him Granada); the letters also discuss the language. Noguera indicates that the Indians who speak Parrastah live in a wild state (estado salvage) in the mountains (f. 4v), in Lovago and Loviguisca, places near San Pedro and Santo Tomás, Nicaragua; and that the name of the language comes from the customary greeting (f. 2r). Included is a preface by C. Hermann Berendt (f. 1v) which apparently applies only to the first vocabulary list, making reference to a total of 90 vocabulary words and 10 phrases. Berendt notes that 21 of those entries corresponded closely to an Ulva equivalent; his annotations in red ink (in the first list only) relate to these comparisons, with symbols indicating the researcher who was his source for Ulva: Mr. Haly (H), Julius Fröbel (F), or Pablo Levy (L). (For the relevant transcriptions by Berendt, see Ms. Coll. 700 Item 133, Item 146, and Item 145, respectively.) The preface includes a chart comparing the numbers 1 to 10 in Parrastah to equivalent Ulva vocabulary from Haly and Fröbel, respectively. The vocabulary collected by Haly in Nicaragua (conveyed to Berendt by Alexander Henderson) was in Tawahka (Twaka), which Berendt classifies under Ulva.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from title page (f. 1).
Foliation: Paper, i + 8 + ii; modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto. F. 8 is blank.
Layout: Vocabulary written in 2 ruled columns of approximately 38 (f. 2) or 31 lines (f. 5-7). Within each column, the equivalent follows the main entry; in the first manuscript Parrastah is on the left, followed by Spanish; in the second, Spanish is on the left, followed by Parrastah.
Script: In the hand of Victor Jesus Noguera, with title page, preface, and annotations in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt.
Binding: Contemporary paper covers.
Origin: Written in Santo Tomás, Nicaragua, 31 July (f. 1v) to 1 August 1874 (f. 3r), and 8 November (f. 7v); and in Masaya, Nicaragua, 20 November 1874 (f. 4r); material by C. Hermann Berendt probably written in Granada, Nicaragua, around the same time.

Penn Provenance:

From the collection of C. Hermann Berendt, later acquired by Daniel Garrison Brinton (ex libris stamp on title page).

Cited in:

Described in Brinton, Daniel Garrison. Catalogue of the Berendt Linguistic Collection (Department of Archaeology and Paleontology, University of Pennsylvania, 1900), p. 28 (no. 147).
Described in Weeks, John M. "Karl Hermann Berendt: Colección de manuscritos lingüistícos de Centroamérica y Mesoamérica," Mesoamérica 36 (Dec. 1998), p. 666 (no. 118).
Described in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), p. 276 (no. 3074).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 147

Contributor:

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

OCLC:

607566319