LISANDRO SANDOVAL: A brief biography

This biographical statement was written by Lisandro Sandoval’s son Mario Sandoval Figueroa on the occasion of the dedication of a public school named after his father. The school still exists at 7th Avenida and 14th Calle, Zone 1, Guatemala City. The English translation is by Laura Martin. (Last revision August 2006.)

Lisandro Sandoval, philologist, engineer and colonel, was born on 14 February 1862, in San Francisco de Ipala, Chiquimula, Guatemala. When the town was burnt during a military action, he immigrated to San Luis Jilotepeque with his parents, José María Sandoval and Trinidad Chinchilla.

In 1873 the government ordered all advanced students to study in Jalapa. Later he studied in Chiquimula, and in 1876 he went to the capital city, where, in 1880, he graduated as a primary teacher and holder of the title of bachiller. His sisters Adela, Carlota, Florinda, and Juanita were also known as distinguished teachers for many years.

From 1882 to 1883 he taught Grammar, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry in Chiquimula, and in 1884 he went to the capital to teach the same subjects at the Institute for Boys, adding Geography, Physics and Astronomy, Bookkeeping and Central American Geography.

The Engineer

In 1892 Lisandro Sandoval graduated as a topographic engineer from the national University of San Carlos, in half the time and earning credit in all his courses. For 17 years he worked in that profession in the northern and eastern regions of Guatemala, acquiring the extensive knowledge that permitted him to offer another service to his country: his contribution to the resolution of the border problem with Honduras, finally concluded in 1933.

His service in this arena began in 1910, when he was designated engineer to the border commission. He assisted in the border conferences in 1916 and 1917. In 1919, he became part of the North American scientific commission that conducted the economic analysis of the region, and in 1920, the government named him second head of the mission to meet with British engineers to establish the border between Guatemala and Belize.

In 1922 and 1928 he participated in another mission on the Honduran border issue, and in 1931 he visited Washington, D.C. as part of the mission to defend Guatemala’s rights before the International Appeals court that finally resolved the long-lasting dispute on 23 January 1933.

Next, he formed part of the commission that working on establishing the border between the two countries, from 1933 though 1937. In 1934 he was given full power to fix the common border between Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In spite of the tremendous importance of his contributions for the solution of these problems, and his many active years of his participation, there was never for him, nor for any of the other delegates, any official recognition. On the other hand, President Ubico, even though everything was accomplished under other governments, received a lifetime pension for the matter.

Other Services

While holding the rank of Captain, Sandoval monitored the borders with El Salvador and Honduras. He was part of an expeditionary group that operated in Jutiapa, Jalapa, Zacapa, and Chiquimula, and was Deputy Chief of Engineers in the campaign of 1903. In 1906, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he entered the campaign against El Salvador.

In 1920 he took part in the military campaign against the dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera, with the rank of Commander General of the Engineers and was later named General Staff Engineer of the Army.

He also served as political chief and commander at arms in Jutiapa; as road engineer; Director of Public Works; as Inspector General and Subsecretary (Vice Minister) of Public Education; as Subsecretary of Promotion; as Deputy to the 1927 Contribuyente; and as Director and founder of the Escuela Normal Superior, the first attempt to establish a School of Humanities, which was later suppressed by Ubico.

He belonged to prestigious scientific and literary associations, such as the Guatemalan Society of Geography and History, the Guatemalan Engineering Association, the Guatemalan Academy branch of the Real Academia Española, the Society of Geography and Statistics of Mexico, and the Cuban Geographic Society.

The Philologist

Lisandro Sandoval was fundamentally a teacher and humanist. From a very young age he recognized the importance to education of the best knowledge of Spanish and the correct use and meaning of its words.

He stated that from the beginning of the Law of Public Instruction in 1879 and 1882, “not all has been done… on behalf of the intellectual development of the nation,” and that the latest reforms to that law “do not respond to the needs of the century.”

He worried that the knowledge of the Greek and Latin roots of Spanish had been disregarded, and that Spanish grammar was hardly being studied in the first two years of secondary school, according to the official curriculum.

In order to allow the Ministry of Education to make such study obligatory for three years, along with grammar, he began a modest text that was later transformed into the monumental and internationally praised Diccionario de Raíces Griegas y Latinas y de Otros Orígenes del Idioma Español), which took him twenty long years of preparation, years robbed from his free time and moments of vacation.

His long-time dream became reality when, in June 1930, the first volume appears, dealing with Greek roots. In August 1931, the second part, dedicated to Latin roots and to words from sources other than Latin or Greek, appeared; the full work concluded with the publication of the third volume, an index, in November of the same year.

This voluminous work by the philologist Sandoval, and termed Herculean by no less than Miguel de Unamuno, consists of 2,480 pages in which he analyzes 2,541 Greek roots and 2,619 Latin ones. It considers in total the etymologies of 62,500 words, among them 4,752 that come from languages other than Greek and Latin.

Concerned with correct speech, he published in 1935 his Monografía Filológica, an examination of the correct prosodic pronunciation of 523 verbs that end in iar and uar, meanwhile patiently preparing his Semántica Guatemalense o Diccionario de Guatemaltequismos, completed in 1937 and published in two volumes, of 2,482 pages, in April 1941 and April 1942.

In this work he analyzes 32,000 words, proverbs, figures of speech, and popular expressions, “compiled with the exclusive aim of correcting, in general usage, the barbarisms, vulgarisms, and other vices of diction, as well as of structure and agreement.”

Sandoval hoped that his Semántica Guatemalense would enhance the knowledge of the standard expressions that correspond to the ones used in Guatemala. It thus constitutes and defines the expressive identity of the Guatemalan nation.

In his Diccionario de Guatemaltequismos he clarified the correct forms of badly used words and phrases and indicated which neologisms are appropriate or unnecessary. He resolved doubts with respect to the use of verbs and familiar phrases and illustrated less used technical and idiomatic expressions. He declared that the work “will be useful for studious persons, but above all to all professors and teachers, for whom it will help resolve the problems that each day present themselves and that often remain unresolved for lack of sources information.”

Even into his eighties, he still continued to worry about language issues. He completed his unpublished works: «Silabeo de Palabras Compuestas de un Prefijo Griego y Latino y una Dicción Española», «Compendio de su Diccionario de Raíces Griegas y Latinas», «¿Flúido, da? o «Fluído, da? » and «Varios puntos conexos y dudosos de acentuación » . He published his booklet «Remembranzas de Juventud » , and began another extremely important effort in philological research: his «Diccionarios de Nombres Geográficos Indígenas de Guatemala » , which lamentably he was unable to finish before his death.

Nearly Posthumous Recognition

The government of Juan José Arévalo decided to give Sandoval, together with the literary notables José Rodríguez Cerna and the poet Rafael Arévalo Martínez, a national homage. It consisted of a gold medal, a parchment, and a life pension of 300 quetzales a month. The ceremony was to take place on the second anniversary of the Revolution of 20 October 1944, but his precarious state of health prevented him from receiving it personally. And of the belated pension, he was only able to receive the payment for November. His eyes closed forever on 7 December 1946, two months and one week before his 85th birthday. A few years later, an evening session primary school was given his name.

Lisandro Sandoval, one of the clearest minds in Guatemala, lived and died poor in monetary goods. With an innate and irreducible integrity as the guide for all his actions, he never took advantage for personal gain of the various public positions he held. His natural goodness and simplicity always made him lavish with others, both materially and spiritually, without expecting any recompense, convinced that in life it is better to give than to receive.

His first marriage was to Luz Dardón and his second to Elvira Sagastume. His children were Carlos Alberto Sandoval Vásquez, María del Carmen Sandoval Dardón, Lisandro Sandoval Dardón, Víctor Manuel Sandoval y Sandoval, Berta Sandoval y Sandoval de Mathus, Mario Sandoval Figueroa and Julio Sandoval Cámbara.