A quimera das línguas: o problema da tradução linguística em um manuscrito em manao do setecentos

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to examine the anonymous manuscript written by a missionary of the Society of Jesus and a bilingual Manao interpreter. This text is the Caderno da Doutrina pella Lingoa dos Manaos. It is a religious document formatted in questions and answers and written in three languages (manao, tupi and portuguese). It was produced under the Indian Directory in the mid-18th century. The Directory consisted of a document listing the rules on how to proceed, among other matters, regarding the education and freedom of the Indians. Because of its legal nature, the Pombaline Directory prohibited any manifestations of the use of indigenous languages in favor of the portuguese language. Based on these elements, we sought to understand the circumstances that led to the Directory being promulgated. In addition, the Manao ethnic group was one of the most powerful indigenous groups that dominated the Middle Rio Negro region. They belonged to the Arawak linguistic trunk, which was used to characterize this linguistic family. The power and population of the Manaos were gradually suppressed from the first decades of the 18th century in the midst of conflict with the Portuguese administration. The Caderno manao was the main object of the research and the linguistic analysis of the question and answer turns was carried out to see how the dialog between the two authors of the Caderno manao takes place. Thus, we sought to verify how the intersection between the three languages occurs; how the essential Christian concepts are manifested in the manuscript and there was a comparison with the lexical relations of the naturalist travelers: Carl von Martius and Johann Natterer in their expeditions during the 19th century, to find out if the main cosmological concepts of the Manao Dialogue found correspondence in these lists.