Librado Silva Galeana: Google Doodle celebrates Mexican translator’s 78th birthday

Google Doodle commends the 78th birthday celebration of Mexican translator, teacher, researcher, and author Librado Silva Galeana on August 17, 2020.

Who was Librado Silva Galeana?

Librado Silva Galeana was born on August 17, 1942, in Santa Ana Tlacotenco, Mexico. He was a specialist in the antiquated Nahuatl language that was spoken within Mexico’s Aztek and Toltec civilizations. Galeana is generally known for his Spanish translation of a 16th-century collection of Nahuatl oral history called Huehuetlahtolli: Testimonies of the Old Word, notwithstanding numerous other Nahuatl poems and stories that typify Mexico’s rich history and culture.

His parents were both Nahuatl speakers and passed the language down to Galeana. Filled by a love of linguistics, he studied to become a teacher and devoted quite a bit of his academic work to the conservation and promotion of his mother language of Nahuatl.

At the point when Librado Silva Galeana was youthful, he studied the career of a normalista teacher and dedicated quite a long while to teaching, which he later proceeded until graduating from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM with a career in Latin American Studies.

Subsequent to completing his career at UNAM, Librado Silva Galeana concentrated for the most part on the language and culture of old Mexico and published writings in Spanish as “Huehuehtlahtolli, testimonios de la antigua palabra”, which were gathered by Andrés de Olmos around 1535, or “El náhuatl en el español de México”, which was composed by maestro Carlos Montemayor.

In the mid-1970s, Librado Silva Galeana worked together with fellow Nahuatl teachers to establish the Ignacio Ramírez Social and Cultural Circle, a group named after the renowned 19th-century Mexican author and devoted to the study of the language. All through his career, Galeana carried on Ramírez’s inheritance of supporting indigenous languages and information. He contributed his ability in Nahuatl to a variety of scholarly research to build up a deeper comprehension of the indigenous legacy that assisted with molding modern Mexico.

In acknowledgment of his endeavors to conserve the Nahuatl language and culture, Galeana was awarded the Nezahualcóyotl Prize for Indigenous Languages by Mexico’s Federal District Department in 1994.

Librado Silva Galeana’s demise occurred in 2014, however during his life he abandoned stories and investigations. He as well as partook in forums and meetings to safeguard the Nahuatl culture, in delegations all through the Mexican Republic.

On August 17, 2020, Google Doodle, painted by Chihuahua-based visitor artist Raul Urias, celebrates Librado Silva Galeana’s 78th Birthday.