Os jesuítas e suas atividades linguísticas no Brasil

Abstract

This work deals with the Jesuits' linguistic activities in Brazil, in the period which starts in 1550 and finishes in 1621. It is of fundamental importance and relies upon evident basis of historical and linguistic values among them we can enphasize the works which present the codification on the Indian linguistic reality- the Grammar by José de Anchieta and that by Luiz Figueira - and the epistolary narratives collected in the volume of Cartas Avulsas, issued in Rio de Janeiro, in 1931, had its introductory step in the Brazilian Academy of Letters. These Cartas ... , important sources of subsidy to the study and description of the Portuguese language in Brazil in the sixteenth century, reveal, in general, the multiple missionary actions, and, in particular, two kinds oflinguistic activities in the cathectic process: the "interpretation" in the form of "paralell translation", not "simultaneous translation" yet, and the very translation as it is known; they testify, besides that, in opposition to "thesis of artificiality'', the "naturality" of the so called "língua oral". In short, it is considered the following questions: a) the Jesuits and the strategies of the cathectic process; b) the different kinds of "linguistic activities" identified in the referred process; c) some di:fferences between the two products of grammatical systematization; and d) the controversy of "artificiality'' or "naturality" of the language or of the languages codified.