The Centro de Estudos em Letras / Centre for Studies in Letters (CEL) is an R&D unit created in 2003 and formally founded in 2004 with the director’s election, regulation approval, and the scientific council’s constitution (April 15, 2004). It is based at UTAD, with UÉvora as the second management institution since 2007 (https://www.uevora.pt/investigar/unidades-id/unidades-investigacao/cel). It comprises 111 researchers: 28 Integrated PhD holder Researchers (IRs), 44 Collaborating Researchers (CRs), and 39 PhD Students supervised by CEL IRs.

CEL is focused on language sciences and features collaborative research in interdisciplinary fields. CEL stands out as the unique Portuguese R&D unit dedicated to the History of Linguistics (HL) and Missionary Linguistics (MissLing). The quality and impact in HL and MissLing have garnered international recognition, establishing CEL as a distinguished R&D unit in HL and MissLing worldwide, as shown by the numerous scientific collaborations with the international HL societies, viz. SHESL, France; HSS, UK; SGdS, Germany; SEHL, Spain; SOMEHIL, Mexico; GASHoL, Georgia; and CISPELS, Italy. CEL has also hosted conferences of some of these societies, viz. VII Congreso Internacional de la Sociedad Española de Historiografía Lingüística (CISEHL VII, 2009), 13th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XIII, 2014), 2023 Annual Colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas” (HSS 2023) and the XXXII International Colloquium of the Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft’ (SGdS XXXII, 2023).

CEL has contributed widely to Open Science, publishing various scientific books in the CEL collections (https://www.utad.pt/cel/en/home/cel-collections/), namely in the Linguistic series (29 books), in the novel “Portuguese Orthographers” series (8 volumes), and outside collections (https://www.utad.pt/cel/en/home/other-publications/, 22 volumes), and in the Digital Humanities website “Portugaliæ Monumenta Linguistica” (PML, https://pml.cel.utad.pt/) [Monuments of Portuguese Linguistics] (81 volumes), with forgotten and rare books of Portuguese grammars, orthographies, and metalinguistic works by Missionaries from Portuguese Patronage, since the 16th century until the end of the Portuguese colonisation (1975).

A noteworthy feature distinguishing CEL is its specialised library, which houses an extensive collection of over 5,000 books and journals carefully curated to align with CEL’s specific research areas. Over the past two decades, CEL has made substantial investments in acquiring this specialised library, providing researchers access to a wealth of unique publications in Portugal. The main room of the library comprises books and journals of general interest.  Within the reserved library section, one finds comprehensive collections of prestigious journals such as “Historiographia Linguistica” (Netherlands), “Language and History” (UK), “Histoire Épistemologie Langage” (France), and “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft” (Germany). Furthermore, it houses important, rare, and complete book collections like “Portugal em África” (1944-1973), “Monumenta Missionaria Africana,” “História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil,” and almost the entire series “Studies in the History of the Language Sciences” (Netherlands) (https://catalogo.biblioteca.utad.pt).

The collaboration between CEL and the Archives of the Portuguese Province of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (APPCSSp, Congregatio Sancti Spiritus) in Lisbon represents a distinctive initiative to unlock linguistic treasures within historical archives. CSSp is the sole Portuguese religious order preserving archives, even after nationalisation in 1911. This collaboration focuses on the linguistic richness of Angolan languages’ lexicographical and grammatical works, significantly contributing to academic knowledge and a broader understanding of cultural and historical aspects embedded in these linguistic works. The APPCSSp, with its extensive collection of more than 26,000 works, 5,000 magazines, and 708 boxes of loose material, serves as a rich repository for linguistic exploration. The achievements of these projects are noteworthy, with the identification of 46 Angolan language works, including dictionaries, vocabularies, grammar books, elements of grammar, and conversion guides. Additionally, the commitment to preserving and disseminating these findings is evident in scanning all works and making them available in the PML database.

CEL is a member of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (CIPL), an international Association registered in Leiden, the Netherlands, and an affiliated member of UNESCO’s International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (CIPSH), founded to assist in the development of linguistics throughout the world.

Portugaliæ Monumenta Linguistica (PML) [Monuments of Portuguese Linguistics] is a database of different metalinguistic tools to support the dissemination, consultation, and research of old linguistic texts of Portuguese origins, such as grammars, dictionaries/vocabularies, orthographies of Portuguese, from the publication of the first Portuguese grammar (1536) until the beginning of the 20th century. PML also seeks to survey metalinguistic contributions by Portuguese-speaking missionaries and laypeople from the Portuguese Patronage of the native languages from the African, Asian and American (Brazil) countries during the colonial period, i.e., from 1482 until 1975.

Annual Colloquium 2023 of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas (HSS 2023), UTAD, Vila Real, 4-6 September 2023

 

XXXII. Internationales Kolloquium des “Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft'” (SGdS XXXII), UTAD, Vila Real, 4-6 September 2023

R&D Unit (FCT no. UIDB/00707/2020 & UIDP/00707/2020) funded by

Captura de ecrã 2020 04 16 às 16.05.18