From Montoya to Restivo. Outlining a Systematic Study of Castilian-Guarani Vocabularies in Paraguay's Jesuit Missions (1640-1722)

Abstract

Despite their interest for Hispano-Amerindian philology, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya's and Pablo Restivo's "Vocabularios" (1640-1722) have not been studied systematically. They nonetheless stand as privileged witnesses of Jesuit linguistic policy in the Order's Paraguayan missions. Through a diachronic comparison of these two dictionaries, we develop both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of their content, driven by a relational database and a conceptual approach inspired by missionary linguistics. Three emblematic lexicographic phenomena of the 18th century are highlighted: the progressive recognition of native speakers' oral and written authority, the increasing hispanisation of cattle-related lexicon and the persistency of animist taxonomies and ontologies.