» 
612 NORTH AMERICAN LINGUISTICS. 
Moran {Eev. Francisco) — continued. 
This is a duplicate of the preceding Arte, diifering from it, however, in sev- 
eral particulars, being more full and accurate. They both seem to be copies of 
the original of Moran, not the one of the other. 
After the Libro follow eight leaves of questions and answers at the confessional 
&c., in Cholti. On p. 77 commences: 
Confessiouario en lengua | cholti, escrito en el pue | bio de san 
lucar salac de | el cliol, ano do 1685 : 
Three leaves ending with a catchword, indicating that it is but a fragment. 
The remaining leaves are occupied by a vocabulary, Spanish and Cholti, 
chiefly on the rectos only. At the commencement is the following marginal 
note : 
Todo el Vocabulario grande de no. M. E. P.* fr. fran"° moran esta 
tra Dusido en este libro, Por el ABesedario, i algunos bocablos mas. 
The colophon is : 
En este pueblo de lacandones llamado de Nta Seiiora de los do- 
lores en 24 de Junio dia de S.'' Juan de 1695 ailos. 
We have here therefore two copies of the grammar and one of the vocabulary 
of the Dominican missionary, Francisco Moran, referred to by Father Francisco 
Vasquez in his Cronica (1714) as written in the characters invented by the Fran- 
ciscan friar, Francisco de la Parra (about 1550), to express the five pecular conso- 
nants of the Maya group of languages. These are modifications of k, p, ch, t, 
and tz.' Both these copyists have, however, adopted Roman letters. 
Neither the original nor any other copies are known to exist, nor any other 
work in the Cholti dialect, though a certain Father C6rdoba also wrote a gram- 
mar of It.^ It has even been uncertain whether the Cholti was an independent 
dialect. It is not mentioned at all in Ludewig's "Literature of American Abo- 
riginal languages," and Mr. Squier gives the title of Moran'a work from Vasquez 
thus: Arte de la Lengua Cholti (Chorti?).' The Chorti, however, was spoken 
in Chiquimula and vicinity, while the Cholti, Choi, or Putum, was the dialect 
of the village of Belen in Vera Paz, of parts of Chiapas, and generally of the 
eastern Lacandones among the mountains between the former province and 
Guatemala. The name chol means cornfield, in Mexican Spanish milpa, and 
ahchoIoT) or cholti owners or cultivators of cornfields, mitperos. From the short 
vocabulary of Chorti collected by Mr. Stevens at Zacapa it appears to be farther 
than the Cholti from p re Maya. 
The grammar of Moran is succinct, clear, and comprehensive, and eminently 
deserves publication, together with selections from the vocabulary. I have made 
a careful cojjy of it for my own use and have found it of great service as illus- 
trating certain points of growth in these idioms, for instance, with reference to 
the development of the personal pronouns, recently discussed in a scholarly essay 
by M. de Charenceyji and affording some additional illustration of the "vowel 
echo," I'^cho vocalique of the Maya dialects, to which the same writer has called 
attention as analogous to the law of the harmonic sequence of vowels common 
in Scythian languages.^ — Brinton. 
' I have also noticed the occasional use in these manuscripts of a peculiar 
vowel sound represented by an i with a diacritical mark beneath it. 
' Pimentel : Cuadro Descriptive de las Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico, t. ii, 
p. 234. C<5rdob;i is not mentioned by Mr. Squier. 
^Monograph of Authors, &c. p. 38., 
■■ Le pronom personnel dans les idiomes de la famille Tapachulane-Huast&que. 
Caen, 1868. 
^ Etude comparative sur les langues de la famille Maya-Quiche. Revue Am6- 
ricaiue, tome i. 
