Missionary Linguistic Studies From Mesoamerica To Patagonia

This volume presents the results of in-depth studies of grammars, vocabularies, and religious texts, dating from the sixteenth – nineteenth century. The researches involve twenty indigenous Mesoamerican and South American languages, including: Nahuatl (Mexico), Pukina (Peru); Tehuelche (Patagonia).

Preface -- The globe around Magellan -- The education of an adventurer -- The trajectory of a traitor -- The making and marring of a fleet -- The cruel sea -- The gibbet at San Julián -- The gates of fame -- The unremitting wind -- Death as advertised -- Aftermath and apotheosis.

This ambitious and ground-breaking book examines the linguistic studies produced by missionaries based on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America (and particularly Haida Gwaii) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Making extensive use of unpublished archival materials, the author demonstrates that the missionaries were responsible for introducing many innovative and insightful grammatical analyses. Rather than merely adopting Graeco-Roman models, they drew extensively upon studies of non-European languages, and a careful exploration of their scripture translations reveal the origins of the Haida sociolect that emerged as a result of the missionary activity. The complex interactions between the missionaries and anthropologists are also discussed, and it is shown that the former sometimes anticipated linguistic analyses that are now incorrectly attributed to the latter. Since this book draws upon recent work in theoretical linguistics, religious history, translation studies, and anthropology, it emphasises the unavoidably interdisciplinary nature of Missionary Linguistics research. As of January 2019, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.

Panare, also known as E'ñapa Woromaipu, is a seriously endangered Cariban language spoken by about 3,500 people in Central Venezuela. A Typological Grammar of Panare by Thomas E. Payne and Doris L. Payne, is a full length linguistic grammar, written from a modern functional/typological perspective.

When the first European missionaries arrived on other continents, it was decided that the indigenous languages would be used as the means of christianization. There emerged the need to produce grammars and dictionaries of those languages. The study of this linguistic material has so far not received sufficient attention in the field of linguistic historiography. This volume is the first published collection of papers on missionary linguistics world-wide; it represents the insights of recent research, containing an introduction and papers on methodology, meta-historiography, the historical and cultural background. The book contains studies about early-modern linguistic works written in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French, describing among others indigenous languages from North America and Australia, Maya, Quechua, Xhosa, Japanese, Kapampangan, and Visaya. Topics dealt with include: innovations of individual missionaries in lexicography, grammatical analysis, phonology, morphology, or syntax; creativity in descriptive techniques; differences and/or similarities of works from different continents, and different religious backgrounds (Catholic or Protestant).

A Grammar of Murui (Bue) by Katarzyna Wojtylak is the first complete description of Murui (Witoto, Huitoto) spoken in Colombia and Peru. It is an important contribution to the study of Witotoan languages and linguistic typology of Northwest Amazonia.

This book is a description of the present-day structures and diachronic developments of a so far little studied Jukunoid language spoken in the borderland of Nigeria and Cameroon.