Apuntes de lectura sobre lingüística americana

The history of linguistics in the 19th century, contrary to what a quick reading of manuals of the discipline teaches us, is quite complex and intricate. The traditional division by stages and/or schools (comparative and historical linguistics, romanticism, Neogrammarians, positivism, etc.) is often replicated uncritically and without a careful reading of the sources. Neither does the study of indigenous languages in America enter into consideration in that history, much less the developments of linguistics in our continent. Little is also known about what was written in Argentina before 1900, nor what was the circulation of knowledge and information. In this work, we present an outline for a nuanced reading of some authors of the dominant linguistics in relation to general theories about language, the origin of languages and indigenous languages. That look, by way of reading notes, starts from the American Library of Bartolomé Mitre: what books did he read, how did they circulate, what do these authors say about indigenous languages, how do they analyze them. For this, we maintain that the figure of this intellectual operated as a significant node in the framework of the Americanist circle of the last quarter of the 19th century in Argentina.