missionary-linguist
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See also: missionary linguist
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Noun
[edit]missionary-linguist (plural missionary-linguists)
- A missionary who seeks to study a people's language in order to facilitate religious conversion.
- 1858, C. W. Russell, The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, page 29:
- although we do not meet among the missionary linguists that marvellous variety of languages which excites our wonder, yet we find in them abundant evidences of a solid and practical scholarship
- 1881, John Ebenezer Honeyman Thomson, Memoir of George Thomson, Cameroon Mountains, West Africa, by one of his nephews, page 20:
- While he had fulfilled what was expected of him as a missionary linguist, his eagerness for the welfare of the Africans led him to occupy himself with other plans
- 1883, H. Hale, “The Iroquois institutions and language”, in Science, volume 2, number 36, page 497:
- the valuable work of the excellent and indefatigable missionary-linguist, the late Father Marcoux, on the Iroquois language, is about to be published by the Bureau of ethnology.
- 1979, J.G. Platvoet, “The Akan Believer and his Religions”, in Official and Popular Religion: Analysis of a Theme for Religious Studies, page 595:
- Even the famous missionary-linguist J.G. Christaller could not break away from the spell of this 'priestcraft'-theory.
- 2006, Lenore A. Grenoble, Lindsay J. Whaley, Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization, page 196:
- Many missionary-linguists leave the familiarity of their home and their social network to go spend many years (often decades) in local communities, learning the local language and local customs and beliefs.