Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás, O.P. (1499 – December 1570) was a Spanish Dominican

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

, bishop, and grammarian in the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru (), officially known as the Kingdom of Peru (), was a Monarchy of Spain, Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in ...

. He compiled the first

Quechua language Quechua (, ), also called (, 'people's language') in Southern Quechua, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from ...

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

and

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

, both published in 1560. His grammar contained also the earliest known Quechua written text, as a catechetic appendix, and the first known linguistic description of

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the address ...

Early life

Santo Tomás was born in

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

in 1499."Bishop Domingo de Santo Tomás, O.P."
'' Catholic-Hierarchy.org''. David M. Cheney. Retrieved September 5, 2016 He was educated in local church schools and entered the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

as a youth. After he was ordained as a priest and had served in Spain for years, he was assigned as a missionary to the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of Peru in 1540, soon after the initial conquest of 1533. He founded the convent (monastery) and city of Yungay on 4 August 1540 to evangelize to the Inca.

Missionary work

For the purpose of Indian Reductions, by which the Spanish brought natives together around missions for teaching and work, Domingo learned the Quechua dialect that was spoken along the Peruvian coast near Lima. The coastal dialect of Quechua was significantly different from the one in

Cuzco Cusco or Cuzco (; or , ) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountain range and the Huatanay river. It is the capital of the eponymous province and department. The city was the capital of the Inca Empire unti ...

, as was detailed by Diego González Holguín in the early 17th century. In 1545, Domingo was elected prior of the ''Convento del Santísimo Rosario'' in

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

. In 1549, he created the "Tasa" of Lima, with Fray Jeronimo de Loayza and Fray Tomás de San Martín. In 1560 he published his ''Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los Indios de los Reynos del Peru'' (a Quechua grammar) in

Valladolid Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...

. In the same year, he published his ''Lexicon, o Vocabulario de la lengua general del Peru''. On 6 July 1562, he was appointed by Pope Pius IV as Bishop of La Plata o Charcas. On 26 December 1562, he was consecrated bishop by Jerónimo de Loaysa, Archbishop of Lima. He served as Bishop of La Plata o Charcas until his death in December 1570 in La Plata (Sucre), the

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

region of the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Works

* ''Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los Indios de los Reynos del Peru'' (Valladolid, 1560). * ''Lexicon, o Vocabulario de la lengua general del Peru'' (Valladolid, 1560).''Lexicon o Vocabulario de la lengua general del Peru'' (1560) digital facsimile at the John Carter Brown Library
/ref> * ''Plática para todos los Indios'' (1560).

References

External links and additional sources

* (for Chronology of Bishops) * (for Chronology of Bishops)
Digital facsimiles of works by Domingo de Santo Tomás
from the John Carter Brown Library on Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:De Santo Tomas, Domingo 16th-century linguists Linguists from Peru Santo Tomás 16th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Bolivia Spanish people in the Viceroyalty of Peru 1499 births 1570 deaths 16th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests 16th-century Peruvian Roman Catholic priests Spanish Dominicans Spanish missionary linguists Bishops appointed by Pope Pius IV Dominican bishops Roman Catholic bishops of Sucre