STUDY OF LANGUAGES. - The principal instrument of evangelization is oral preaching in the language of the people to whom one preaches. Speaking through an interpreter can only be a temporary expedient. Therefore numerous prescriptions of a general and particular nature inculcate the obligation for every missionary of a profound knowledge of the native languages. From the history of the missions and from the volumes of the Bibliotheca Missionum of Frs. Streit and Dindinger it emerges that Catholic missionaries, with few exceptions, have always and everywhere striven to learn the languages, to compose vocabularies, grammars, catechisms, etc. for preaching to peoples in their native language.
Schools of languages are already found in the 13th century among the Dominicans at Murcia and Tunis, created under the impulse of St. Raymond of Peñafort; in 1281 the study of Hebrew was prescribed at Barcelona, that of Arabic at Valencia, in 1291 that of Hebrew and Arabic at Xativa. Raymond Lull in his writings and in his petitions addressed to the Pope, to Christian princes, and to the University of Paris, ardently advocates the erection of colleges of languages for future missionaries, and he himself founded in 1276 at Miramar on the island of Majorca a convent-study house for the linguistic formation of Franciscans destined for the missions. Through his initiative Clement V established in 1310 chairs of Hebrew, Chaldean and Arabic, and the Council of Vienne in 1311 decreed the erection of similar chairs at the Universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna and Salamanca.
From the 15th century onward there are complaints about the deficient knowledge of languages on the part of missionaries, but from the Bibliotheca Missionum one can deduce that many devoted themselves with great zeal to the study of languages. At the University of Lima (Peru), toward the end of the 16th century a chair for Indian languages was erected. Among the Carmelites and among the Franciscans special colleges for linguistic studies are found in the 17th century. The Carmelites erected in 1612 in Rome a higher Studium for the formation of their missionaries, transferred in 1662 to S. Pancrazio. The program included as one of the principal subjects the teaching of languages, especially the Oriental ones. Among the Franciscans of Rome, from 1625 at S. Bartolomeo dell'Isola and from 1622 at S. Pietro in Montorio, there were special Studia of Arabic. Likewise in the missionary colleges of the Franciscans founded toward the end of the 17th century in Mexico (the first that of Querétaro, erected in 1683) and in South America the study of Indian languages was prescribed.
In present-day missions great importance is given to the linguistic formation of missionaries, although it is not done in special schools. The Franciscans, however, had erected in Peking a Studium to introduce young missionaries to a knowledge of the Chinese language. The missionary-scientific Institute of Propaganda has special chairs of Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Sanskrit.
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Giovanni Rommerskirchen