Practices of Translation in the periphery of New Spain between evangelization and local indigenous jurisdiction in Spanish and Zapotec language (17/18 century).

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Martina Schrader-Kniffki
• Subject Area: Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics ; General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; Early Modern History
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405076295

The object of this research project is to analyze the interdependent, mutually influencing and complementing colonial translation practices, techniques and strategies between in the realms of religion and indigenous jurisdiction and Spanish and Zapotec language in the periphery of New-Spain. The project draws on a corpus of Spanish and Zapotec religious and notarial texts. A detailed analysis of interlingual translation will be made. Translation in the context of the indigenous languages is also related to the development of literacy and changes between orality and literacy. This concerns the elaboration and translation of the catechism, which has been translated from Spanish into Zapotec by Dominican friars, as well as to the notarial texts, authored by indigenous people in Zapotec and translated by indigenous translaters into Spanish. The analysis includes questions about the example giving influences of European translation cultures on translation practices in New Spain which reach back to antiquity and will find out the translation strategies and their consequences for the languages Spanish and Zapotec in the area of missionary linguistics. On the other hand, innovation, idiosyncratic aspects and hybrid phenomena in indigenous translation practices will be analyzed. A further step will be to put into relation missionary and indigenous translation strategies in order to describe the relation between both. Besides results concerning linguistic, textual and translational aspects such as e.g. semantic change, the generation of colonial legal language and colonial legal text types in Zapotec as well as in the regional Spanish variety, hybrid translation culture and history of translation are expected, a special focus will be on social and political consequences of colonial translation for the indigenous language and culture. A further focus will be on translation and the ‘migration’ of knowledge, as well as on indigenous translaters as ‘knowledge carriers’ and agents in behalf of their communities.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 2130: Cultures of Translation in Early Modern Times