Thelma D. Sullivan
Encyclopedia
Thelma Dorfman Sullivan was an American paleographer, linguist and translator, regarded as one of the foremost scholars in the 20th century of the Classical Nahuatl language. Significant works include a compendium of Nahuatl grammar
(1976), noted as the most comprehensive treatment of its day, and her translation of Bernardino de Sahagún
's 16th-century text known as the Primeros Memoriales
, completed by colleagues after her death.
Classical Nahuatl grammar
The grammar of Classical Nahuatl is agglutinative, head-marking, and makes extensive use of compounding, noun incorporation and derivation. That is, it can add many different prefixes and suffixes to a root until very long words are formed. Very long verbal forms or nouns created through...
(1976), noted as the most comprehensive treatment of its day, and her translation of Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain . Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years conducting interviews regarding Aztec...
's 16th-century text known as the Primeros Memoriales
Primeros Memoriales
The Primeros Memoriales is an illustrated Nahuatl-language manuscript compiled by the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún and his indigenous assistants in Tepepulco as the first part of his project to document pre-Columbian Nahua society, known as the Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva...
, completed by colleagues after her death.