Colonialism and Missionary Linguistics

Colonialism and Missionary Linguistics

Author: Klaus Zimmermann

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 3110403161

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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.


Colonialism and Missionary Linguistics

Colonialism and Missionary Linguistics

Author: Klaus Zimmermann

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 311040320X

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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.


Linguistics in a Colonial World

Linguistics in a Colonial World

Author: Joseph Errington

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2010-04-30

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1444329057

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Drawing on both original texts and critical literature, Linguistics in a Colonial World surveys the methods, meanings, and uses of early linguistic projects around the world. Explores how early endeavours in linguistics were used to aid in overcoming practical and ideological difficulties of colonial rule Traces the uses and effects of colonial linguistic projects in the shaping of identities and communities that were under, or in opposition to, imperial regimes Examines enduring influences of colonial linguistics in contemporary thinking about language and cultural difference Brings new insight into post-colonial controversies including endangered languages and language rights in the globalized twenty-first century


Unscripted America

Unscripted America

Author: Sarah Rivett

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 0190492562

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Unscripted America reconstructs an archive of indigenous language texts in order to present a new and wholly unique account of their impact on philosophy and US literary culture.


Aspects of (Post)Colonial Linguistics

Aspects of (Post)Colonial Linguistics

Author: Daniel Schmidt-Brücken

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-01-15

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 3110436906

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Research in Colonial and Postcolonial Linguistics has experienced a significant increase in contributions from varying fields of language studies, gaining the attention of scholars from all over the world. This volume aims to showcase the variety of topics relevant to the study of language(s) in colonial, postcolonial and decolonial contexts. A main reason of this variety is that the new paradigm invites and necessitates research on different subject matters such as language typology, grammar and cross-linguistics, meta-linguistics and research on language ideology, discourse analysis and pragmatics. The contributions of this volume are selected, peer-reviewed papers which were partly invited and partly given at the First Bremen Conference on Colonial and Postcolonial Linguistics, held in September 2013.


Africa in Translation

Africa in Translation

Author: Sara Pugach

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2012-01-03

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0472117823

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"Africa in Translation is a thoughtful contribution to the literature on colonialism and culture in Germany and will find readers in the fields of German history and German studies as well as appealing to audiences in the large and interdisciplinary fields of colonialism and postcolonialism." ---Jennifer Jenkins, University of Toronto The study of African languages in Germany, or Afrikanistik, originated among Protestant missionaries in the early nineteenth century and was incorporated into German universities after Germany entered the "Scramble for Africa" and became a colonial power in the 1880s. Despite its long history, few know about the German literature on African languages or the prominence of Germans in the discipline of African philology. In Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814--1945, Sara Pugach works to fill this gap, arguing that Afrikanistik was essential to the construction of racialist knowledge in Germany. While in other countries biological explanations of African difference were central to African studies, the German approach was essentially linguistic, linking language to culture and national identity. Pugach traces this linguistic focus back to the missionaries' belief that conversion could not occur unless the "Word" was allowed to touch a person's heart in his or her native language, as well as to the connection between German missionaries living in Africa and armchair linguists in places like Berlin and Hamburg. Over the years, this resulted in Afrikanistik scholars using language and culture rather than biology to categorize African ethnic and racial groups. Africa in Translation follows the history of Afrikanistik from its roots in the missionaries' practical linguistic concerns to its development as an academic subject in both Germany and South Africa throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sara Pugach is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Jacket image: Perthes, Justus. Mittel und Süd-Afrika. Map. Courtesy of the University of Michigan's Stephen S. Clark Library map collection.


Found in Translation

Found in Translation

Author: Laura Rademaker

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2018-04-30

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0824873580

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Found in Translation is a rich account of language and shifting cross-cultural relations on a Christian mission in northern Australia during the mid-twentieth century. It explores how translation shaped interactions between missionaries and the Anindilyakwa-speaking people of the Groote Eylandt archipelago and how each group used language to influence, evade, or engage with the other in a series of selective “mistranslations.” In particular, this work traces the Angurugu mission from its establishment by the Church Missionary Society in 1943, through Australia’s era of assimilation policy in the 1950s and 1960s, to the introduction of a self-determination policy and bilingual education in 1973. While translation has typically been an instrument of colonization, this book shows that the ambiguities it creates have given Indigenous people opportunities to reinterpret colonization’s position in their lives. Laura Rademaker combines oral history interviews with careful archival research and innovative interdisciplinary findings to present a fresh, cross-cultural perspective on Angurugu mission life. Exploring spoken language and sound, the translation of Christian scripture and songs, the imposition of English literacy, and Aboriginal singing traditions, she reveals the complexities of the encounters between the missionaries and Aboriginal people in a subtle and sophisticated analysis. Rademaker uses language as a lens, delving into issues of identity and the competition to name, own, and control. In its efforts to shape the Anindilyakwa people’s beliefs, the Church Missionary Society utilized language both by teaching English and by translating Biblical texts into the native tongue. Yet missionaries relied heavily on Anindilyakwa interpreters, whose varied translation styles and choices resulted in an unforeseen Indigenous impact on how the mission’s messages were received. From Groote Eylandt and the peculiarities of the Australian settler-colonial context, Found in Translation broadens its scope to cast light on themes common throughout Pacific mission history such as assimilation policies, cultural exchanges, and the phenomenon of colonization itself. This book will appeal to Indigenous studies scholars across the Pacific as well as scholars of Australian history, religion, linguistics, anthropology, and missiology.


Contracting Colonialism

Contracting Colonialism

Author: Vicente L. Rafael

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780822313410

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In an innovative mix of history, anthropology, and post-colonial theory, Vicente L. Rafael examines the role of language in the religious conversion of the Tagalogs to Catholicism and their subsequent colonization during the early period (1580-1705) of Spanish rule in the Philippines. By tracing this history of communication between Spaniards and Tagalogs, Rafael maps the conditions that made possible both the emergence of a colonial regime and resistance to it. Originally published in 1988, this new paperback edition contains an updated preface that places the book in theoretical relation to other recent works in cultural studies and comparative colonialism.


Missionary Linguistics V / Lingüística Misionera V

Missionary Linguistics V / Lingüística Misionera V

Author: Otto Zwartjes

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2014-04-15

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9027270589

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The object of this volume is the study of missionary translation practices which occur within a colonial context of political domination and spiritual conquest. Missionary translation becomes especially manifest in bilingual ethnographic descriptions, in (bilingual) catechisms and in the missionaries’ lexicographic condensation of bilingual dictionaries. The study of these instances permits the analysis and interpretation of their guiding principles, their translation practice and underlying reasoning. It also permits the modern linguist to discern semantic changes that can be revealed in these missionary translations over certain periods. Up to now there has hardly been any study available that focuses on translation in missionary sources, of the different traditions in the Americas or Asia. This book will fill this gap, addressing the legacy of missionary translation practices and theories, the role of translation in evangelization and its particular form in the context of colonialism, the creation of loans from Spanish or Latin or equivalents or paraphrases in the indigenous languages in texts and dictionaries as translation strategies followed in bilingual editions. The process of acculturation and transculturation imposed by European religious systems is noted. This volume presents research on languages such as Nahuatl, Tarascan (Pur’épecha), Zapotec, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, Pangasinán, and other Austronesian languages from the Philippines.


Grammars of Colonialism

Grammars of Colonialism

Author: Rachael Gilmour

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2006-10-10

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0230286852

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The study of languages was crucial to colonial power in 18th and 19th-century South Africa. This important book examines representations of the South African Bantu languages Xhosa and Zulu, revealing the ways in which colonial linguistics contributed to both the making of the colonial order and to instabilities at the heart of the project.