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Domingo de Santo Tomás

Type Figure Region Peru Time 1499–1570 Also known as Friar Tomás

Domingo de Santo Tomás, a Spanish Dominican missionary and linguist, was a pioneer of 16th-century Quechua studies in Peru.

Timeline

  1. 1499–1536A Coruña · GaliciaBorn in Galicia, Spain, he joined the Dominicans in his youth and received training in theology and the humanities. In the 1530s he responded to the Church's call to evangelize the New World and prepared to travel to the Americas as a missionary.
  2. 1538–1559Chucuito · Puno RegionHe arrived in Peru around 1538 and preached in the Lake Titicaca region. In 1545 he established a monastery at Chucuito, living among the Indigenous people for many years, systematically learning Quechua (General Indian language), and recording vocabulary, grammar, and parallels with religious concepts, accumulating material for the first Quechua grammar.
  3. 1560–1570Lima · CoastIn 1560 he published in Valladolid, Spain, the Grammar or Art of the General Language of the Indians of the Kingdoms of Peru (Gramática o Arte de la Lengua General de los Indios de los Reynos del Perú), the first Quechua grammar book in history. He continued missionary work and writing thereafter, dying in Peru in 1570.

Sources