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Descriptive and comparative research on South American Indian languages: Historical overview [Las investigaciones descriptivas y comparativas sobre las lenguas indígenas sudamericanas. Revisión histórica] by Willem Adelaar is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Descriptive and comparative research on South American Indian languages: Historical overview [Las investigaciones descriptivas y comparativas sobre las lenguas indígenas sudamericanas. Revisión histórica] about?

The extreme language diversity that was characteristic for South America must have been a challenge to native groups throughout the subcontinent, struggling to maintain commercial and political relations with each other. Due to the absence of phonetically based writing systems in pre-European times there is hardly any documentation about the way cross-linguistic communication was achieved. However, the outlines of a conscious linguistic policy can be assumed from the Incas’ success in imposing their language upon a millenary multilingual society. Secondlanguage learning, often by users of typologically widely different languages, must have been an everyday concern to the subjects of the Inca empire. Sixteenth-century chroniclers often report in a matter-of-fact way on the ease and rapidity with which native Americans mastered the language of their conquerors, be it Quechua, Spanish or any other language. Apart from such cases of political necessity, there are indications that language played an essential role in many South American native societies and that it could be manipulated and modified in a deliberate way. The use of stylistic speech levels among the Cuna (Sherzer 1983) and

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Author

Willem Adelaar

Publisher

De Gruyter De Gruyter Mouton

Published

2012

Language

EN

ISBN

9783110255133

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Linguistics, Language Learning, Literary Fiction