A Paleographic Guide to Spanish Abbreviations 1500-1700

Abstract

A Paleographic Guide to Spanish Abbreviations 1500-1700 is a powerful tool for correctly identifying hundreds of abbreviations found in the hand written documents of the Spanish colonial period. The Guide is concise, easy to use and of a very manageable size. All of the abbreviations were scanned from photo copies of extant Spanish documents written between the years 1500 and 1700 and are presented in their original handwriting. Together with each abbreviation is a printed display of the letters represented, the full spelling of the word or words in early modern Spanish and the current Spanish spelling. Over one thousand abbreviations from a wide variety of sources demonstrate the various handwriting styles of the period.

The format of the Guide was planned to assist a variety of users, among them serious Spanish paleographers, graduate students doing research for dissertations and genealogist. It will also serve as an adjunct text for university level courses in history of the Spanish language, Spanish historical linguistics and Spanish paleography.

About the Author

Graduated from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque with a Masters Degree in Latin American Studies.

Served as an intern for eighteen months on the Vargas Project of the University of New Mexico, transcribing nearly one thousand document pages of late seventeenth-century Spanish. While working on the project, wrote a training manual: A Transcription Manual for Early Modern Spanish.

Has studied at a number of Manuscript Archives both in the USA and in Latin America as well as the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain. As an independent scholar is currently transcribing documents, some of which have never previously been studied, from the earliest period of Spanish colonization in the New World.