Uses, readings and re-readings of indigenous language grammars: Esteban Torresano’s the manuscript of Arte of cakchiquel (1754)

Abstract

The evangelization of indigenous communities in Colonial America required the learning of several languages. The friars wrote grammars, also called Artes, to describe this local languages, just a few of which reached the printing press. The handwritten copies of the texts are proof of the construction and circulation of the linguistic knowledge of the time. The practice of reading implied, in many cases, that of manuscript copying. However, readers not only copied the printed texts, but also adapted them. This is the case of the Arte by Esteban Torresano, based on the printed book of Friar Ildefonso José Flores, Arte de la lengva metropolitana del reyno cakchiquel, o gvatemalico. The comparative analysis of both texts has allowed us to know a reader who, in manuscript form, reorganized the original printed work according to his criteria, but also to his needs: to learn and teach the norms of the language