BERTONIO, LUIGI. - Jesuit missionary and eminent linguist. Born at Rocca Contrada in the Marca di Ancona around 1555, he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome in 1574 and transferred in 1581 to the province of Peru. A missionary among the Indians for forty years, principally at the residence of Juli, on Lake Titicaca, he spent his last years in the colleges of Arequipa and then Lima, where he died on 3 Aug. 1625. While one of the great languages of Peru, quechua, was studied by Fr. Diego González Holguín, the other, aymard, was studied by B., who resided precisely at Juli among tribes renowned for the purity of their language.
He wrote: Arte breve de la lengua aymard (Rome 1603); Arte y grammatica muy copiosa de la lengua aymard (ibid. 1603), but perhaps actually 1608; reprinted at Juli in Peru, 1612); Vocabulario de la lengua aymard (2 vols., Juli 1612); these two fundamental works, Arte e Vocabulario, were reproduced in facsimile by J. Platzmann (Leipzig 1879). B. also wrote a Confessionario muy copioso en dos lenguas, aymard y española (Juli 1612) and adapted to the needs of the natives, with the assistance of an Indian from Juli, the Libro de la vida y milagros de N. S. Iesa Christo by Alonso de Villegas (Juli 1613).