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A Yucatan grammar / translated from the Spanish into Maya and abridged for the instruction of the native Indians by the Rev. J. Ruz of Merida; translated from the Maya into English by John Kingdon.
Kislak Center for Special Collections - Manuscripts Ms. Coll. 700 Item 14
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- Format:
- Manuscript
- Author/Creator:
- Ruz, Joaquin, 1772-1870.
- Language:
- English
- Mayan languages
- Subjects (All):
- Maya language--Grammar.
- Mayan languages--Grammar.
- Indians of Central America--Belize--Languages.
- Indians of Central America.
- Mayan languages.
- Belize.
- Language and languages.
- Belize--Languages.
- Genre:
- Codices.
- grammars (instructional materials)
- Manuscripts, English.
- Penn Provenance:
- From the collection of C. Hermann Berendt, later acquired by Daniel Garrison Brinton (ex libris stamp on title page).
- Physical Description:
- 61 leaves : paper ; 189 x 120 mm bound to 194 x 124 mm
- Contained In:
- Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection. Item 14
- Other Title:
- Maya grammar
- Yucatecan grammar.
- Place of Publication:
- New York, 1865.
- Language Note:
- English with Maya examples.
- Biography/History:
- Born in 1772 in Mérida, Yucatan, Joaquin Ruz entered the Franciscan order in 1794 and died in 1870.
- Summary:
- A manuscript copy of a Maya grammar written by Joaquin Ruz, translated into English by Baptist missionary John Kingdon, and printed at the Baptist Mission Press in Belize in 1847. A prefatory note by C. Hermann Berendt states that Ruz tried unsuccessfully to force Maya to follow the rules of Spanish grammar and refers to numerous errors in Maya and Spanish by Kingdon. One such error is that the grammar is not Yucatan, but Yucatecan. Berendt also claims that Ruz's work is a Maya translation of an earlier Spanish grammar textbook.
- Notes:
- Ms. codex.
- Title from title page (f. 1).
- Pagination: Paper, 61; [iv], 8-23, 23-24, 24-92, 92-121, [i]; pagination in ink, upper outer corners.
- Layout: Written in 21-27 lines on lined paper.
- Script: Written in the hand of C. Hermann Berendt.
- Binding: Late 19th-century leather; Maya grammar, MS., and a B for Berendt at the tail of the spine, in gold.
- Origin: Copied in New York, 1865.
- Cited in:
- Described in Brinton, Daniel Garrison. Catalogue of the Berendt Linguistic Collection (Department of Archaeology and Paleontology, University of Pennsylvania, 1900), p. 6 (no. 14).
- Described in Weeks, John M. "Karl Hermann Berendt: Colección de manuscritos lingüistícos de Centroamérica y Mesoamérica," Mesoamérica 36 (Dec. 1998), p. 674 (no. 149).
- Described in Weeks, John M. The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2002), p. 323 (no. 3643).
- Cited as:
- UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 14
- OCLC:
- 155932852
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