Juan de Córdova

Juan de Córdova (born 1503, at Córdoba in Andalusia, Spain, of noble parents; d. 1595 at Oaxaca, Mexico) was a Spanish Dominican friar, known for his studies of the Zapotec languages.

In 1543, he entered the Dominican Order at Mexico and was sent to Oaxaca in 1548, where he acquired the Zapotecan idiom and ministered to the Indians.

Brought up under military discipline, he administered as provincial with such severity, that there were many complaints against him to the chapter that congregated at Yanhuitlan in 1570.

He composed a "Vocabulario de la Lengua Zapoteca, ó Diccionario Hispano-Zapoteco" (Mexico, 1571, or, according to Ycazbalceta, 1578).

Besides the linguistic part, this book contains note on the rites and beliefs of the Zapotecan Indians, and an account of their method of reckoning time, republished by Manuel Orozco y Berra.