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The Office of Lingua: A Portrait of the Religious Tupi Interpreter in Brazil in the Sixteenth Century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Extract

In the above quotation, the Jesuit, Manuel da Nóbrega, chose a lingua (Gonçalo Alvares) as interlocutor for his Dialogue on the Conversion of Pagans The expression lingua (literally: tongue), in the sense of interpreter, or a person with a gift of oratory in Tupi-language, usually appears in Jesuit letters and catalogues as an attribute of some of its members. For example, in the catalogue of priests and brothers of Bahia, 1566, it is said that Gaspar Lourenco ‘acts as the lingua of Father Antonio Pires’, then vice-provincial of the Mission in Brazil. In another list of Jesuits in the Province of Brazil, in 1600, there are fifty-eight names qualified as linguas, almost one-third of the general members.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2001

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References

Notes

2 Manuel da Nóbrega, Dialogue on the Conversion of Pagans (Bahia 1556–1557) in: Leite, Serafim, Monumenta Brasiliae II (Rome 1956) 319Google Scholar.

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4 Leite, Monumenta IV, 364.

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9 Leite, Monumenta and idem, História.

10 Leite, Monumenta IV, 473

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26 Fernandes [1552], Leite, Monumenta I: 361–362.

27 Nóbrega [1552], Leite, Monumenta I, 370.

28 Leite, Monumenta II, 348.

29 Leite, História I, 575.

30 Leite, Monumenta I, 412.

31 Leite, Monumenta III, 66*.

32 Leite, Monumenta I, 353.

33 Leite, Monumenta II, 288.

34 Leite, Monumenta I, 292.

35 Leite, Monumenta III, 356.

36 Cortezão, A Fundação.

37 Nóbrega [1553], Leite, Monumenta II, 16.

38 Leite, Monumenta I, 209.

39 Ibid., 226.

40 Nóbrega [1553], Ibid., 457.

41 Leite, História II, 430.

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49 Leite, Monumenta I, 423.

50 Nóbrega [1557], Leite, Monumenta II, 418.

51 Leite, História IX, 24.

52 Leite, História II, 563.

53 Leite, História IX, 385.

54 Leite, Monumenta I, 479.

55 Leite, História VIII, 175.

56 Leite, ‘Jésuitas’, 2.

57 Leite, Monumenta II, 15.

58 Ibid., 117.

59 Ibid., 340.

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63 Leite, História IX, 439.

64 1556/Leite, Monumenta II, 352.

65 Ibid., 137 and 269.

66 Leite, História II, 556–557.

67 Leite, Monumenta I, 262.

68 Leite, História II, 560.

69 Ibid., 560.

70 Ibid., 557.

71 Leite, Monumenta I, 441.

72 Leite, História III.

73 Leite, História II, 546.

74 Blazques [1556], Leite, Monumenta II, 348.

75 Leite, História IX, 192.

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77 Leite, História II, 558.

78 Leite, Monumenta I, 423.

79 Leite, História II, 432.

80 Jacome Monteiro [1690], Leite, História II, 436.

81 Leite, Monumenta I, 440.

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