#  The Office of Lingua: A Portrait of the Religious Interpreter in Brazil in the Sixteenth Century 

 



**Maria Candida D. M. Barros**

The object of this study is to examine the biographies of the *linguas* (interpreters) of the Jesuit order in Brazil in the sixteenth century as a way of throwing light on the use of the Tupi language in the missionary context. The aim is to identify the particular forms in which multilingual contact was orchestrated by the Jesuit order in colonial times in Brazil. At the present stage of the study of interpreters, my intention is to focus on the group of colonists who became *linguas* among the Jesuits. **\[WP# 98015\]**