Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America

ABSTRACT:

In 1495, Spanish humanist Antonio de Nebrija published a Castilian to Latin dictionary. It became a bestseller. Copies were carried across the globe, and they inspired new collections of words. From Europe to the Americas to Asia, the list of Castilian–Latin entries in Nebrija's dictionary was used as a model for new Castilian to second language translating dictionaries. Dictionary creators would take Nebrija's list of Castilian terms, drop (usually) their Latin translations, and replace those Latin translations with words from other languages. This essay considers how Nebrija's Castilian entry forms for 'history' (istoria), originally assembled to translate Latin temporal categories, were taken up and transformed in different missionary-linguistic situations throughout the world: Arabic in 1505, Nahuatl in 1555, Mixtec in 1593, and Aymara in 1612. These histories-in-translation reveal the different ways in which Nebrija's categories were followed, adjusted, expanded, and ignored—simultaneously illuminating alternative historical visions.