Dahlia Le Tourneau
May 19, 2026
Nice to meet you!
My name is Dahlia Le Tourneau and I am a current Ticha research assistant, funded to work this summer through a fellowship provided by the Hurford Center. My work will mainly focus on translating colonial Zapotec confessionals and focussing on parts of these texts that were ignored in various ways such as multiple verb choices that were translated to mean the same thing and entire words or sentences left out of the original contemporaneous Spanish translations
Getting started with translations
I have recently begun the translations that I will continue this summer, focusing on confessionals in colonial Valley Zapotec and translating them into modern English and Spanish. I am in no way an expert, just trying my best, so if any mistakes are made as I take part in this work please feel free to contact the Ticha team and let me know! Above all, I aim to ensure that my work focuses on the wants and needs of the Zapotec community. I will be constantly collaborating with community members this summer, and I am always open to feedback!
A bit of my work so far
So far, my work has been focused on a confessional found within the 1666 Miscelaneo Espiritual, en el Idioma Zapoteco, and I have noted many differences between the direct Zapotec translations and previous Spanish translations. I have noticed aspects such as lists of Zapotec words which were all translated to mean the same thing in Spanish and even entire words or ideas that were left out of the original Spanish translations!
This image shows a section of my translation in progress which I’m doing in the Colonial Valley Zapotec Flex database (Broadwell and Lillehaugen, 2026). One interesting part of this document is the use of “l” between multiple Zapotec verbs that seem to indicate a choice that the reader could take. If we had just relied on the accompanying Spanish translations, we would have missed these details. This work allows us to notice these details and pose questions such as: what could these different worship verbs mean? Something else that was flattened out within the Spanish translation is the mention of “rock deity” and “wooden deity” which had been completely excluded from the original translation, which collapses them into the term ‘Idolo’.
More to come
I enter into this project with both curiosity and a passion to learn about and benefit the Zapotec community. Please join me on this journey as I post updates on my work, this summer!
Resources and references
Works cited
de Agüero, Cristóbal. 1666. Miscelaneo espiritual, en el idioma zapoteco. México: Por la Viuda de Bernardo Calderon, en la calle de San Augustin.
Broadwell, George Aaron and Brook Danielle Lillehaugen. 2026. FLEx Database for Colonial Valley Zapotec (50,384 lexical entries, 738 texts), unpublished.
Additional Resources
https://ticha.haverford.edu/en/texts/aguero-miscelaneo/4/original
Credits and contributors
Published: May 19, 2026
Author: Dahlia Le Tourneau
Reviewed by: Brook Danielle Lillehaugen
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, the Ticha team and I can be reached at tichaproject@gmail.com