Londres et les Britanniques dans l’Ancienne Grammaticographie du Portugais comme Langue Étrangère (XVIIe- XIXe siècles)

Abstract

When we analyse the corpus of grammars of Portuguese as a foreign language (between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries) it becomes quite clear that London was an editorial capital of the Portuguese grammatical world, and the British people (merchants, translators, men of letters, noblemen and noblewomen, students) a prime target group. As far as is possible to know, the first manual of Portuguese as a foreign language was printed in London on the occasion of the marriage of Catherine of Bragança to Charles II of England: A Portuguez Grammar: or, Rules shewing the True and Perfect way to learn the said language (1662), by the French military Monsieur De la Mollière, aimed at serving «two sorts of Persons in England: to people of Traffique and Commerce (…) And to Persons of the Court» (De la Mollière, 1662: A2v). The production and circulation of grammars of Portuguese as a foreign language, written in English and printed in London, increased during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for commercial, cultural and political reasons. From there, grammars such as Jacob Castro (1731), António Vieira (1786), Richard Woodhouse (1815), Luís Francisco Midosi (1832), Alfred Elwes (1876), Charles Henry Wall (1882) and others were commercialized and exported. The present article analyses this Portuguese-British grammatical movement, particularly regarding the quantity of this printed material and its impact. It also gives a brief overview of the ancient grammars of Portuguese as a foreign language and their connection to others European ‘vulgar’ languages, aiming to contribute to the study of the history of linguistic thought.