Revendo uma das críticas às descrições missionárias

Abstract

This paper discusses a continuously repeated statement aboutthe traditional grammatical descriptions which says that theyreduced the structures of all languages to the structure of Latin.The discussion is based on the analysis of three languagedescriptions written in the 17th century by Jesuitical missionaries.From these grammatical works a different sense for the expression“identical to Latin” emerges: a set of structural aspects to whichthe grammarian could not fail to give attention.

Keywords

• Greek and Latin grammatical tradition
• Missionary grammars
• 17th century
• Society of Jesus
• Manuel Álvares
• Vernacular languages and standard languages
• Pedro Dias
• Ludovico Vicenzo Mamiani della Rovere
• Heinrich Roth.