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Contreras, Rafael (¿?-1866-¿?)
Record details
Vida
Rafael Contreras fue un sacerdote guatemalteco del siglo XIX. La vida de este autor es un completo enigma. Solo sabemos que, según consta en la cubierta del manuscrito Vocabulario de la lengua mam, fue cura de la localidad de Chiantla (departamento de Huehuetenango, Guatemala) en torno a 1866.
Su trabajo filológico se redujo a la composición manuscrita de una pequeña nomenclatura de la lengua man, un dialecto del maya hablado en el noroeste de Guatemala. Este pequeño repertorio consta de 100 entradas, ordenadas por campos semánticos, con una microestructura muy elemental: solo se incluye el lema en español y su traducción a la mencionada lengua amerindia. Este texto, que estaba originalmente en poder del historiador, paleógrafo y archivero guatemalteco Juan Gavarrete Escobar (1829-1882), fue copiado en 1875 por el mayista alemán Carl H. Berendt (1817-1878) con el título de Vocabulario de la lengua mam (por D. Rafael Contreras, Cura de Chiantla, 1886). Esta última copia fue vendida al arqueólogo y lingüista estadounidense Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-1899), en cuya biblioteca particular se custodió; a su muerte, todo su legado fue cedido a la University of Pennsylvania, institución que atesora en la actualidad este documento.
Obra
- Vocabulario de la lengua mam, manuscrito.
Bibliografía
- Valle, Rafael Heliodoro, Bibliografía maya. 1937-1941, Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, Ciudad de México, 1941, en varios lugares.
- Weeks, John M., The Library of Daniel Garrison Brinton, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Filadelfia, 2002, pág. 126.
Jaime Peña Arce
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