For my Communication class I have a lesson plan due at the end of the semester on a topic of my choice. So, not wanting to be cliche, I skipped English and focused on my minor; linguistics. And my fav. branch of linguistics is historical linguistics so of course I focused on the Romance languages and how French, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian all derived from Vulgar Latin. I then narrowed it down to just Portuguese and Spanish, eventually narrowing it down further to the history and evolution of Spanish. Preference was given to Spanish as I thought it would be more relevant to the “students” in class (12 out of 23 are Hispanic). Plus, there’s a wash of material and resources on the Spanish language as opposed to Portuguese, making things easier for me.
And on a side note, I understand not too many people give a shit about the study of language or even know what linguistics is, but this stuff fascinates me. I understand their lack of enthusiasm for I can’t even fathom how a person can major in biology, chemistry, math, etc. or any other scientific discipline similar to these, much less take a single class about them. So feel free to stop reading now if you’re already bored for the next few entries will probably be about linguistics and will be directed at myself for my own personal help and needs and will be rather idiosyncratic in scope and tone.
Random Notes:
-”Romanization” of the peninsula began in 218 BC.
The beginning of the Second Punic War to forestall Carthaginian movement south over the Pyrenees into Spain. Eventually Cadiz is captured in 206 BC (Carthaginian capital) and “Romanization” grew slowly west/ north-west until all of north-west Spain was under Roman rule.
-The use of Latin came but wasn’t mandatory. Local populations used it for convenience and prestige.
-Pace of “Latinization” was quickest on east and south coasts (Catalonia, Valencia, Andalucia, Southern Portugal).
Why was this? Maybe closer contact to central Italy (Rome), larger cities, better trade and communication, all of which brought more contact with “educated Latin” speakers, the rulers at the time. Thus, the Latin spoken in less-developed, and more remote areas of the peninsula was farther from “the norm” of Latin, that which was spoken by upper class Rome.
Aspects of the Early Language
Archaism: The detachment of Latin in Spain from the motherland (Rome). Many words, phrases, and slogans fell out of use in Rome but continued to be used in the peninsula.
Conservatism: Deals with the study of forms of Latin eventually rejected by Rome. Very similar to archaism.
Dialecticism: Many Roman settlers and soldiers from all over “Italy” came from parts of the Italian peninsula were another language was spoken alongside Latin (bilingualism). Many of these settlers (it’s claimed) brought aspects of those “other” languages with them to the Iberian Peninsula.
Innovation: The borrowing of words from other cultures, languages, etc.
The Visigoths didn’t contribute much significance, linguistically, to the peninsula. The Islamic invasion of 711, however, was of immense importance to the language of the peninsula.
[…]
From 711 to 718, the Moors only conquered 3/4 of the peninsula, with the areas of Galicia and Cantabria exercising their normal culture, language, etc. These areas were also the most remote areas of Roman occupation, especially linguistically. Thus, with the reconquest, this region in Northern Spain (Cantabria, especially the city of Burgos) had continued speaking a dialect of Hispano-Romance it always had. After the Moors were ousted, the “language” trickled southward. This was sharpened by the creation of Castille (the kingdom) in 1035. This made the “dialect” of Hispano-Romance spoken in Cantabria more significant. The language continued to spread south as the Castilians captured the cities of Cordoba (1236), Jaen (1246), Sevilla (1248) and Cadiz (1250).
The language continued to spread in all directions with the conquests of the kingdom of Castile y Leon, with the areas of Galicia, Basque Country, Catalonia and Valencia not being affected linguistically. The language continues to spread today.
Standard Spanish
The idea of “Standard Spanish” owes it most gracious gratitude to Alfonso X, king of Castile and Leon (1252-84). All writing before him showed signs of regionality(sp?), as writers unconsciously (or consciously) included hints that they were from a different region than the reader. After the king took power, all regional characteristics disappeared, for the most part, as a result of the king’s scholarly and linguistic activities. The king’s expressed concern over a ‘correct’ form of the language lead to massive influence over his kingdom (as most leaders can easily exert power and influence) as enormous linguistic output came from scientific, legal, literary and historiographical fields. Alfonso’s choice of this variety of Hispano-Romance, as opposed to others like Aragonese or Leonese, is unknown.
The king’s father, Fernando III, before him had began using this form of Hispano-Romance (now called Castilian) but still used standard Latin as well. By Alfonso’s reign, Castilian took over full time as all orders and activities in administration were constructed in Castilian. Official administration documents began being used as standards for the new language. Of all the Castilian varieties in use on the peninsula (thanks to the reconquest) the brand from the city of Toledo was the preferred version for Alfonso X. During his period the syntax of the language itself grew more complex. Though the variety from Toledo was deemed “official” other varieties existed, many phonetically, especially in more remote and/or larger cities that rivaled Toledo in power and wealth, mainly Sevilla.
By the time Columbus “discovered” the New World, two main varieties of Castilian existed, that of Toledo (which, in the 1560s, shifted its base to Madrid) and that of Sevilla. It cannot be claimed that both were of equal status, though close, it was the central Spain, or Madrid dialect, that took precedence when it became a priority for writers during Spain’s Golden Age of Spanish literature.
With the expansion of Spanish overseas thanks to Columbus and others, the Sevillian dialect became the standard in the colonies for reasons (or theories) I’ll mention next. In modern times, with the majority of Spanish being spoken outside of Spain, controversy has arisen over what constitutes “Standard Spanish.” Each side has its adherents, as well as a group advocating the lowest-common-denominator between all varieties. The Madrid dialect (ceceo) has in the past usually taken precedence, especially with the creation of the regulating body, Real Academia Española, but with the size of Mexico far and away engulfing other countries in size of speakers, it has added muscle to the argument.
Latin America Spanish
Though it’s common knowledge that Christopher Columbus landed (from 1492) in the Caribbean on all four of his voyages to the New World, it’s not common knowledge that en route to the Caribbean each time, he stopped off in the Canaries. The Canary Islands were discovered, conquered and occupied by the Spanish decades before the “discovery” of the Americas. What is known linguistically about the islands is that the Spanish was nearly identical to the Spanish spoken in Andalucia. Whether the Spanish settlers were in fact native Andalucians is not known.
Many theories abound about where the origins of Spanish from the Americas came from. The most common one is that the similarities between Latin American Spanish and Andalucian Spanish are due to the fact that most of the intial settlers that came with Columbus and other conquistadors in those early expeditions where from Andalucia. And the reason they were from Andalucia as opposed to Catalonia or Galicia or other parts of Spain is because the ships set sail from the easiest, closest and most convenient area of Spain, Andalucia’s coast, and thus the majority of the shipmates where Andalucian. This theory is not without its detractors who believe that climalogical effects influenced speech patterns, to theories about pre-departure location.
The physical geographic theory states that settlers from the Meseta in Spain (the vast, high plateau that central Spain sits on) preferred the highlands of the Americas like the area around Mexico City and the Andean area. Those settlers from southern Spain (Andalucia) preferred settling in areas in the Americas that resembled home. In this sense, lowland areas outnumber high land areas in Latin America, and thus so the Andalucian dialect. There is very little evidence to support this claim (save for the fact that non-Andalucian Spanish was spoken in Mexico City) and it has all but been discarded.
Another more commonly accepted and modern theory states that indeed a high number of the early settlers (78% of settlers in the first two decades of colonization) were Andalucian. After these initial decades, subsequent waves of settlers waited in Andalucia for ships, sometimes up to months upon months, thus picking up local speech patterns and habits, and possibly discarding former ones like ceceo. Amending this theory is another theory that states that Spanish settlers from all over Spain, speaking all sorts of dialects, met and waited in Sevilla for the ships to the New World and thus adopted the popular Sevillian dialect as a common language for everyone. Again, another facet of this theory that makes it more credible is the fact that almost all of these subsequent settlers spent some time (stopping en route to the Americas) in the Canary Islands before heading off to the colonies. And as stated before, at the time the dialect spoken on these islands was very similar to that spoken in Andalucia, again, leading settlers to pick up local linguistic habits. All this leads a reader to believe that by the time these early settlers even got to the Americas, they were already speking a dialect of Spanish very similar to that of Andalucia, whether it was their native dialect or not. And thus this “dialect” naturally spread from settlers to Native Americans.
