Renaming Vico’s Dictionary: Reconstructing the Textual Genealogy of the Vocabulario copioso de las lenguas cakchikel y 4iche

Abstract

Missionary dictionaries from Highland Guatemala are valuable resources on pre-contact culture and religion and the formation of Christian discourse in the Mayan languages. One of the lexical compilations considered to be particularly rich in information on Highland Maya culture is a Kaqchikel-K’iche’-Spanish dictionary that has traditionally been attributed to the famous early 17th-century Dominican friar Domingo de Vico. This article reconstructs the textual genesis of this trilingual dictionary and re-examines its authorship. Analyzing hitherto unnoticed intertextualities with other unedited Kaqchikel dictionary sources, it is shown that the process of compilation was multistaged and the K’iche’ entries were only integrated in the late 17th century. Textual evidence indicates that the dictionary is more likely of Franciscan than of Dominican origin. The article provides insights into missionary lexicographic practices and shows that mendicant authors copied from each other and modified lexical compilations according to their respective theories of translation.