Os primórdios da crioulística e a pueril vaidade dos homens de ciência

Abstract

Quando, no último quartel do século XIX, os crioulos começavam a alcançar o estatuto de objecto de investigação académica, desenrolou-se um intercâmbio epistolar entre alguns sócios da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa e a sumidade dos estudos dialectológicos de então, Hugo Schuchardt. O epistolário incorporado no espólio do Arquivo da Universidade de Graz e os primeiros trabalhos publicados acerca do crioulo de Cabo Verde denotam que, a par da comunicação de conhecimento, era manifesta a competição pelo prestígio, muito associado à primazia autoral. In the 1980s, a great interest in Creole dialects arose among linguists and ethnologists. Without computer networks or other communication devices that only later became widespread, the scientific community nevertheless shared knowledge and managed this sharing in accordance with motivations that were often extraneous to science. Along the triangle formed by European Portugal, Cape Verde and Austria, six men engaged in an epistolary exchange about Cape Verdean Creole. Relying upon the analysis of the private correspondence made available by the Hugo Schuchardt Archive of the University of Graz, and by the preliminary, introductory and final pages of the monographs and reviews written by these pionners of Creole studies, some reflections are presented on methodology and the conditions of knowledge production, but also on the extra-scientific considerations of prestige and authorial priority involved in managing the dissemination of that knowledge.