This third volume on Missionary Linguistics focuses on morphology and syntax. It contains a selection of papers derived from the international conferences on missionary linguistics held in Hong Kong/Macau and Valladolid. As with the previous two volumes (2004, on general issues, and 2005, on orthography and phonology), this volume looks at methodology and descriptive techniques from a historical point of view, offering articles of interest to historiographers of linguistics, typologists, and descriptive linguists. It presents research into languages such as Tarasco (Pur’épecha), Massachusett, Nahuatl, Conivo, Sipibo, Guaraní, Vietnamese, Tamil, Southern Min Chinese dialects, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Tagalog and other Austronesian languages, such as Yapese and Chamorro.

This is the second volume to be dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by the religious missionaries who, within the scope of the European colonial enterprises along the period 1550–1850, described dozens of autochthonous languages, many of which are only known today thanks to their endeavours. The twelve papers joint in the present volume — which dedicated special attention to the orthographical and phonological dimension of their work — provide a comprehensive picture of the descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre, notably: the difficulties faced before the less familiar features of these languages, such as vowel quantity, accentuation, tonality, nasalization, glottalization, ‘gutturalization’; the building of (re)definitions and the creation of a new metalanguage, like ‘saltillo’, ‘guturaciones’, etc.; The book elucidates the creativity and innovations proposed by individual missionaries and the instructive and pedagogical dimension of their work.

Annotation. "This is the second volume to the dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by the religious missionaries who, within the scope of the European colonial enterprises along the period 1550-1850, described dozens of autochthonous languages, many of which are only known today thanks to their endeavours. The twelve papers joint in the present volume - which dedicated a special attention to the orthographical and phonological dimension of their work - provide a comprehensive picture of the descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre, notably: the difficulties faced before the less familiar features of these languages, such as vowel quantity, accentuation, tonality, nasalization, glottalization, 'gutturalization'; the building of (re)definitions and the creation of a new metalanguage, like 'saltillo', 'guturaciones', etc; the creativity and innovations proposed by individual missionaries and the instructive and pedagogical dimension of their work."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When the first European missionaries arrived on other continents, it was decided that the indigenous languages would be used as the means of christianization. There emerged the need to produce grammars and dictionaries of those languages. The study of this linguistic material has so far not received sufficient attention in the field of linguistic historiography. This volume is the first published collection of papers on missionary linguistics world-wide; it represents the insights of recent research, containing an introduction and papers on methodology, meta-historiography, the historical and cultural background. The book contains studies about early-modern linguistic works written in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French, describing among others indigenous languages from North America and Australia, Maya, Quechua, Xhosa, Japanese, Kapampangan, and Visaya. Topics dealt with include: innovations of individual missionaries in lexicography, grammatical analysis, phonology, morphology, or syntax; creativity in descriptive techniques; differences and/or similarities of works from different continents, and different religious backgrounds (Catholic or Protestant).

This fourth volume on Missionary Linguistics focuses on lexicography. It contains a selection of papers derived from the Fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics held in Mérida, Yucatán (Mexico), 14th–17th March 2007. As with the previous three volumes (2004, on general issues, 2005, on orthography and phonology, and 2007 on morphology and syntax), this volume looks at the lexicographical production of missionaries in general, the influence of European sources, such as Ambrogio Calepino and Antonio de Nebrija, translation theories, attitudes toward non-Western cultures, trans- and interculturality, semantics, morphological analysis and organizational principles of the dictionaries, such as styles and structure of the entries, citation forms, etc. It presents research into languages such as Maya, Nahuatl, Tarasco (Pur’épecha), Lushootseed, Equatorian Quechua, Tupinambá, Ilocan, Tamil and Southern Min Chinese dialects.