Documentation:RelLex/Comanche Vocabulary: Trilingual Edition
Comanche Vocabulary: Trilingual Edition
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Language Name
Comanche.
Alternate Language Names
Nʉmʉ Tekwapʉ̲, Tekwapʉ.
Region
Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado, United States.
Who
Manuel García Rejón (Compiler); Daniel J. Gelo (Translator and Editor).
Others Involved
Andrés, unnamed woman (Language Consultants); Margaret Thomas/Wahaper Wahnee (Speaker); Robert M. Hill II (Translation Assistance); Thomas R. Hester (Series editor); Jesús Aguilar (Original Manuscript Publication); Brian Stross, T.N. Campbell, Gerald Poyo (Assistance); Adán Benavides, Oakah Jones, Bruce Shackleford (Bibliographic Assistance); Kim Sayre (Cognate Assistance); Raymond R. Baird, James A. Gross, Jane H. Hill, Elizabeth A.H. John, David P. McAllester, William K. Powers (Support); University of Texas San Antonio (Funding); Francisco Pimentel (Support of Original Manuscript and Opinion).
Publishing Information
This dictionary was originally compiled by Manuel García Rejón in Spanish and Comanche in the 1860s. After his death in 1864, Jesús Aguilar submitted García Rejón's manuscript for publishing. It was first published in Mexico in 1865 under the title Vocabulario del Idioma Comanche. It was republished in 1995 by the University of Texas Press, based on the second reprint by Imprenta de Ignacio Cumplido in 1866.
How People are Cited
People are cited on the title page and in the Foreword, Editor's Introduction, Opinion, and Prologue sections of the dictionary.
How Information is Cited
Speakers are cited by name, with the exception of one woman who was never identified, in the Editor's Introduction and Foreword. Scholars are cited in the Editor's Introduction. Previously published works are cited in the Bibliography.
Where is Information Coming from
This dictionary is an expansion of Manuel García Rejón's Vocabulario del Idioma Comanche (1865). García Rejón gathered this word list from two young Comanche speakers: a young Mexican man named Andrés who had been captured by Comanches when he was a child and assimilated into Comanche culture and language, and a young Comanche woman, unnamed, who had previously been held prisoner by a Mexican captain and was later "given" to García Rejón for language documentation purposes. Initially, García Rejón started out gathering words from Andrés in order to teach Andrés Spanish, but he quickly started to compile a vocabulary of Spanish-Comanche, continuing the work with the unnamed Comanche woman. These speakers are cited and described in the Editor's Introduction (written by Gelo) and the Prologue (written by García Rejón).
Daniel J. Gelo translated the second edition (1866) of García Rejón's Spanish-Comanche vocabulary, adding English to its languages and directionality, reorganizing entries in alphabetical order, and adding annotations and connecting observations made by García Rejón to modern scholarship and research. Gelo utilised speakers, scholars, and sources of Central Numic. People, including speakers and scholars, who helped with Gelo's work are cited in the Editor's Introduction, and previously published works are listed in the Bibliography.
Tools and Framework used
This dictionary is available as a physical and digital book.
Access
The physical book is accessible through libraries. This dictionary is also available to purchase from the publisher for $19.95 USD as an ebook or print book.
Included Languages and Directionality
English to Spanish to Comanche; English to Comanche.
Dialects Included
No dialect is specified for this dictionary.
Type of Dictionary
This is a trilingual, bidirectional word list.
How are Entries Organised
Entries in the English-Spanish-Comanche Vocabulary are organised alphabetically by English. Each entry includes the English headword, part of speech, Spanish translation, Comanche translation, cross references, a literal translation where applicable, and the reference (marked with an abbreviation of author(s)'s last name(s) and publication page number) for information in the entry that is not in García Rejón's original publication. Entries in the Comanche-English Vocabulary are organised alphabetically by Comanche, and they include the Comanche headword and the English translation. No other information is included in these entries.
Preceding the dictionary sections, there are several notes and opinions included by various authors. Thomas R. Hester (Series Editor) offers an explanation of this new edition's usefulness in the Foreword. Daniel J. Gelo (Translator and Editor) explains García Rejón's life, the compilation and publication process of the original manuscript, the process of reorganizing and adding English translations to the original publication, and various anthropological and linguistic descriptions of the Comanche people and language in the Editor's Introduction. Francisco Pimentel (Support for the Original Manuscript) offers a proposal for publication of the original manuscript in the Opinion. Manuel García Rejón (Compiler) explains his process of compiling this dictionary, a brief description of the Comanche people, and various images of pictographs in the Prologue. There is also a section (titled Various Observations) that briefly explains several grammatical and sound-related aspects of Comanche.
Other Features
| Feature | Included | More Information |
|---|---|---|
| Guide to use and understand | ❌ | There is a list of Abbreviations Used on p. 16 |
| Audio | ❌ | |
| Images | ❌ | |
| Example phrases | ❌ | |
| Speakers marked | ❌ | |
| Dialects marked | ❌ | No dialect is specified for this dictionary |
Other Notes
This vocabulary was initially compiled by Manuel García Rejón in the 1860s in Spanish to Comanche. Daniel J. Gelo included the English translation in the 1990s. This dictionary uses outdated and offensive terminology to refer to Indigenous peoples.
External Links
Reference the Comanche Vocabulary: Trilingual Edition on WorldCat: https://www.worldcat.org/title/467589438
This dictionary is available to purchase (both physical and digital versions) for $19.95 USD from the University of Texas Press: https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292727830/
A review by Jean O. Charney and Thomas W. Kavanagh (1996) in Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 38, No. 2 (requires institutional login or subscription): https://www.jstor.org/stable/30028937
A review by Brian D. Stubbs (1997) in International Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 63, No. 2 (requires institutional login or subscription): https://doi.org/10.1086/466329