Poder y traducción coloniales: El nombre de dios en lengua de indios

Authors

  • Esperanza López Parada Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Abstract

The discovery of America was recorded chronologically in the European policy for vernacular languages that Renaissance humanism would subsequently generate and institute. The discovery of new peoples with new forms of speech that could not already refer to Latin grammatical rules resulted in the mass production of grammar manuals, dictionaries, vocabularies, sermonaries, catechisms and thesauruses of native languages –Quechua, Náhuatl, Aimara, etc.– that, responding to the understanding of language as the primary tool of imperialism and religion, sought the rapid evangelization and control of indigenous subjects in their own language. Every effort in order to analyze those early instances of cultural encounter has to do with the topic of translation as its main condition, the most fundamental and basic one, and with the necessity of reflection and the argument, raised in that time, about its convenience. As a paradigm of both –encounter and reflection–, this article focuses on the different ways in which it was faced the challenge of translating the name of the truly god into the selvatic indian languages.

Keywords:

Translation and colonial power, indian languages, religion, idolatry