‘Alien’ Grammars: Quechua Dictionaries in the Aftermath of Castilian Conquest, 1535-1620

• In Event: Indigenous Historical Continuities in the Present

Abstract

In the process of teaching Castilian and converting indigenous groups to Christianity, Spanish priests in the New World incorporated indigenous languages into their own tongue. Beginning in 1590, Philip II reacted by passing a series of laws that reflected this discovery and revealed Castilian anxiety about “alien” native words from the New World entering into Castilian and turning it into a “foreign language” full of “vices” (Niederehe 1999).

These new laws meant to reform the way priests taught Castilian to natives and to control linguistic corruption (Niederehe 1999, Konetzke 1953). This paper uncovers the translating strategies that were used before and after these laws in the production of Quechua dictionaries by comparing vocabulary changes in Castilian, using Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás’s "Lexicón, o Vocabulario de la lengua general del Perú" (1560) and Diego González Holguín’s "Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el Perú, llamada lengua qquichua o del Inca" (1608).

This study emphasizes words related to conversion, Catholicism, the economy, and the tribute system and uncovers Spanish missionary practices regarding language acquisition and erasure, as well as indigenous points of resistance to the Spanish empire and its imposed Quechua-Castilian bilingualism. Using Voyant Tools in order to establish visual and trends in word repetition, this paper uncovers what methods Santo Tomás and Holguín used in their selection and translation of Quechua.

Author

• Marlena P Cravens, University of Texas at Austin