What is it about?
This chapter outlines important elements of early modern linguistics, as they informed seventeenth-century theories of universal languages. Then, it shows how evidence gathered by missionary linguists in the Americas both supported the extension of European empires and challenged some of their most central theories of language.
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Why is it important?
We often tend to focus on the stark theological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism in the early modern period -- a time in which these kinds of religious differences sparked violent conflicts across Europe and the Americas. But when viewed from the perspective of missionary language learners and their indigenous instructors in the New World, the practices of linguistic accommodation that aided in the work of spiritual conversion and contributed to early modern theories of universal communication appear more similar than different.
Perspectives
https://books.google.com/books?id=3DQyDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Allison Bigelow
University of Virginia
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This page is a summary of: Imperial Translations: New World Missionary Linguistics, Indigenous Interpreters, and Universal Languages in the Early Modern Era, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/9781316182253.006.
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