Letters of Conversion

Meta-Alphabetic Discourse and Linguistic Participation in Colonial Highland Guatemala

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2286320
AutoresMallory E Matsumoto (0000-0003-3213-8760, The University of Texas at Austin)
Ano2022
Volume32
Fascículo1
Páginas28-51
Data de publicação2022-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Linguistic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1055-1360 • E-ISSN: 1548-1395
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jola.12309
OpenAlexW3169295480
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas60

The alphabets that Spanish missionaries developed in the sixteenth century to record Amerindian languages were intimately tied to the evangelizing and civilizing projects of colonialism. This article highlights the consequences of missionaries' alphabetic ideologies for engagement, in writing as well as speech, with native speakers of highland Mayan languages in Guatemala. In their alphabetic metadiscourse, missionaries juxtaposed Spanish-speaking learners and indigenous speakers in different and unequal roles for linguistic participation. Through close examination of missionary sources, I demonstrate that missionary ideologies of written language not only articulated script with speech but also delineated knowledge circulation and shaped the power dynamics implicated in language's actual use in colonial Guatemalan society

Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Latin American history and culture · Multilingual Education and Policy