2.2 Linguistics (Lingüística)

The Romans brought Latin to the Iberian Peninsula starting in 218 BCE. Over centuries, everyday spoken Latin turned into several Romance languages, including Castilian, Catalan and Galician-Portuguese. Basque (el euskera) is different: it isn't related to Latin or to any other known language.

Castilian took shape in the north, in Castile, around the 9th and 10th centuries, and spread south as Christian kingdoms took land from al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled part of the peninsula. In the 13th century King Alfonso X, el Sabio (the Wise), had laws, histories and science written in Castilian instead of Latin. In 1492 Antonio de Nebrija published his Gramática de la lengua castellana, often called the first grammar of a modern European language. That same year Granada fell to the Catholic Monarchs and Columbus reached the Americas, which carried Spanish across the ocean.

Castellano and español are two names for the same language. Spain's 1978 Constitution calls it castellano, the official language of the whole country, while Catalan, Galician and Basque are also official in their regions. Many South Americans say castellano too.

Spanish borrowed words wherever its speakers met other peoples. Arabic gave the most after Latin, often cited as about 4,000 words. Many start with al-, the Arabic word for “the.”

The Real Academia Española (RAE) was founded in Madrid in 1713, with the motto “Limpia, fija y da esplendor” (it cleans, sets and gives splendor). It publishes the Diccionario de la lengua española and writes grammar and spelling rules together with the other members of the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE), founded in 1951. ASALE brings together more than 20 academies, including one in each Spanish-speaking country and others in Puerto Rico, the United States and the Philippines.

Today the academies mostly describe how educated speakers actually use Spanish, and they add words from across the Americas. Their advice is influential, but no law forces anyone to follow it.

Inclusive language is a lively debate. Some speakers say «todos y todas» or use forms like «todes» so that the masculine plural doesn't stand for everyone. The RAE holds that the masculine plural already includes everyone and calls the -e forms unnecessary. Supporters answer that language shapes how people see each other. Expect articles that present both views.

Most Spanish speakers, in all of Latin America, the Canary Islands and much of Andalusia, use seseo: s, z, and c before e or i all sound like s, so casa (house) and caza (hunt) sound alike. In northern and central Spain, speakers use distinción: z and ce/ci sound like the th in “think.” The story that this began with a king's lisp is a myth.

Most speakers also pronounce ll and y the same (el yeísmo). In Argentina and Uruguay they often sound like “sh” or the s in “measure.” In the Caribbean and parts of southern Spain, an s at the end of a syllable often softens to an h sound or disappears. None of these is more correct than the others: the academies accept all educated varieties as standard.

This unit also practices the mechanics of written Spanish, which count in the language row of the essay rubric. These are the rules English speakers break most often:

• Open every question and exclamation with ¿ or ¡, even in the middle of a sentence: Si llueve, ¿qué hacemos?
• Don't capitalize days, months, languages or nationalities: el lunes 3 de mayo, el español, los mexicanos. In titles of books and films, capitalize only the first word and names: Cien años de soledad.
• Some accents change the meaning: tú (you) and tu (your), él (he) and el (the), sí (yes) and si (if).
• Question words take an accent in direct and indirect questions (¿Dónde vives? No sé dónde vive) but not when they simply link two clauses (la casa donde vivo).