The indian primers and christian doctrine a linguistic instrument in contact between America and Europe during the sixteenth century

Abstract

The objective of this essay is to show a frame of reference for the Indian Christian primers and doctrine based on an ethnohistorical study and qualitative and paleographic analysis of a corpus made up of five primers dated in different periods of the 16th century. For this, it is necessary to approach the cultural context of the primers and Christian doctrine produced in Spain and specific issues related to literacy, diversity and language policies, situations that were decisive in the production and dissemination of Indian primers. The work contains two parts: An introduction to the cultural and historical context of the primers and Christian doctrine produced in Spain, the cultural and historical context of the Indian primers produced in three native languages: Nahuatl, Tarascan and Ngiwa. Finally, I conclude with a comparative and contrastive analysis of the content of the corpus.