Jesuitic Nahuatl and Colonisation Alphabétique

This project explores the language Nahuatl in a Jesuistic manuscript (1634) from the School of San Gregorio. Building on Serge Gruzinski’s colonisation alphabétique, we aim to analyze how scholars navigated colonial academic systems, embedding elements of Indigenous linguistic and cultural traditions into the dominant Latin discourse. This project seeks to study how indigenous epistemologies were both constrained and adapted within the colonial lettered city.

By integrating archival research, linguistic analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork, this project will offer a more decentralized and decolonial understanding of the intellectual contributions of Indigenous scholars within the Western systems of knowledge imposed in Latin American academia. It will challenge dominant narratives that marginalize these contributions, demonstrating how indigenous epistemologies persisted and adapted within the colonial structures of the lettered city. The resulting database and analyses will serve as a critical resource for rethinking the history of knowledge production in colonial Latin America.