Portuguese missionary linguistics: linguistie thought and grammatical theory in Luso-Oriental works of the seventeeth century

Abstract

No que concerne á política de expansáo e difusáo do portugués, verifica-se, paralelamente ao ensino da lingua portuguesa, a aprendizagem das linguas das terras recém¬descobertas. Primeiro corno modo de catequizar na lingua irme e mais tarde como actividade válida per se, no ámbito da acgáo rnissionária dos missionários Jesuitas e Franciscanos. Assim Leve inicio o processo de teorizacáo gramatical sobre linguas náo europeias, que conheceu um momento decisivo de consolidack no século XVII, com gramáticas, dicionários e vocabulários escritos quer em portugués quer em latim.

The policy of the expansion and diffusion of Portuguese: in parallel with the precept of the Portuguese language, there was the learning of the languages of discovered lands. Firstly, it was an attempt to apostolise the mother tongue, and later, once gane the psychological era of the Crusades, it was a valued activity per se, within the scope of the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries' activities. Thus begun a process of grammatical disciplining of non-European languages. Setting out in the Portuguese Renaissance with a lexicography-type approach, this process was consoliciated in the 171h century, a decisive moment in the elaboration of arts and grammars, of dictionaries and vocabularies of Far East and Arnerindian languages, written in both Portuguese and Latin.