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Accepted Paper:

Political concepts in guarani (XVIII-XIX)  
Capucine Boidin (Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)

Paper short abstract:

Jesuit missions in Paraguay (1609-1767) developed a written, christianised and colonized guaraní language. Since 1752, guaraní authorities used it in their administrative correspondence. During the independence wars, the Junta de Buenos Aires translated some documents into guaraní. We analyse them and propose a semantic history of political concepts in guaraní, such as teko Aguyjei or good way of life.

Paper long abstract:

Before the conquest, from the Atlantic coast to the Andes and from Amazonas to Río de la Plata, a language was either a lingua franca (known as a general second language by different groups) or a maternal language of an extended group, today called tupi-guaraní.

For the purpose of religious conquest, this guaraní oral linguistic continuum has been transformed into a quite homogenous, written, grammaticalised (Auroux), literary and christianised language during the seventieth century. The guaraní elaborated by Franciscans and Jesuits has been called a "new Christian language" (Melià) and could be compared with maya neologos (Hanks). During the eighteenth century, guarani authorities used this written, colonial guaraní in their correspondence with the Spanish administration. During the independence wars, the Junta de Buenos Aires translated proclamas and decrees into guaraní.

More than 130 documents have been located and are currently under analysis. Thanks to a bilingual (guaraní/Spanish) database and to international collaboration, we systematise their analysis and propose a semantic history of political concepts in guaraní, such as liberty, citizenship, and teko Aguyjei, or good way of life.

As we do not suggest equivalence between Amerindian language and Indian identity and culture, we will not try to identify what could be truly Amerindian or what is certainly Spanish. We argue that there was a "linguistic middle ground" in guaraní, a kind of "third space" between indigenous leaders and Spanish authorities (in both cases religious and political). As a medium and result of their historical interactions, conflicts, discussions and negotiations, a common political vocabulary in guaraní, embedded in religious and kinship vocabulary, emerged and was constantly reproduced. The history of this vocabulary and the existing interactions are at the core of our investigation.

By contributing to the external (social) and internal (semantic) history of language, we work at the intersection of philology, history of concepts, and anthropological history.

LANGAS, General languages from South America, quechua, guarani, tupi (XVI-XIX), is a research project, funded by ANR : http://www.iheal.univ-paris3.fr/en/recherche/anr-langas

Panel P51
Recent research on Latin America in France
  Session 1