Indigenous Languages Collection, 1500-1899
Inscribed on the Memory of the World Regional Register for Latin America and the Caribbean in 2006 and on the MoW International Register in 2007, this set of 128 titles (166 volumes) produced between the 16th and 20th centuries for evangelization purposes, preserves the testimony of 17 languages from nine different linguistic families. Due to the Spanish mission to evangelize, missionaries were obliged to learn, record and study autochthonous languages to facilitate the task of evangelization. The main religious orders involved in this task were the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits. Many of their works contain precise phonological descriptions that are of great value to linguists, anthropologists and historians. In addition, the collection evidences the modification of languages spoken in the region of the Americas that extends beyond the current borders of the Mexican Republic. For this reason, the conservation and recovery of different languages is one of the most relevant aspects of the documents since the texts serve as an example to understand the development of linguistic historiography and historical linguistics.