Lisandro Alvarado, the universal Tocuyo native
Lisandro Alvarado was born in El Tocuyo on September 19, 1858 and became one of the broadest minds of 19th-century Venezuela: physician, ethnologist, philologist and historian, all at once. Today the Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado (UCLA) bears his name.
Disciple of Montesinos
He studied at the Colegio La Concordia under master Egidio Montesinos, where he received the humanist training that would mark his entire work. He was, according to many contemporaries, the most brilliant disciple of La Concordia.
The Glossary of indigenous voices (1921)
His masterpiece. He catalogued for the first time words such as acure, baquiano, conuco, chigüire, lapa, totuma, yaguasa and hundreds more. It is a primary source of modern Venezuelan linguistics.
Other works
- "Ideas on the evolution of Spanish in Venezuela" (1903)
- "Phonetic alterations of Spanish in Venezuela" (1929)
- "Glossary of low Spanish of Venezuela" (1929)
- Translations of Herodotus, Titus Livius and Tacitus
Wandering doctor
He traveled through Venezuela on muleback for years, practicing rural medicine and taking notes on fauna, flora, customs and language. That field experience nourished all his ethnographic production.
He died in Valencia on April 10, 1929. UCLA has borne his name since 1962.