Carochis grammar of Otomi

[David Wright]

Estimado Magnus:
 
The primary reference to Horacio Carochi's Otomi grammar is in *Luces del
otomi*, another Otomi grammar written around 1767 by an anonymous Jesuit and
published in 1893 by Eustaquio Buelna. This priest says that Carochi wrote
an Otomi grammar that had been as highly praised as Carochi's Nahuatl
grammar, although it wasn't published due to typographical limitations
(Otomi has quite a few phonemes that don't exist in Spanish). He says he
copied it in Tepozotlan but lost his copy, although he cites Carochi's work
among other sources. The original seems to have been in the Jesuit library
of San Gregorio in Mexico City, another school for Indians, after the
expulsion of the Sociedad de Jesus in 1767. Manuscripts from the library of
San Gregorio were later dispersed. Some ended up in the Biblioteca Nacional
de Mexico, others in the Seminario Conciliar in Mexico City (where Angel
Maria Garibay consulted some Carochi manuscripts during the Mexican
Revolution). Others were dispersed. Nobody knows today what happened to the
Otomi grammar. If we had it, work on early colonial Otomi manuscripts would
progress at a faster pace than it has to date.
 
I think several existing manuscripts may be attributed to Carochi and his
circle of Otomi-speaking collaborators (among them Francisco de Aguilar, a
native of Tepotzotlan, who translated texts into otomí and added complex
diacritics): (1) The anonoymous *Vocabulario otomi* of 1640 (Biblioteca
Nacional de México, ms. 1497); (2) The *Doctrina otomi* at the Princeton
University Library (Princeton Mesoamerican Manuscript no. 1); (3) Ayer Ms.
1809 at the Newberry Library, Chicago; and (4) the *Sermonario en lengua
otomi* in the Gomez de Orozco Collection, Biblioteca Nacional de
Antropologia e Historia, Mexico. For further information, provenance data
and descriptions of these manuscripts, see my article "Manuscritos otomies
de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Princeton" (Estudios de Cultura
Otopame, IIA-UNAM, no. 4) and book, *Manuscritos otomies en la Biblioteca
Newberry and the Biblioteca de la Universidad de Princeton* (Guanajuato,
Ediciones La Rana, Instituto de la Cultura del Estado de Guanajuato, 2006).
 
If you find the lost Carochi grammar please let me know.
 
Saludos,
 
David Wright
 
http://www.paginasprodigy.com/dcwright/

  _____  

De: nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
En nombre de magnus hansen
Enviado el: Sábado, 28 de Octubre de 2006 03:41 p.m.
Para: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
Asunto: [Nahuat-l] Carochis grammar of Otomi


Nawatl listers
 
I saw that one of you were working with Carochi documents and others had
participated in work on the arte. Now I have a question:
 
According to the Catholic encyclopedia Carochi wrote a grammar of the Otomi
language which hasn't been published. Is there anything known about it? Its
whereabouts forexample? Does it exist as anything other than a mention? If
it does is it any good and how do I get my hands on it? 
 
Magnus Pharao Hansen
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