Chapter 3 Wide-Lensed Approaches to Missionary Linguistics: The Circulation of Knowledge on Amerindian Languages through Sixteenth-Century Spanish Printed Grammars
In: Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to PatagoniaSearch for other papers by Zanna Van Loon in
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Abstract
This article discusses different angles from which the phenomenon of missionary linguistics can be approached, making a basic distinction between wide-lensed (bird’s-eye perspective; context-focused) and zoomed-in (individual documents; content-focused) approaches (cf. Swiggers 1990: 21–22). To illustrate the significance of wide-lensed approaches, this article presents some case studies concerning sixteenth-century printed missionary grammars of American indigenous languages. First, it looks at the sixteenth-century production processes and dissemination of these language descriptions, making use of the historiographical concept of ‘circulation of knowledge’. Then, attention is given to the traditional models that influenced the linguistic conceptualizations of missionary grammarians.