The Language of the Conquerors

Name: The Language of the Conquerors
Brand: Polity Press
Price: 157.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

When Amerindians Spoke Latin in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

By: Serge Gruzinski, Nancy Erber (Translator)

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Hardcover | 4 May 2026 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.11 x 15.49 x 2.79

Hardcover

$157.99

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Available: 4th May 2026

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One of the most decisive and irreversible consequences of the Spanish conquest of the Americas was the linguistic revolution which changed the forms of communication in indigenous societies. Writing, paper and books arrived in the Americas with the conquistadors and they were used as weapons by the Spanish to subjugate local populations and impose Christianity on them.

The written word of the conquerors was a key medium of colonization: orders from the imperial metropole were written down, local resources and valuables were recorded and books conveyed knowledge coming from Europe. The children of indigenous elites, trained in humanist values, were soon more familiar with Latin and the Bible than with the beliefs of their ancestors, and the use of Latin instilled new modes of reasoning and thought. By imposing European languages and writing systems, the conquistadors also inculcated a belief in the superiority of the written word and even its holiness. And yet despite this, indigenous people were able to resist linguistic colonization in other ways, thanks to their extraordinary creativity.

By putting language, writing and printing at the centre of his analysis, Serge Gruzinski develops a fresh perspective on the colonization and conversion of the indigenous people of the Americas and enables us to observe in detail how ideas intermingle when two civilizations collide.

Industry Reviews

"Serge Gruzinski calls attention to the human consequences for indigenous peoples across the Americas of the drastic changes wrought by European languages and writing technologies. This book provides a vital twenty-first century counterpart to J. H. Elliott's The Old World and the New."
Andrew Laird, Brown University, author of Aztec Latin

"Rapidly mastering the languages of the conquerors brought new speakers to reinvent how and what to tell, in writing. This groundbreaking book is not just a history of hegemonic alphabetization, or of indigenous resistance to Latin and Spanish. It's a history of that active reinventing, one that becomes inspirational well beyond the early modern times."
Alessandra Russo, Columbia University, author of A New Antiquity

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