Colonialism and Missionary Linguistics

by Klaus Zimmermann (Editor), Birte Kellermeier-Rehbein (Editor)

Overview

A lot of what we know about “exotic languages” is owed to the linguistic activities of missionaries. They had the languages put into writing, described their grammar and lexicon, and worked towards a standardization, which often came with Eurocentric manipulation. Colonial missionary work as intellectual (religious) conquest formed part of the Europeans' political colonial rule, although it sometimes went against the specific objectives of the official administration. In most cases, it did not help to stop (or even reinforced) the displacement and discrimination of those languages, despite oftentimes providing their very first (sometimes remarkable, sometimes incorrect) descriptions. This volume presents exemplary studies on Catholic and Protestant missionary linguistics, in the framework of the respective colonial situation and policies under Spanish, German, or British rule. The contributions cover colonial contexts in Latin America, Africa, and Asia across the centuries. They demonstrate how missionaries dealing with linguistic analyses and descriptions cooperated with colonial institutions and how their linguistic knowledge contributed to European domination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110403206
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	03/10/2015
Series:	Koloniale und Postkoloniale Linguistik / Colonial and Postcolonial Linguistics (KPL/CPL) , #5
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	276
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Klaus Zimmermann, Bremen University, Germany; Birte Kellermeier-Rehbein, Wuppertal University, Germany.
Klaus Zimmermann, Bremen University; Birte Kellermeier-Rehbein, Wuppertal University, Germany.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Part 1 General aspects

From missionary linguistics to colonial linguistics Thomas Stolz Ingo H. Warnke 3

Part 2 Africa

Missionary descriptions in a colonial context Clara Mortamet Céline Amourette 29

Case in selected grammars of Swahili Susanne Hackmack 51

The first missionary linguistics in Fernando Po Susana Castillo-Rodriguez 75

Imagined communities, invented tribe? Martina Anissa Strommer 107

Pre-colonial language policy of the Rhenish Mission Society perceived as the type of Gustav Warneck's mission doctrine? Stefan Castelli 129

Reducing languages to writing Cécile Van den Avenne 155

Part 3 America

Transculturation, assimilation, and appropriation in the missionary representation of Nahuatl Catherine Fountain 177

Connections between the scientific discourse and the frontier missions in surroundings of the Viceroyalty of New Granada Micaela Carrera de la Red Francisco José Zamora Salamanca 199

Examples of transcultural processes in two colonial linguistic documents Jebero(Peru) Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus 231

Index of Persons (including authors) 255

Index of Languages 261

Index of Subjects 263