Mariano Larsen and the philology. Linguistic approaches to American history

Abstract

In this article we analyses three works of Mariano Larsen (1821-1894): teacher, translator, theologian and historian of broad participation in the Argentine intellectual sphere in the second half of the XIXth century. His publications –América Antecolombiana (1865), “Filología Americana. La lengua quichua y el doctor López” (1870) and “Apéndice sobre las lenguas quichua, aimara y pampa” (1882)– have historiographical value in at least three dimensions: first, because they are part of a series in which we identify Larsen’s philological work; second, because they show how the scientific world of nineteenth-century considered the rigorous methodology of historical-comparative linguistics; and, finally, because they are discursive practices that exhibit the way in what the science of language can be used for political purposes (Del Valle & Stheeman 2004, Ennis 2018, Battista 2019a). According to our observations, in order to explain the ethnic affiliations between the American Indians and the Asian and European peoples, Larsen resorted to linguistic comparison; specifically, through the reconstruction of Pelasgo-Greek, Sanskrit-Quichua and Araucano-Pampas words, he used the science of language to support his interpretations of the migrations. We consider that, by transforming “mythical names into words”, the philology practiced by Larsen was, following Agamben (1978) terminology, a kind of “critical mythology”.

Keywords

• Mariano Larsen, philology, comparison, XIX century, Argentina.