A grammatical sketch of the language spoken by the Indians of the Mosquito shore.

Format:

Manuscript

Author/Creator:

Cotheal, Alexander I., 1804-1894.

Contributor:

Berendt, C. Hermann (Carl Hermann), 1817-1878, former owner.

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

Language:

Central American Indian (Other)

English

Subjects (All):

Miskito language--Grammar.

Miskito language.

Miskito language--Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.

Miskito language--Pronunciation.

Miskito language--Texts.

Indians of Central America--Honduras--Languages.

Indians of Central America.

Language and languages.

Grammar.

Honduras.

Indians of Central America--Nicaragua--Languages.

Mosquitia (Nicaragua and Honduras).

Honduras--Languages.

Nicaragua--Languages.

Nicaragua.

Genre:

glossaries

grammars (instructional materials)

Texts.

Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.

Controlled vocabularies.

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).

Physical Description:

15 leaves : paper ; 205 x 130 mm bound to 205 x 130 mm

Contained In:

Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection. Item 132

Place of Publication:

[between 1851 and 1878]

Language Note:

English and Miskito.

Summary:

Article published by Alexander I. Cotheal in volume 2 of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society (New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1848), which has been removed from the publication by C. Hermann Berendt, and bound as a separate booklet. It includes introductory remarks about the Indians of the Mosquito shore (p. 237-239); a description of the alphabet and pronunciation (p. 239-240) and grammar (p. 240-256) of the Miskito language; the Lord's prayer and introduction to the Ten commandments (Exodus 20: 1-3) in Miskito, with literal interlinear translation in English (p. 257); and Miskito-English vocabulary (p. 257-264), including a separate list (p. 263-264) arranged in the order of Albert Gallatin's Comparative vocabulary of fifty-three nations, published in the second volume of the Archealogia Americana. At the end, Cotheal mentions having recently become aware of the report on the Mosquito shore of a Prussian commission (A. M. Fellechner, Müller, and Hesse, Bericht über die im höchsten Auftrage ...., 1845), and lists bibliographical references from that work (p. 264). A few pencilled annotations by Berendt include 2 notations concerning vocabulary entries (p. 262, 263); and the remaining relating to his counting the number of vocabulary entries in the primary list, totaling 796 (p. 262), and in the list according to Gallatin, totalling 142 (p. 264).

Notes:

Ms. codex.

Title from title page (p. 235).

This was the fourth 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 + 15 + ii leaves; [235-237], 238-264; printed pagination, upper outer corners.

Binding: Contemporary paper covers; sewn.

Origin: Annotated and bound as a booklet by C. Hermann Berendt sometime between the beginning of his research in the Americas in 1851 and his death in 1878.

Cited in:

Described in Brinton, Daniel Garrison. Catalogue of the Berendt Linguistic Collection (Department of Archaeology and Paleontology, University of Pennsylvania, 1900), p. 26 (no. 132).

Described in Weeks, John M. "Karl Hermann Berendt: Colección de manuscritos lingüistícos de Centroamérica y Mesoamérica," Mesoamérica 36 (Dec. 1998), p. 648 (no. 62).

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 4).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 700, Item 132

Contains:

Lord's prayer. Miskito.

OCLC:

503330095