Andrés de Olmos (c.1485 – 8 October 1571) was a Spanish

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

priest and grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's indigenous languages and peoples. He was born in

Oña Oña is a municipality and town located in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2011 census ( INE), the municipality has a population of 1,219 inhabitants. Main sights * Benedictine monastery of San Salvador de O� ...

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and died in

Tampico Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fif ...

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

(modern-day

Tampico, Tamaulipas Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fifth ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

). He is best known for his grammar, the first in the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

, of the

Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl, also known simply as Aztec or Codical Nahuatl (if it refers to the variants employed in the Mesoamerican Codices through the medium of Aztec Hieroglyphs) and Colonial Nahuatl (if written in Post-conquest documents in the Lat ...

language.

Life

In his early youth, Andrés de Olmos went to live with a married sister in Olmos, whence his name. He entered the Franciscan convent in

Valladolid Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...

and was ordained a priest. He was appointed an assistant to Fray

Juan de Zumárraga Juan de Zumárraga, OFM (1468 – June 3, 1548) was a Spanish Basque Franciscan prelate and the first Bishop of Mexico. He was also the region's first inquisitor. He wrote ''Doctrina breve'', the first book published in the Western Hemisphe ...

in 1527. He accompanied Zumárraga when the latter was sent by the Emperor Charles V in 1528 to be the first bishop of

. As early as 1533, Olmos was recognized as unusually adept in the Nahuatl language and well-informed about the history and customs of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples. He contributed to the founding in 1536 of the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, the first European-based institution of higher learning in the New World. Olmos wrote a book, now lost, about the pre-Hispanic history, beliefs and religious practices of Mexico (some have suggested that this work might be the mysterious Crónica X). He also published a collection of ''Huehuetlahtolli'', moral instruction from Nahuatl-speaking elders to their juniors, expressed in a highly stylized and polished, high-register language. He wrote several sermons in Nahuatl that have survived. But he is best known for his '' Arte para aprender la lengua mexicana'', completed in 1547. Although it was based on his own and others' previously written notes about Classical Nahuatl grammar, this was the first relatively complete grammatical description of an indigenous language of the New World. It antedates, by three years, the first grammatical description of the French language (by Louis Maigret in 1550) and, by thirty-nine years, the first grammatical description of the English language (by

William Bullokar William Bullokar was a 16th-century Printer (publisher), printer who devised a 40-letter Phonetic transcription, phonetic alphabet for the English language. Its characters were presented in the Blackletter, black-letter or "gothic" writing style ...

in 1586). Olmos also published a ''Nahuatl Vocabulary''. Much of his work on the ''Arte'' and the ''Vocabulary'' was done in Hueytlalpan, in

Totonac The Totonac are an Indigenous people of Mexico who reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained quarters in Teotihuacán (a cit ...

country, where he settled . There Olmos learned

, and published an ''Arte'' and Vocabulary in that language; these have since been lost. In 1554, he moved to the

Huasteca La Huasteca is a geographical and cultural region located partially along the Gulf of Mexico and including parts of the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Guanajuato. It is roughly d ...

region, where he learned the Huastec (also known as Teenek) language and wrote yet another ''Arte'' and Vocabulary describing it.

Significance

Nahuatl,

and Huastec are from completely different linguistic stocks and represent three of the most important of Mexico's twenty language families. Olmos' work, particularly the ''Arte para aprender la lengua mexicana'', was the model for many other Artes that followed on Nahuatl and other languages of the New World.

References

* Olmos, Fray Andrés de. 1547. ''Arte de la Lengua Mexicana''. Edición, estudio introductorio, transliteración y notas de Ascensión Hernández de León-Portilla y

Miguel León-Portilla Miguel León-Portilla (22 February 1926 – 1 October 2019) was a Mexican anthropologist and historian, specializing in Aztec culture and literature of the pre-Columbian and colonial eras. Many of his works were translated to English and he was ...

. 2002. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). {{DEFAULTSORT:Olmos, Andres de 1480s births 1571 deaths Spanish Franciscans Spanish missionary linguists Nahuatl-language writers Linguists of Mesoamerican languages Scholars of the Aztecs Novohispanic Mesoamericanists 16th-century Mesoamericanists Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages