An introduction to the special collection “Early Descriptors and Descriptions of South Asian Languages from the 16th Century Onwards” that develops the main ideas on which the contributions in this special edition of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics focus. The Introduction is not only a premise to the individual papers included in the volume and which are presented in the last paragraph. Emphasising the role played both by Portuguese individuals and by the Portuguese language as a metalanguage, it examines how the diffusion of Christianity in India led to the description of South Asian languages and how the grammaticisation of South Indian languages came about.

中文翻译：

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16世纪以来南亚语言的早期描述符和描述

特别收藏“ 16世纪以来的南亚语言的早期描述符和描述”的简介，提出了主要思想，本《葡萄牙语言学杂志》特别版的贡献着眼于这些思想。引言不仅是本卷中所包含的个人论文的前提，而且在最后一段中进行了介绍。它着重强调了葡萄牙人和葡萄牙语作为母语的作用，考察了基督教在印度的传播如何导致对南亚语言的描述以及南印度语言的语法化是如何产生的。