Aztec Latin : Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico

Andrew (John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and Humanities and Professor of Hispanic Studies Laird

ISBN 10: 019758635X / ISBN 13: 9780197586358

Published by Oxford University Press Inc Aug 2024, 2024

About this Item

Neuware - Soon after the fall of the Aztec empire in 1521, missionaries began teaching Latin to native youths in Mexico. This initiative was intended to train indigenous students for positions of leadership, but it led some of them to produce significant writings of their own in Latin, and to translate a wide range of literature, including Aesop's fables, into their native language. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.

Seller Inventory # 9780197586358

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Aztec Latin : Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc Aug 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019758635X
• ISBN 13: 9780197586358
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 243W x 167H x 35D millimeters 243 millimeters width by 167 millimeters height by 35 millimeters depth
• Weight: 834 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began teaching Latin, classical rhetoric, and Aristotelian philosophy to native youths in central Mexico. The remarkable linguistic and cultural exchanges that would result from that initiative are the subject of this book. Aztec Latin highlights the importance of Renaissance humanist education for early colonial indigenous history, showing how practices central to humanism ― the cultivation of eloquence, the training of leaders, scholarly translation, and antiquarian research ― were transformed in New Spain to serve Indian elites as well as the Spanish authorities and religious orders.

While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus' ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop's fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.

About the Author

Andrew Laird is the John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and Humanities at Brown University. His previous publications include Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power; The Epic of America; and, as editor with Carlo Caruso, Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300-1600.