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On the Colonization of Amerindian Languages and Memories: Renaissance Theories of Writing and the Discontinuity of the Classical Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Walter D. Mignolo
Walter D. Mignolo
Affiliation:
The University of Michigan
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Extract

When George Balandier proposed his theoretical approach to a colonial situation, the colonization of language was not an issue that piqued the interest of scholars in history, sociology, economics, or anthropology, which were the primary disciplines targeted in his article. When some fifteen years later Michel Foucault underlined the social and historical significance of language (‘l'énoncé*’) and discursive formation, the colonization of language was still not an issue to those attentive to the archaeology of knowledge. Such an archaeology, founded on the paradigmatic example generally understood as the Western tradition, overlooked the case history in which an archaeology of discursive formation would have led to the very root of the massive colonization of language which began in the sixteenth century with the expansion of the Spanish and Portuguese empires.

Type
Colonial Conversions
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , April 1992 , pp. 301 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1992

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References

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18 Nebrija, “Prologue,” Gramática de la lengua castellana.

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22 See for instance Vázquez de Espinosa's narrative (1620), in which he “naturally” harmonized the history of Amerindian languages with the confusion of tongues after Babel and the migration of the ten tribes of Israel to the New World (Compendio y descriptión de las Indias Occidentales, 111:14 [Madrid: Atlas 1969]Google Scholar).

23 For the influence of Nebrija in writing grammars of Tagalog, see Rafael, Vicente, Contracting Colonialism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

24 It has been taken for granted among Náhuatl specialists that Nebrija's Castilian grammar was the model followed to write the grammars of Amerindian languages. See, for instance, Frances Karttunen, “Náhuatl Literacy,” in Collier, G.A., Rosaldo, R., and Wirth, J.D., eds., The Inca and Aztec States: 1400–1800, 396 (New York: Academic Press, 1982);Google ScholarLeón-Portilla, Ascensión, Tepuztlahcuilolli. Impresos en Náhuatl. Historia y bibliografía, 6 (México: UNAM, 1988).Google Scholar The same beliefs have been expressed about the Tagalog language in the Philippines by Rafael, Vicente, in Contracting Colonialism. Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule, 23–54 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).Google Scholar I have argued, elsewhere (Mignolo, Walter D., “Nebrija in the New World: The Question of the Letter, the Discontinuity of the Classical Tradition and the Colonization of Native Languages,” L'Homme, no. 122–24 (avril-décembre 1992), xxxii, 187–209),Google Scholar that the Latin rather than the Castilian grammar served as a model. But, more important, the two ideological programs articulated by Nebrija in each grammar should be taken into account when dealing with the colonization of native languages.

25 Mignolo, Walter D., “Cartas, crónicas y relaciones del descubrimiento y de la conquista,” Luis Madrigal, coordinator, Historia de la literatura Hispanoamericana. Epoca Colonial, 57–125 (Madrid: CATEDRA, 1982),Google Scholar and “El metatexto historiográfico y la historiografí'a indiana,” Modern Language Notes, 96 (1981), 358–402.Google Scholar

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27 Although this statement could be nuanced, there is a long tradition from Juan Ramón Pané (1493) to Fray Juan de Torquemada (1615), via José de Acosta (1590), in which this belief is clearly expressed. See Mignolo, Walter D., “Zur Frage der Schiftlichkeit in der Legitimation der Conquista,” in Der eroberte Kontinent. Historische Realitat, Rechtfertigung und literarische Darstellung der Kolonisation Amerikas, K. Kohut, hrsq., 86–102 (Frankfurt: Vervuert Verlag, 1991).Google Scholar

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29 Bruner, Jerome S., “Going beyond the Information Given,” Beyond the Information Given, 218–39 (New York: N.N. Norton, 1973);Google ScholarRosch, Eleanor, “Principle of Categorization,” in Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B., eds., Cognition and Categorization, 28–49 (New York: Erlbaum Associates, 1978);Google ScholarBakhtin, M.M., “The Problem of Speech Genres,” in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, McGee, Vern W., trans., 60–102 (Austin: University of Texas, 1986);Google ScholarMignolo, W.D., “Semiosis, Coherence and Universes of Meaning,” in Conte, M.E., Petofi, J.S., and Sozer, E., eds., Text and Discourse Connectedness, 483–505 (Philadelphia: John Benjamin, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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33 Arzópalo Marín, Ramón, “The Indian Book in Colonial Yucatán,” and Walter D. Mignolo, “Signs and Their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World,” in Proceedings of the Conference “The Book in the Americas,” Mathes, M. and Fiering, N., eds. (Virginia University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

34 de Landa, Diego, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (1566), Tozzer, A.M. trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941)Google Scholar and his Diego Valadés, Rethorica Christiana (1579) (Spanish translation. México: UNAM, 1989).Google Scholar

35 Dialogo nel qual si ragiona del modo de accrescere a conservar memoria (Venice: Gabriel Giolito di Ferrari, 1562).Google Scholar

36 For this process of transformation, see Gruzinski, Serge, “Peinture et écriture,” in La colonization de l'imaginaire. Sociètès indigenes et occidentalisation dans le Mexique espagnol, XVIe–XVIIe siècle, 15–100 (Paris: Gallimard, 1988).Google Scholar

37 de Mendieta, Fray Gerónimo. Historia Eclesiástica Indiana (1595; rpt., México: UNAM 1971);Google Scholarde Sahagún, Bernardino, Coloquios y Doctrina Christiana (The Coloquios of 1524), León-Portilla, Miguel, ed. and trans. (1565; rpt., México: UNAM, 1986);Google ScholarKlor de Alva, Jorge, trans., “The Aztec-Spanish Dialogues, 1524,” Alcheringa, 4:2 (1980), 5–192.Google Scholar

38 European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Trask, W.R., trans. (1948; rpt., Princeton, 1973).Google Scholar

39 Biblos was the name used in Greece to designate the inner bark of a reed; Greeks called the reed, pápyros. It has been suggested that by the fifth century B.C. that biblion denoted not books but tabular manuals, notes on a single sheet, with basic indications for delivering an oral speech. See Kennedy, George A., “The Earliest Rhetorical Handbooks,” American Journal of Philology, 80 (1959), 169–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 I am limiting my description of writing to the available knowledge of the time. The etymology of words indicating writing in various languages refers to an imagery related to scratching and, in Latin, to plowing. Latin also has an analogy between text and textile which is apt when looking at the Andean quipu as a kind of writing. Of course, when the materiality of social practices changes, the conceptualization attached to them also changes. Data banks, computers, word processors, and the like are forcing us to review our concepts of library, books, and writing. See, for instance, Mignolo, Walter D., “Signs and Their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World,” The Book in The Americas, Fiering, N. and Mathes, M., eds. (Charlottesville: forthcoming);Google ScholarPoster, Mark, “Foucault and Data Bases,” Discourse. Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 12:2 (1990), 110–27.Google Scholar

41 See Nebrija, Antonio de, Introductiones latinae (Salamanca, 1481);Google ScholarGràmdtica de la lengua castellana (Salamanca, 1482);Google ScholarReglas de orthografía en la lengua castellana (Henares, Alcalà de, 1517);Google ScholarMignolo, Walter D., “Nebrija in the New World: The Questions of the Letter, the Discontinuity of the Classical Tradition, and the Colonization of the Native Languages,” L'Homme (Paris, 10 1992).Google Scholar

42 There is enough evidence to think that language was always one element upon which communities built a sense of identity by distinguishing themselves from the others who did not speak their language well. In ancient México, as well as in ancient Greece, this was certainly the case. The difference between ancient México and Greece, on the one hand, and the European renaissance, on the other, is that the former put the accent on speech, while the latter on writing.

43 Acosta's letter and Tovar's answer have been reprinted by Joaquín García Icazbalceta, in Don Fray Juan de Zumàrraga, Primer Obispo y Arzobispo de México, vol. 2; 263–7 (México; Andrade and Morales, 1881);Google Scholar the fourth kind of barbarians were defined by Las Casas in the epilogue of his Apologetica Historia Sumaria (1555?; rpt., México: UNAM, 1967).

44 Havelock, Erick, Preface to Plato (Boston: Havelock Press, 1963),Google Scholar and hisThe Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).Google Scholar Jacques Derrida's grammatological reflections (De la grammatologie [Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1967]),Google Scholar which are difficult to ignore without alarming the erudites in critical theory, did not take into account the tension and conflict between the oral and the written in Plato's philosophy of language or the inversion of Platonic philosophy by the Renaissance philosophy of language.

45 According to Elias, Norbert (The Civilizing Process [1968, in German] (New York: Urizen Books, 1978,Google Scholar in English), “The concept of civilite acquired its meaning for Western society at a time when chivalrous society and the unity of the Catholic church were disintegrating. It is the incarnation of a society which, as a specific stage in the formation of Western manners or ‘civilization,' was no less important than the feudal society before it. The concept of civilite, too, is an expression and symbol of a social formation embracing the most diverse nationalities, in which, as in the Church, a common language is spoken, first Italian and then increasingly French. These languages take over the function earlier performed by Latin. They manifest the unity of Europe and at the same time the new social formation which forms its backbone, court society” (vol. 1, p. 53). The New World experience brought not only speech but also writing into the dividing line between those who were either civilized or barbarian.

46 For the semantic field associated with litteratuslilliteratus in the Middle Ages, see Clanchy, Michael T., From Memory to Written Record. England 1066–1307 (London: Edward Arnold, 1979);Google Scholar in the Spanish renaissance, Fernàndez, Luis Gil, Panorama Social del Humanismo Español (1500–1800) (Madrid: Alamdra, 1981);Google ScholarGurevich, Aron, “Popular Culture and Medieval Latin Literature from Caesarius of Aries to Caesarius of Heisterbach,” Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, 1–59 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

47 When discussing the conditions of truthfulness, the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theoretician of historiography accentuated the need to match the truth of the narrative with the truth of the things (or events) themselves. From the belief that the truth is both in the narrative and in the events, it followed that history was made of both words and events. See Mignolo, W. D., “El metatexto historiografico y la historiografia Indiana,” Modern Language Notes, 94 (1981), 359–402,Google Scholar and his “Historia, relaciones y tlatollótl: los Preceptos historiales de Fuentes y Guzman y las Historias de Indias,” Filologia, 11:2 (1986), 153–78.Google Scholar For a theoretical discussion about the conventions of fictionality and truthfulness and their relation with narrative genres and discursive configurations, see Mignolo, W. D., “Dominios borrosos y dominios teóricos: ensayo de elucidación conceptual,” Filologia, XX (1985), 20–40.Google Scholar

48 The European concepts of historiographical writing in connection with the history of the Indies were laid out in Mignolo, Walter D., “El metatexto historiogràfico y la historiografía indiana,” Modern Language Notes, 96 (1981), 358–402;Google Scholar for Spanish historiography of the period, see Díaz, S. Montero, “La doctrina de la Historia en los tratadistas españoles del siglo de Oro,” Hispania, 4 (1941), 3–39;Google Scholar in Italy, see Maffei, E.,I trattati dell' arte storica dal Rinascimento al secolo XVII (Napoles, 1897),Google Scholar and Spini, Giorgio, “I trattatisti dell'arte storica nella Contrariforma italiana,” Contributi alia storia del Concilio di trento e della Contrariforma (Florence: Vallechi, 1948).Google Scholar

49 Oviedo, , Historia General y Natural de las Indias (1535), Book I, ch. 1.Google Scholar

50 Vega, De la, Comentarios reales de los Incas (1609), I, XV.Google Scholar

51 Acosta, , Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590), Book VI.Google Scholar

52 The question, again, is what should be called writing; and, further, whether “writing” in the past and in non-Western cultures should be called that which resembles what Westerners understand by writing, as in the opinion, for instance, of Ong, Walter, Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word (London, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar We could construe a theoretical definition or description of acceptance for writing any kind of graphic system which establish some kind of link with speech (Michalowski, Piotr, “Early Mesopotamian Communicative Systems: Art, Literature, and Writing,” Investigating Artistic Environments in the Ancient Near East, Gunter, Ann C., ed., 53–69 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1990),Google Scholar although such a definition may not tell us much about how people conceived graphic interactions in different times and cultures. The etymology of writing, in several languages, is related to carving. In Greek gràfein meant “to carve.” In Latin scribere indicated a physical action of inscribing graphic marks in solid surfaces and was metaphorically related to plowing. In Mesoamerica, however, the words referring to writing underlined the colors of the inks used and, therefore, the accent was on painting: tlacuilo, in Nàhuatl, referred to the scribe and it meant, literally, “behind the painting” (tla = behind and cuilo = painting). For a description of Mesoamerican writing systems, see Prem, Hans and Riese, Berthold, “Autochthonous American Writing Systems: The Aztec and Maya Examples,” in Coulmas, F. and Ehlich, K., eds., Writing in Focus (New York: Mouton, 1983).Google Scholar We could certainly bring Derrida, J. into the discussion, but it would take us too far to discuss the underlying presupposition of alphabetic writing in his discussion. After all, in his fundamental work on the subject (De la grammalologie [Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1967]),Google Scholar Derrida remained within the confines of the Greco-Roman tradition of alphabetic writing.

53 Quintilian, , Institutione Oratorio, Book II, ch. V, in Quintilian, Institution oratoire, text etabli et traduit par J. Cousin (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1977).Google Scholar

54 Romero, Ignacio Osorio, Colegios y profesores Jesuitas que enseñaron Latin en Nueva España (1521–1767) (Mexico: UNAM, 1979);Google ScholarTòpicos sobre Ciceròn en México (México: UNAM, 1976);Google ScholarLa enseñanza del Latí a los indios (México: UNAM, 1990).Google Scholar

55 See Aizpurú, Pilar Gonzalbo, Historia de la education en la ùpoca colonial. El mundo indigena (Mexico; El Colegio de México, 1990).Google ScholarRomero, Ignacio Osorio, La enseñanza del latin a los indios (Mexico: UNAM, 1990).Google Scholar

56 There is another dimension of literacy and resistance illustrated by the documentation related to testaments, land litigations, and other forms of legal disputes which would cause a long detour in my argument if integrated into it (see, however, Karttunen, F., “Náhuatl literacy,” Collier, G. A., Rosaldo, R., and Wirth, J. D., eds., The Inca and Aztec States: 1400–1800 (New York: Academic Press, 1982);Google ScholarAnderson, A., Berdan, F., and Lockhart, J., Beyond the Codices. The Nahua View of Colonial Mexico (Berkeley: California University Press, 1976).Google Scholar I am limiting my examples to the philosophy of writing (and therefore to the sphere of high culture) and the frame that it provided for writing grammars of Amerindian languages and histories of Amerindian cultures, rather than to the consequences manifested in particular cases in which Spanish grammarians and historians could have been transformed by intercultural experiences. At the same time, I am limiting my examples of resistance to the sphere of interactions framed by members and representatives of Spanish literate culture. I hope that my argument does not convince the reader that I am celebrating, while I also hope the reader will understand that critical examination of phenomena in high culture is not less relevant than exploring popular ones.

57 See the masterful summary by Florescano, Enrique, “La reconstrucción histórica elaborada por la nobleza indígena y sus descendientes mestizos,” La memoria y el ohido. Segundo Simposio de Historia de las Mentalidades, 11–20 (Mexico: Instituto Nacional di Anthropologiae Historio, 1985),Google Scholar and González, Andrés Lira, “Letrados y analfabetas en los pueblos de Indios de la ciudad de México: la historia como alegato para sobrevivir en la sociedad política,” La memoria y el ohido, 61–74.Google Scholar

58 European intellectuals and political leaders are becoming aware of the challenge of a multiethnic world to the classical tradition. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, in her Burgher speech, invoked the common experience rooted in the European classical tradition and celebrated the story of how European explored, colonized, and (without apologies) civilized much of the world, as a venture of talent, skill, and courage (quoted by Alibhai, Yasmin in “Community Whitewash,” The Guardian, 01 23, 1989).Google ScholarLippard, Lucy R. provides a telling example of the perpetuation of fractured symbolic worlds in colonial situations in her Mixed Blessings. New Art in a Multicultural America (New York: Pantheon, 1990).Google Scholar

59 Icazbalceta, Joaquín García, Nueva colección de documentos para la historia de México. Códice Franciscano. Sigh XVI (México: Porrúa Hnos., 1941), 204.Google Scholar

60 The Franciscans founded the Colegio Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in 1536 and devoted it to the education of the young and noble Mexica.

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