Ethnophilologie

Abstract

My essay concerns two cases, two individuals, who lived at about the same time, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One is very well known: Garcilaso de la Vega, « El Inca ». The other is known only by specialists: John David Rhys. The first, the son of a Spanish soldier and an Inca princess, analysed his mother tongue using his father’s language, in which he wrote his historical works. The second, born in Wales, studied medicine in Siena, wrote on the Italian language (in Latin) and on the Latin language (in Italian), before devoting himself to the analysis of his mother tongue. A comparison between the two cases allows us to put forward some general reflections.

Keywords

• homonymy
• homophony
• translation
• Garcilaso de la Vega “el Inca”
• John David Rhys