Horacio Carochi was an Italian Jesuit priest and grammarian who was born in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, and died in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. He is known for his grammar of the Classical Nahuatl

Classical Nahuatl

Classical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...

 language.

Life

Carochi was born in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. He went to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 where he entered the Society of Jesus

Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

. From Rome he went to the New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

, arriving in New Spain

New Spain

New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

 (now Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

). There he dedicated himself to the study of the indigenous languages, and became proficient in Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

 and Otomi

Otomi language

Otomi is an Oto-Manguean language and one of the indigenous languages of Mexico, spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. The language is spoken in many different dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible, therefore it is in...

. He was a friend of the Bishop and later Viceroy of New Spain

New Spain

New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza

Juan de Palafox y Mendoza

Blessed Juan de Palafox y Mendoza was a Spanish archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church. He also held political office in the New World. From June 10, 1642 to November 23, 1642 he was viceroy of New Spain.-Early life:...

, as is documented by the letters existing today written by Carochi to the bishop.

Importance

Carochi had an acute understanding of the Nahuatl language and was the first grammarian to understand and propose a consistent transcription of two difficult phenomena in Nahuatl phonology

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

, namely vowel length and the saltillo

Saltillo (linguistics)

In Mexican linguistics, saltillo refers to a glottal stop consonant, . It was given that name by the early grammarians of Classical Nahuatl. In a number of other Nahuatl languages, the sound cognate to Classical Nahuatl’s glottal stop is , and the term saltillo is applied to either pronunciation...

. His Arte or grammar was seen as important soon after its publication, and as early as 1759 a version edited by Ignacio Paredes was issued. This version however lacks most of the virtues of the original work.

Today his original Arte de la lengua Mexicana

Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaración de los adverbios della

The Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaración de los adverbios della is a grammar of the Nahuatl language in Spanish by Jesuit grammarian Horacio Carochi...

is considered by linguists to be the finest and most useful of the extant early grammars of Nahuatl. He also wrote a grammar of the Otomi language

Otomi language

Otomi is an Oto-Manguean language and one of the indigenous languages of Mexico, spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. The language is spoken in many different dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible, therefore it is in...

, which is now lost.

Works

Of the works of Carochi only the Arte de la lengua Mexicana has been printed; the others exist only in manuscript form.

• Arte de la Lengua mexicana con la declaración de todos sus adverbios, printed in Mexico in 1645
• Vocabulario copioso de la Lengua mexicana
• Gramática de la Lengua Otomí
• Vocabulario Otomí
• Sermones en Lengua mexicana