Rodolfo Lenz

Mapudungún

Lenz is considered to be one of the primary authorities on the Mapudungun language during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1893, he published his article Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Amerikanospanischen (Contribution to the Understanding of Spanish in America).^[1] In this work Lenz analyzes the demographic evolution and cultural history of Chile, and describes the phonological systems of both the Mapuche language and Chilean Spanish. He argues that there are at least ten features of Chilean Spanish which can be ascribed to the influence of the Mapuche substratum.

Chilean Spanish

The arrival of Lenz in Chile in 1890 was of considerable importance in the history of the study of Spanish in the country. In his comparison of the phonemic system of Mapudungun with that of Chilean Spanish, he asserted that the latter is basically Spanish with Mapundungun sounds. M. Correa Mujica: Influencias de las lenguas indígenas en el español de Chile - nº 17 Espéculo (UCM) This theory, which came to be called indigenista ("indigenist"), was much discussed by Amado Alonso, who ascribed the shared features found by Lenz to have been due to methodological errors and that the rest could be explained as changes that could also be found in dialects of Spanish without Mapudungun influence. Contemporary scholars sided with Alonso and rejected Lenz's conclusions. Edward de la Barra had made similar assertions to those of Alonso.

Lenz also compiled the Diccionario etimológico de las voces chilenas derivadas de lenguas indígenas (1905–1910) (Etymological Dictionary of Chilean Words of Indigenous Origin),^[2] which was fundamental for lexicography in Latin America. The dictionary is now available online. devochdelia.cl.

El español ha evolucionado probablemente en Chile más que en ninguna nación de la tierra y es de un extraordinario interés fonético debido a sus originales peculiaridades de pronunciación (Spanish has probably evolved more in Chile than in any other nation on earth, and it is of extraordinary phonetic interest due to the peculiarities of its pronunciation.)^[3]

Lenz also made pioneering contributions to Chilean folklore with the 1894 publication of his first work entitled Lira popular (the People's Lyre). He also helped start a group of young folklorists who became the first generation to study popular culture. Among his students were Ramón Laval Alvial and Julio Vicuña Cifuentes, who compiled value material on popular culture in the first decades of the 20th century. These addressed a variety of areas: magical and religious traditions: romances, popular poetry, divining, songs, myths, and traditional legends. Lenz also compiled the Colección de Poesía Popular del Siglo XIX (Collection of Popular Poetry from the 19th Century) and the important article Sobre Poesía Popular (On Popular Poetry), printed in Santiago de chile in 1919. His influence on the principles and methods in pedagogy reached into all areas of investigation.

Lenz as creolist: Studies of Papiamentu

Lenz also published a pioneering study of the creole language Papiamento, which derives from both Spanish and Portuguese.^[4]