Arte de la lengua mexicana Aldama y Guevara, José Agustín

Aldama characterizes his work in his prologue as a little work which is a proper and pure compendium (“compendio propio y puro, y casi puro Compendio de los Artes de lengua mexicana”). According to him, there is no doubt that his work is the best “Arte de Artes”, being “puntual, concisso, claro, comprehensivo, y methodico, and proporcionadissimo”. Aldama informs his readers that many predecessors made too brief introductions, so brief that important information was missing. He compares the work of some of predecessors as cookbooks (“Arte de cocina”) which deserve more carefulness (“cuidado y atención”). Nevertheless, his method does not include unnecessary terms which only cause more problems for the students (“que no son mas que terminos, para augmentar dificultad: Aldama 1754, “Prologo”, section V).