draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

the missionary or on the use of resources that allowed missionaries to carry out work in lenguas
particulares without having developed significant competence in the languages in question. These
strategies included practical language learning, the preparation of descriptive linguistic materials,
including grammars and dictionaries, the use of multilingual members of indigenous communities
as translators, and the preparation of ecclesiastical texts in indigenous languages.
The development of relative fluency in local languages was an ideal, and there are numerous
mentions in the Jesuit chronicles of missionaries known for their mastery of lenguas particulares. In
the first phases of Jesuit involvement with a given ethnolinguistic group, such learning relied either
on monolingual language learning (as was probably the case with Fritz when he first arrived in the
Omagua communities) or on learning from individuals bilingual in the lengua general Quechua and
the lengua particular of the community. This first wave of missionaries, however, put considerable
effort into the development of descriptive resources concerning the languages with which they were
becoming familiar, which were then employed by subsequent missionaries to speed their own learning
of the relevant lenguas particulares. It is likely that most Jesuits made some use of translators,
however, since even the most skilled language learner would have required time to develop fluency,
and in many cases, the duration of assignments at particular mission sites was sufficiently brief
that fluency was not a practical goal. The fact that many mission settlements were inhabited by
more than one ethnolinguistic group compounded the challenge to practical learning, of course. In
this context, ecclesiastical texts written in lenguas particulares served as crucial resources which
accumulated hard-won linguistic knowledge and allowed relative continuity in evangelical activity
despite the rather frequent rotation of individual missionaries in and out of particular missions.
In particular, these texts allowed missionaries with modest ability in the lenguas particular of a
given settlement to catechize its inhabitants and to perform prayers and masses without the need
to constantly rely on translators. The production of ecclesiastical texts in local languages was, as
we shall see, the fruit of extensive linguistic research, and a process of continuous tinkering.
9.2.1 Lenguas generales and lenguas particulares in Maynas
In this section we describe the Jesuit promotion of lenguas generales and the limits to the success
of this linguistic policy, which left a considerable need for the development of linguistic and
ecclesiastical resources in lenguas particulares.
The Jesuit promotion of lenguas generales focused on Quechua, 332 in which most, if not all,
of the Jesuits in Maynas appear to have been conversant (Chantre y Herrera 1901:94). 333 The
following passage, which follows Maroni’s ([1738]1988:168-169) discussion of the challenges posed
by the linguistic diversity in Maynas, clearly articulates the role of Quechua as a lengua general in
the Jesuit project there:
Por esto, nuestros misioneros, desde que se fundaron estas misiones, han tenido particular
332 It is not entirely clear what Quechuan variety (or varieties) were promoted by the Maynas Jesuits. Typically
referred to as ‘Inga’, some sources indicate that the language is the same as that used in Cuzco. This is unlikely,
however, both for geographical reasons (Cuzco Quechua was spoken quite distantly from Maynas) and because the
surviving ecclesiastical texts prepared in ‘Inga’ by the Maynas Jesuits do not exhibit orthographic reflexes of the
phonological features that distinguish Cuzco Quechua from more northerly varieties. The fact that many of the
Jesuits learned ‘Inga’ in Quito suggests that one of the languages involved was a variety of Ecuadorean Quichua,
while the fact that the center of gravity of the Maynas missions lay towards Huallaga and upper Marañon River
basins suggests that San Martín Quechua would have played an important role.
333 Other than Quechua, the other language which appears to have been promoted as a lengua general was Omagua
itself. There is only a single mention of Omagua serving this role, however, and its use appears to have been
limited to the Peba-Yaguan groups living close to San Joaquin de Omaguas during the latter decades of the Jesuit
presence in Maynas (Maroni [1738]1988:168-169).
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