Marcos E. Becerra
Encyclopedia
Marcos E. Becerra was a prolific Mexican writer, poet, and politician. He produced pioneering historical
, linguistic
, philological
, and ethnographic
studies relating to his country's pre-Columbian
and early colonial
past. He held important posts in the Mexican Federal Government
as well as in the state governments of Tabasco and Chiapas
. He was a distinguished member of the Mexican Academy of History.
, to Camilo Becerra y Ballinas, a native of San Cristóbal de las Casas
, Chiapas
, and Luisa Sánchez Formento. Becerra completed his early schooling in his hometown. In 1900, by way of independent study, he received a teaching degree from the Instituto Juárez of San Juan Bautista. During his youth he worked as a bookbinder, scribe
, store clerk, theatre prompter
, and, eventually, teacher. One of his very first published works, Guia del lenguaje usual para hablar con propiedad, pureza y corrección, dates from this period (1901) and is based on his autodidactic studies of the Spanish language
.
Fame of his remarkable erudition spread quickly and he was encouraged to run in forthcoming elections for Federal Deputy
for the State of Tabasco, succeeding in his first attempt. During the final years of the Porfiriato he held the federal post of Director General of Secondary Education
of the Secretariat of Public Education. At the XVII International Congress of Americanists
, celebrated in Mexico City in September 1910, Becerra presented an important historical paper on Hernán Cortés's
1524-25 expedition to Las Hibueras. The next year, he returned to Tabasco to serve in Governor Manuel Mestre Ghigliazza's administration as Secretary General
of Government and as Director of Public Education; consequent to the assassination of President Francisco I. Madero
in February 1913 both Ghigliazza and Becerra resigned their posts in protest.
In 1914, Becerra moved to Tuxtla Gutiérrez
(the Chiapas state capital), where he would labor as an educator and occupy the same post of Director of Public Education for ten years; during which time he successfully reorganized the state's educational system, founded a school of commerce as well as the Internado Indígena de San Cristóbal (the San Cristóbal Indian
Boarding School
), which was a model of its kind. In 1921, while still in Tuxtla, he published an important lexicographical
work titled La nueva gramática castellana, which, like all his published writings, was the fruit of autodidactic erudition. In 1932, appeared what remains one of his best known scholarly works, Nombres geográficos indígenas de Chiapas, a study of Mayan
place names. To these followed sundry studies, published as monograph
s or articles, on the languages and traditions of the Ch'ol, Mangue
, Nahua, Yucatec Maya, and Zoque
.
In 1954, occurred the posthumous publication of Becerra's monumental 800 page Rectificaciones y adiciones al Diccionario de la Real Academia Española: a work which encompasses thousands of words and definitions, is rich in indigenous
etymologies
and grounded in lexicographical authorities.
Marcos E. Becerra, during the last ten years of his life, was a numerary
member of the Mexican Academy of History and held seat
21. He was married twice and was twice a widower, He died, following a long illness, in Mexico City
on January 7, 1940.
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, linguistic
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, philological
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, and ethnographic
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
studies relating to his country's pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
and early colonial
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
past. He held important posts in the Mexican Federal Government
Politics of Mexico
The politics of Mexico take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a congressional system, whereby the president of Mexico is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system...
as well as in the state governments of Tabasco and Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
. He was a distinguished member of the Mexican Academy of History.
Biography
Marcos Enrique Becerra was born in Teapa, TabascoTabasco
Tabasco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa....
, to Camilo Becerra y Ballinas, a native of San Cristóbal de las Casas
San Cristóbal de las Casas
San Cristóbal de las Casas also known as it's native Tsotsil name, Jovel is a city and municipality located in the Central Highlands region of the Mexican state of Chiapas...
, Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
, and Luisa Sánchez Formento. Becerra completed his early schooling in his hometown. In 1900, by way of independent study, he received a teaching degree from the Instituto Juárez of San Juan Bautista. During his youth he worked as a bookbinder, scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
, store clerk, theatre prompter
Prompter
The prompter in an opera house gives the singers the opening words of each phrase a few seconds early. Prompts are mouthed silently or hurled lyrically in a half-voice, audible only on stage...
, and, eventually, teacher. One of his very first published works, Guia del lenguaje usual para hablar con propiedad, pureza y corrección, dates from this period (1901) and is based on his autodidactic studies of the Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
.
Fame of his remarkable erudition spread quickly and he was encouraged to run in forthcoming elections for Federal Deputy
Deputy (legislator)
A deputy is a legislator in many countries, particularly those with legislatures styled as a 'Chamber of Deputies' or 'National Assembly'.-List of countries:This is an list of countries using the term 'deputy' or one of its cognates....
for the State of Tabasco, succeeding in his first attempt. During the final years of the Porfiriato he held the federal post of Director General of Secondary Education
Secondary education
Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
of the Secretariat of Public Education. At the XVII International Congress of Americanists
International Congress of Americanists
The International Congress of Americanists is an international academic conference for research in multidisciplinary studies of the American Continent. Established August 25, 1875 in Nancy, France, the scholars' forum has met regularly since its inception, presently in three year increments. Its...
, celebrated in Mexico City in September 1910, Becerra presented an important historical paper on Hernán Cortés's
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century...
1524-25 expedition to Las Hibueras. The next year, he returned to Tabasco to serve in Governor Manuel Mestre Ghigliazza's administration as Secretary General
General Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
of Government and as Director of Public Education; consequent to the assassination of President Francisco I. Madero
Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician, he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce...
in February 1913 both Ghigliazza and Becerra resigned their posts in protest.
In 1914, Becerra moved to Tuxtla Gutiérrez
Tuxtla Gutiérrez
Tuxtla Gutiérrez is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Chiapas. It is considered to be the state’s most modern city, with most of its public buildings dating from the 20th century. One exception to this is the San Marcos Cathedral which began as a Dominican parish church built in...
(the Chiapas state capital), where he would labor as an educator and occupy the same post of Director of Public Education for ten years; during which time he successfully reorganized the state's educational system, founded a school of commerce as well as the Internado Indígena de San Cristóbal (the San Cristóbal Indian
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
Boarding School
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
), which was a model of its kind. In 1921, while still in Tuxtla, he published an important lexicographical
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
work titled La nueva gramática castellana, which, like all his published writings, was the fruit of autodidactic erudition. In 1932, appeared what remains one of his best known scholarly works, Nombres geográficos indígenas de Chiapas, a study of Mayan
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
place names. To these followed sundry studies, published as monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
s or articles, on the languages and traditions of the Ch'ol, Mangue
Mangue
the word Mangue can refer to several things:*The Mangue Bit, a Brazilian music style.*The Mangue language, an extinct Oto-Manguean language of Nicaragua.*The Mangue people, who spoke the language....
, Nahua, Yucatec Maya, and Zoque
Zoque
The Zoque are an indigenous people of Mexico; they speak variants of the Zoque languages.This group consists of 41,609 people, according to the 2000 census...
.
In 1954, occurred the posthumous publication of Becerra's monumental 800 page Rectificaciones y adiciones al Diccionario de la Real Academia Española: a work which encompasses thousands of words and definitions, is rich in indigenous
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
etymologies
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
and grounded in lexicographical authorities.
Marcos E. Becerra, during the last ten years of his life, was a numerary
Numerary
Numerary is a civil designation for persons who are incorporated in a fixed or permanent way to a society or group: regular member of the working staff, permanent staff, or member, distinguished from a supernumerary....
member of the Mexican Academy of History and held seat
Chair (official)
The chairman is the highest officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office is typically elected or appointed by the members of the group. The chairman presides over meetings of the assembled group and conducts its business in an...
21. He was married twice and was twice a widower, He died, following a long illness, in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
on January 7, 1940.
See also
- Andrés BelloAndrés BelloAndrés de Jesús María y José Bello López was a Venezuelan humanist, poet, lawmaker, philosopher, educator and philologist, whose political and literary works constitute an important part of Spanish American culture...
- Miguel Antonio CaroMiguel Antonio CaroMiguel Antonio Caro Tobar was a Colombian scholar, poet, journalist, philosopher, orator, philologist, lawyer and politician.- Biographic data :Miguel Antonio Caro was born in Bogotá on November 10, 1845, and he died in the same city on August 5, 1909....
- Alfonso CasoAlfonso CasoAlfonso Caso y Andrade was an archaeologist who made important contributions to pre-Columbian studies in his native Mexico. Caso believed that the systematic study of ancient Mexican civilizations was an important way to understand Mexican cultural roots...
- Rufino José CuervoRufino José CuervoRufino José Cuervo Urisarri , was a Colombian writer, linguist and philologist.He studied Latin and Greek, but the main part of his work was dedicated to the study of the dialectal variations of Spanish spoken in Colombia...
- Joaquín García IcazbalcetaJoaquín García IcazbalcetaJoaquín García Icazbalceta was a Mexican philologist and historian. He edited writings by Mexican writers who preceded him, wrote a biography of Juan de Zumárraga, and translated William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico...
- Rosario María Gutiérrez EskildsenRosario María Gutiérrez EskildsenMaría del Rosario Gutiérrez Eskildsen was a Mexican lexicographer, linguist, educator, and poet who is remembered for her studies on the regional peculiarities of speech in her home state of Tabasco as well as for her pioneering work as a teacher and pedagogue in Tabasco and Mexico in general...
- Francisco J. SantamaríaFrancisco J. SantamaríaFrancisco Javier Santamaría was an influential Mexican writer and politician who is best remembered for his contributions to the study of Mexican literature and lexicography; he variously worked or published as a bibliographer, essayist, geographer, journalist, judge, lawyer, lexicographer,...
Published works
(List not comprehensive)- Guia del lenguaje usual para hablar con propiedad, pureza i corrección, 1901.
- Musa breve; sonetos, 1907.
- Nombres geograficos del estado de Tabasco de la Republica Mexicana; origen lingüístico, estructura original y significación de los nombres de lugares de Tabasco que no corresponden á la lengua castellana, 1909.
- Verdadero concepto de nuestra guerra de independencia, 1910.
- Itinerario de Hernan Cortés en Tabasco; determinación de los lugares que tocó el conquistador don Hernando Cortés a su paso por Tabasco, en su expedición a Hibueras, en 1524-1525, 1910.
- Los nombres del PalenquePalenquePalenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
, 1911. - La papaya orejona (Pileus pentaphyllus), 1921.
- La nueva gramática castellana. Cursos graduados para el estudio de la lengua castellana en las escuelas secundarias de la república, mexicana, 1921.
- Que quiere decir el nombre de Chiapas? (Estudio etimológico i geroglífico), 1922.
- Origen y significado del nombre de Yucatán, 1923.
- Palavicini desde alla abajo, 1924.
- Breve noticia sobre la lengua e indios tsoques, 1925.
- El huacalxochitl de Hernández en un petroglifo, 1925.
- Vocabulario de la lengua Chol, 1927.
- Nombres geográficos indígenas del estado de Chiapas. Catálogo alfabético, etimológico, geográfico, histórica i mitológica, de todos los nombres de lugar (poblaciones, parajes, comarcas, regiones, alturas, valles, rios, arroyos, lagunas, esteros, etc.) que estan en las lenguas nahoa, soque, chiapaneca, sotsil, sendal, chaneabal, mame, chol, maya i quiché, 1930.
- El antiguo calendario chiapaneco; estudio comparativo entre este i los calendarios precoloniales maya, quiché i nahoa, 1933.
- Crónica de Nueva España (Francisco Cervantes de SalazarFrancisco Cervantes de SalazarFrancisco Cervantes de Salazar was a Spanish man of letters.He was born and raised in Toledo. He first attended Alejo Venegas’s Grammar School and then studied at the University of Salamanca. In 1539 he accompanied Licenciado Pedro Giron to the Low Countries where he met, among other luminaries,...
; Francisco del Paso y Troncoso; Federico Goméz de Orozco; Marcos E. Becerra [editor]), 1914-1936. - La planta llamada quapaque o paque (correa guapaque, n. gen., n. sp.; trib. Dalbergiae. fam. Fabaceae), 1936.
- En defensa del idioma maya (polémica), 1937.
- Juegos precoloniales, 1945.
- Rectificaciones y adiciones al Diccionario de la Real Academia española, 1954.
External links
- http://www.acadmexhistoria.org.mx/miembrosANT/res_marcos_e_becerra.pdfMarcos E. Becerra by Miguel Leon-PortillaMiguel León-PortillaMiguel León-Portilla is a Mexican anthropologist and historian, and a prime authority on Nahuatl thought and literature.He wrote a doctoral thesis on Nahua philosophy under the tutelage of Fr...
] {es} - Marcos Enrique Becerra at bibliotecachiapas.gob.mx {es}
- Academia Mexicana de la Historia {es}