“Identity and Grammar in the Anonymous “Examen crítico de la gramática otomí de Neve y Molina””
Caroline Egan, Northwestern University
In this paper, I examine the arguments and style of a late-eighteenth-century manuscript that criticizes studies of the Otomi language in colonial Mexico. The manuscript—written largely in Spanish, in a mixture of poetry and prose—is penned by an anonymous author who claims to be a native speaker of Otomi and leverages that knowledge to offer a detailed refutation of a 1767 orthographic manual, dictionary, and grammar of that language by a contemporary scholar, Luis de Neve y Molina. I suggest that the trenchant critique contained within this manuscript, while written in the late eighteenth century, not only targets Neve y Molina (its apparent object of criticism), but also the long history of grammatical studies of vernacular languages, especially the missionary linguistic tradition and its attempts to record Indigenous languages like Otomi in alphabetic script.
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Register and Request PaperAbout the Premodern Studies Seminar Series
This Center for Renaissance Studies seminar provides a forum for new approaches to classical, medieval, and early modern studies, allowing scholars from a range of disciplines to share works-in-progress. Organized by Timothy Crowley (Northern Illinois University), Megan Heffernan (DePaul University), Lydia Barnett (Northwestern University), and Christopher Fletcher (Newberry Library).
If you have any questions about the submission process or the seminar in general, please email Christopher Fletcher.