Yolanda Lastra de Suárez (born 1932) is a Mexican

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

specializing in the descriptive linguistics of the

indigenous languages of Mexico Many languages are spoken in Mexico, though Spanish is the ''de facto'' national language spoken by the vast majority of the population, making Mexico the world's most populous Hispanophone country. The indigenous languages are from eleven langu ...

. She obtained her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

degree in 1963 from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, her dissertation written under the guidance of

Charles F. Hockett Charles Francis Hockett (January 17, 1916 – November 3, 2000) was an American linguist who developed many influential ideas in American structuralist linguistics. He represents the post-Bloomfieldian phase of structuralism often referred to as ...

treating the

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

of Cochabamba Quechua in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. She was married to Argentinian linguist Jorge A. Suárez (1927-1985). Lastra has worked with linguistic documentation and dialectology of the

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

and Otomi languages and is recognized as a leading authority in the studies of Oto-Pamean languages in general. Her 1986 book ''Áreas dialectales del Náhuatl moderno'' is the single most comprehensive work on the dialectology of modern Nahuatl ever published. Lastra is currently a senior investigator at the Institute of Anthropology at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México. Since May 2014 she is a full member of the

Academia Mexicana de la Lengua The Academia Mexicana de la Lengua (variously translated as the Mexican Academy of Language, the Mexican Academy of the Language, the Mexican Academy of Letters, or glossed as the Mexican Academy of the Spanish Language; acronym AML) is the corr ...

, the Mexican Language Academy.

Partial bibliography

Lastra's published works include: * * * * * * * * *

References

External sources

* *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lastra, Yolanda Mexican Mesoamericanists Women Mesoamericanists Cornell University alumni 1932 births Linguists from Mexico 20th-century Mesoamericanists Living people Linguists of Mesoamerican languages Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages Linguists of Oto-Manguean languages