WDavid Bowles is an American poet, translator and author.
WHoracio Carochi (1586–1666) was a Jesuit priest and grammarian who was born in Florence and died in New Spain. He is known for his grammar of the Classical Nahuatl language.
WFray Pieter van der Moere, also known as Fray Pedro de Gante or Pedro de Mura was a Franciscan missionary in sixteenth century Mexico. Born in Geraardsbergen in present-day Belgium, he was of Flemish descent. Since Flanders, like Spain, belonged to the Habsburg Empire and he was a relative of King Charles V, he was allowed to travel to the colonies of New Spain as one of a group of Franciscan friars. Gante's group in fact arrived before the 12 Franciscans normally thought of as the first friars in New Spain. In Mexico he spent his life as a missionary, indoctrinating the indigenous population in Christian catechism and dogma. He learned Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and composed a Christian "doctrina". One of his most significant contributions to Mexico was the creation of the School of San Jose de los Naturales. This was the first school set up by Europeans in the Americas.
WJoaquín García Icazbalceta was a Mexican philologist and historian. He edited writings by Mexican writers who preceded him, wrote a biography of Juan de Zumárraga, and translated William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. His works on Colonial Mexico continue to be cited today.
WFray Ángel María Garibay Kintana was a Mexican Roman Catholic priest, philologist, linguist, historian, and scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, specifically of the Nahua peoples of the central Mexican highlands. He is particularly noted for his studies and translations of conquest-era primary source documents written in Classical Nahuatl, the lingua franca of Postclassic central Mexico and the then-dominant Aztec empire. Alongside his former student Miguel León-Portilla, Garibay ranks as one of the pre-eminent Mexican authorities on the Nahuatl language and its literary heritage, and as one who has made a significant contribution towards the promotion and preservation of the indigenous cultures and languages of Mexico.
WLuz Jiménez or Luciana was an indigenous Mexican model and Nahuatl-language storyteller and linguistic informant from Milpa Alta, D.F.
WModesta Lavana Pérez was an indigenous Nahua healer and activist from the town of Hueyapan, Morelos, Mexico. She was recognized as an important activist for indigenous rights and women's rights in Morelos, where she worked as a healer and as a legal translator of the Nahuatl language for the state of Morelos. She was also an authority on local ethnobotany, and on the usage of the temazcal sweat bath. Her traditional wool weavings on the backstrap loom were well known within the state of Morelos, and received many prizes.
WBernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain. Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529. He learned Nahuatl and spent more than 50 years in the study of Aztec beliefs, culture and history. Though he was primarily devoted to his missionary task, his extraordinary work documenting indigenous worldview and culture has earned him the title as “the first anthropologist." He also contributed to the description of the Aztec language Nahuatl. He translated the Psalms, the Gospels, and a catechism into Nahuatl.