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Important update:

I am moving the problem of translating this document to this other thread, which is the original thread that was asked in the History SE site and has now been migrated to Spanish Language and Usage SE. This thread can be safely closed. Thanks!

Original question:

I am trying to translate the following text written in old Spanish to modern Spanish (see this thread for more information on the nature of this document):

enter image description here

I think I have almost everything translated but there are three words that I still don't know what they mean (see them in bold):

Por estas preguntas se examinan los testigos en la __provança__ que hacen Juan Núñez y Alonso Núñez Salgero:

Primera:

Si conocen a los dichos Juan Núñez y a Alson Núñez Salgero, que el __dho__ Juan Núñez fuera de veinte y un años, mediano de cuerpo y una señal de quemadura en la cabeza. Y el dicho Alonso Núñez de diez y ocho años poco mas o menos, alto de cuerpo que le apunta el boco , de color rojo, y cuello negro. Y si conocen a los __dhos__., __Su__ Nuñez Salgero y Mayor de Vilches, su mujer, sus padres y conocen y conocieron, a Alóso"..

Also, if you happen to have read the original thread, but do you think is the purpose of this document? What type of exam is this? I know it's hard without more information, but unfortunately this is all I have for the moment :/.

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  • Could dho and dhos refer to dicho and dichos? And I guess what you understood as _Su_ is actually Juan. As for provança, I have no idea... Jan 13, 2013 at 11:27
  • See this meta post relating to this question.
    – Flimzy
    Jan 17, 2013 at 17:15
  • Note thatit is not "fuera" but rather "será" shortly after Juan Núnez, and the penultimate word is not Alóso but Alõso. The tilde was an abbreviation for a subsequent n so you'd interpret it as Alonso. The squiggle about the e in the final word is likewise an abbreviation for z. Jul 23, 2014 at 19:21

1 Answer 1

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The text seems to be a judicial/police probe (official investigation) about as I read in the original thread seems to be if they are of pure blood (not from muslim or jew descents). Actually, that is what "provança" seems to mean, which nowadays is "probanza":

(De probar).

  1. f. Averiguación o prueba que jurídicamente se hace de algo.


"Dho" apparently is an abbreviation of "dicho" used by clerks/copyists at the time:

Previo a la consideración de la evolución de las abreviaturas en el español del Jujuy colonial, observaremos varias abreviaturas que se reiteran en dos o más testamentos con idéntico procedimiento:

...
dicha = dha.
dicho = dho.
...

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