2024 collection (82 titles)

This monograph aims to shed light on the linguistic endeavors and educational practices employed by 17th century Spanish Dominicans in their efforts to understand and disseminate knowledge of the Chinese language during this historical period. Ample attention is dedicated to the evolution of Chinese grammars and dictionaries by these authors. Central to the monograph is the manuscript “Marsh 696”, which comprises a Chinese-Spanish dictionary and a fragmentary Spanish grammar of Mandarin Chinese, a hitherto unknown and unpublished anonymous and undated text entitled Arte de lengua mandarina. This text is probably a fragment of the earliest grammar written by a Westerner of Mandarin Chinese (completed in Manila in c.1641), previously presumed lost. It is presented here as a facsimile, a transcription of the Spanish text and an English translation alongside a detailed linguistic analysis. The historical framework outlined in this monograph spans from the predecessors of Francisco Díaz (1606–1646) around 1620, including the Jesuit linguistic production in mainland China and Early Manila Hokkien sources, to the era wherein Antonio Díaz (1667–1715) finalized his revised version of Francisco Díaz’s dictionary. The monograph scrutinizes these texts in relation to the linguistic contributions of Francisco Varo (1627–1687). Additionally, the monograph incorporates other unpublished texts that are significant for reconstructing the educational curriculum for teaching and learning Chinese by Dominican friars during this period.

This volume collects research on language, cognition, and communication in multilingualism. Apart from theoretical concerns including grammatical description, language-specific analyses, and modeling of multilingualism, different fields of study and research interests center around three core themes: The Early Years (aspects of language acquisition and development, including vernaculars or minority languages, reading, writing, and cognition, and multilingual extensions), Issues in Everyday Life (the role of multilingualism in and for speech–language–communication difficulties, including diagnosis, provisions of services, and later language breakdown), and From the Past to the Future (aspects of multilingualism beyond acquisition, education, or pathology, with a focus on heritage languages and translanguaging). Specialists from each of these areas introduce state-of-the-art research, novel experimental studies, and/or quantitative as well as qualitative data bearing on ‘multifaceted multilingualism’. There is a broad spectrum for take-home messages, ranging from new theoretical analyses or approaches to assess multilingual speakers all the way to recommendations for policy-makers.