The Mayan Franciscan Vocabularies: A Preliminary Survey

Status Report

As mentioned in the opening paragraph of this paper, all of the dictionaries talked about in this article have been punched into computer files. The three principal Franciscan grammars, those of Coronel (1620), San Buenaventura (1684) and Beltrán (1746), have also been entered. A large portion of the liturgical work published by Coronel (1620) has also been entered, and hopefully this project will be completed before long. For comparative reasons the liturgical work of Beltrán (1740, 1757) has also been entered.

Also, as mentioned above, some comparative work has been done already with the punched-in material. Appendix B gives some of examples of this work. Hopefully, once the whole of the Coronel liturgical material is available, many more examples of this kind will come to light.

Just to provide a guide into the labyrinthine origins of the Mayan Franciscan dictionaries, Appendix A displays a raw sketch of their possible authors, dates, places of composition and sources. It is easy to handle, but much reserve is advisable before putting to work its data. In no way should it be considered a conclusive study. There are many details and many missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that are yet to be put together.

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