Yolanda Lastra

Who is Yolanda Lastra?

Yolanda Lastra de Suárez is a Mexican linguist specializing in the descriptive linguistics of the indigenous languages of Mexico. She obtained her PhD degree in 1963 from Cornell University, her dissertation written under the guidance of Charles F. Hockett treating the syntax of Cochabamba Quechua in Bolivia.

Lastra has worked with linguistic documentation and dialectology of the Nahuatl and Otomi languages and is recognized as a leading authority in the studies of Oto-Pamean languages in general. Her 1986 book Áreas dialectales del Náhuatl moderno is the single most comprehensive work on the dialectology of modern Nahuatl ever published.

Lastra is currently a senior investigator at the Institute of Anthropology and History at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México.