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.