Jorge Alberto Suárez (29 July 1927 – 24 February 1985) was an Argentine

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

specializing in Mexican

indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an indigen ...

s. He was born in

Villa María Villa Maria or Villamaria may refer to: Places * Villa María, Córdoba, a city in Córdoba, Argentina * Villa de María del Río Seco, another town in Córdoba, Argentina * Villamaría, Caldas, Colombia a town and municipality * Villa Maria (Lon ...

in the province of

Córdoba Córdoba most commonly refers to: * Córdoba, Spain, a major city in southern Spain and formerly the imperial capital of Islamic Spain * Córdoba, Argentina, the second largest city in Argentina and the capital of Córdoba Province Córdoba or Cord ...

in Argentina, and was educated in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, first as a high school teacher. Along with his first wife, Emma Gregores, from 1959 to 1961 he finished a doctorate at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, studying with

Charles 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 ...

. In 1968, he published his first book, a grammar of the

Guaraní language Guarani (Avañe'ẽ), also called Paraguayan Guarani, is a language of South America that belongs to the Tupi–Guarani branch of the Tupian language family. It is one of the two official languages of Paraguay (along with Spanish), where i ...

, coauthored with Emma Gregores, a reworking of his doctoral dissertation. He subsequently taught in Argentina until 1969 when he moved to Mexico where he married Mexican linguist Yolanda Lastra, his second wife. In Mexico, he dedicated himself to the study of indigenous Mexican languages, working conjointly with his wife he carried out extensive dialectological surveys of

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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

and he conducted in-depth field work of the

Tlapanec language Tlapanec , or Mephaa, is an indigenous Mexican language spoken by more than 98,000 Tlapanec people in the state of Guerrero. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, it is tonal and has complex inflectional morphology. The ethnic group themselves ref ...

(Me'phaa), writing the first full grammar of the language. In 1983 he published a widely influential book on

Mesoamerican languages Mesoamerican languages are the languages Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The ar ...

. He was also the editor of the monograph series ''Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de México''. In Mexico he was affiliated with

El Colegio de México El Colegio de México, A.C. (commonly known as Colmex, English: The College of Mexico) is a Mexican institute of higher education, specializing in teaching and research in social sciences and humanities. The college was founded in 1940 by the Me ...

(1969–1972), the department of linguistics at the

Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH, ''National Institute of Anthropology and History'') is a Federal government of the United Mexican States, Mexican federal government bureau established in 1939 to guarantee the researc ...

(1972–1975), the

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

(1975–1983) and again Colegio de México (1983–1984).

Selected writings

*Jorge A Suárez and Emma Gregores. 1968. ''A description of colloquial Guarani''. Hague: Mouton *Jorge A. Suárez. 1974. South American Indian languages. ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 15th edition, Macropaedia 17. 105–112. *Jorge A. Suárez. 1983a. ''The Mesoamerican Indian Languages''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Jorge A. Suárez. 1983b. ''La lengua tlapaneca de

Malinaltepec Malinaltepec is a city and seat of the municipality of Malinaltepec, in the Mexican state of Guerrero.Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI from its former name in ) is ...

''. México: UNAM.

References

Bibliography

* Linguists from Argentina 1927 births Mexican Mesoamericanists Cornell University alumni 20th-century Mesoamericanists Linguists of Mesoamerican languages Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages Linguists of Oto-Manguean languages 1985 deaths Linguists of Indigenous languages of the Americas {{Argentina-academic-bio-stub