Luces del Otomi; ó, Gramática del idioma que hablan los Indios Otomíes en la Republica Mexicana. Compuesta por un padre de la Compañía de Jesús

ix+[1]+303 pages. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 3/4") bound in period half leather and mottled boards, spine tooled and lettered in gilt, four raised bands; original blue printed wrappers bound in. First Edition.

One of the few and possibly the most important studies of Otomi language made in Mexico in the nineteenth century. The Otomi were the original settlers of the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region, arriving some 10,000 years ago. Otomi is an Oto-Pamean language family spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. Otomi consists of several closely related languages, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The word Hñähñu [hɲɑ̃hɲṹ] has been proposed as an endonym, but since it represents the usage of a single dialect it has not gained wide currency. Linguists have classified the modern dialects into three dialect areas: the Northwestern dialects spoken in Querétaro, Hidalgo and Guanajuato; the Southwestern dialects spoken in the State of Mexico; and the Eastern dialects spoken in the highlands of Veracruz, Puebla, and eastern Hidalgo and in villages in Tlaxcala and Mexico states. After the Spanish conquest Otomi became a written language when friars taught the Otomi to write the language using the Latin script; the written language of the colonial period is often called Classical Otomi. Several codices and grammars were composed in Classical Otomi. A negative stereotype of the Otomi promoted by the Nahuas and perpetuated by the Spanish resulted in a loss of status for the Otomi, who began to abandon their language in favor of Spanish. The attitude of the larger world toward the Otomi language began to change in 2003 when Otomi was granted recognition as a national language under Mexican law together with 61 other indigenous languages.

Condition: Some rubbing to extremities; small wormhole through the entire text and wrappers (a very persistent, or hungry, worm it seems); corners bumped and rubbed through else very good.