Manual Vocabulary of the Spanish and Mexican Languages: In Which are Contained the Words, Questions, and Answers Commonly and Usually Found in the Treatment and Communication Between Spaniards and Indians
This work, published in Mexico City in 1611, is the first edition of the most important and most frequently reprinted Spanish work on Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. It contains both a Spanish-Nahuatl (pages 1-100) and a Nahuatl-Spanish (pages 101-160) dictionary, in which the Nahuatl words are spelled out phonetically. Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, was written with a pictographic script. About 1.5 million people in Mexico still speak dialects of Nahuatl that are descended from the language spoken by the Aztecs.