By speech and by signs: $rst encounters between indians and europeans on coastal Brazil, 1500–1530s

Abstract

Set against the backdrop of brazilwood trade and of encounters between the native inhabitants and the ocean-crossing sailors who arrived in Portuguese America during the initial era of colonization, this essay considers the topic of inter-ethnic communication. It examines sixteenth – and early seventeeth-century travelogues, Jesuit letters, and indigenous-language texts to suggest the dominance of the coastal varieties of the Tupi-Guarani language group as lingua franca between Indians and the Europeans.