NOTES ON THE MANGUE;
An Extinct Dialect formerly spoken in Nicaragua.

By Daniel G. Brinton, M.D.

(Read before the American Philosophical Society, November 20, 1885.)

Sources. Nothing whatever has been published about the Mangue language, except a list of ninety-five words, by Mr. E. G. Squier in his work, “Nicaragua, its People, Scenery and Monuments.” Whence he obtained this short vocabulary he does not state; but it is evidently the work of some one only slightly acquainted with the character of the language. I do not make any use of it in the present notes, except in a few instances for comparison.

My authorities are, first, Don Juan Eligio de la Rocha’s Apuntamientos de la Lengua Mangue, MS. The author was born in Granada, C. A., June 15, 1815. By profession a lawyer, his taste led him to the study of languages, and he acquired a fluent knowledge of French, English and Italian. He was appointed instructor in French and Spanish grammar in 1848 in the University of Leon, C. A., and ten years later, 1858, published his Elementos de Gramática Castellana (Leon, 1858, small 4to, pp. 199). His death occurred in 1873.

While living in Masaya in 1842, he became interested in the surviving remnants of the Mangues, and undertook to collect materials for a study of their language. Unfortunately, he never completed these investigations, and many of the sheets on which he had recorded his notes were scattered. A few of them, however, were in the hands of his brother, Doctor Don Jesus de la Rocha, of Granada, who gave Dr. C. H. Berendt an opportunity to copy them in 1874.

NOTES ON THE MANGUE;An Extinct Dialect formerly spoken in Nicaragua.

NOTES ON THE MANGUE;
An Extinct Dialect formerly spoken in Nicaragua.