The Spanish language emerged out of a dialect of Vulgar Latin once spoken in the Roman province of Hispania in the Iberian Peninsula, occupied by the Romans from the late 3rd century BC. The variety of Vulgar Latin spoken in Iberia would also give rise to Portuguese, both Spanish and Portuguese being classified as Ibero-Romance languages. Modern Spanish is derived from the variety of Romance spoken in the old Spanish region of Castile / Castillain the north of Spain from the 9th century AD. This is why español / Spanish is also known as castellano / Castilian. Castilian would become the official language of all of Spain when the kingdoms of Castilla / Castile and León / Leon merged with that of Aragón / Aragon in the late 15th century. Castilian is far from the only type of Romance spoken in Spain, other regional Romance varieties including Aranese, Catalan, Valencian, Galician, Aragonese, Asturian, Leonese and Extremaduran. Previously, a language called Mozarabic was spoken in Arab-occupied Spain before the 12th century. There was also a Judeo-Spanish dialect until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492.
Today, Castilian Spanish is one of the world’s most spoken languages, with nearly 500 million native speakers mostly located in the Americas and Spain. It is the second-most spoken native language after Chinese Mandarin, and the fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin and Hindi-Urdu – as well as the most spoken Romance language. It is the official language of 20 countries, the most populous of these being Mexico / México.
The diversity within the contemporary Hispanic world has broadened the scope of Hispanophonism. Today, a large proportion of native Spanish speakers in Central and South America are of at least some Amerindian i.e. “Orientalesque” (the Amerindian languages being distantly related to the “Oriental” grouping of East Asia I propose, including Chinese, Japanese and Mongol, within an “Orientalesque”/Amurian/Mongoloid primary family) ancestry, for example. Amerindian culture contrasts quite starkly with the magnolious refined Hispanic Romance tradition, and the combination has produced some intriguing results in Latin America.
The evolution of the Spanish language hasn’t simply entailed its flourishing from Vulgar Latin roots. No, there is a rich, interesting story behind its formation. It is a tale of discernment, passion, and devotion. More than 1,000 years ago in what is now La Rioja, at the Suso monastery in the village of San Millán de la Cogolla, notes by monks materialised in the margins of monastic Latin texts that represent the first examples of written Spanish. We know thereby that the first writings in Castilian Spanish were realised by monks belonging to monasteries to the north of medieval Castile. For a time, the boundaries between written Latin and Castilian had been fluid and blurred, and not consciously differentiated. While most people were still illiterate around this time, the Christian kingdom of Castile would nonetheless be impelled to grow and acquire power against Muslim occupation of Iberia. The king Fernando III el Santo (1217-1252) took the decision to commence the creation of documents of the royal state in Castilian, over Latin or Leonese, Castile having been the Christian kingdom / reino cristiano with the greatest demographic and economic strength as well as geographic extent from the middle of the XII century. The core essence of the Spanish language can therefore be said to be of monastic origin. However, while the vast majority of the Spanish lexicon is made up of Latinate etymologies, Arabic has also had an extensive influence on the languages of the Iberian Peninsula, mostly via the extinct Mozarabic or Andalusi Romance language. The other regional Romance languages including Navarro-Aragonese, Leonese, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, Occitan, as well as French and Italian more indirectly, held a degree of sway that remains remarkably discernible in modern Spanish. The lesser influence of the Germanic Gothic language is also worth mentioning, the result of Visigothic rule in Iberia, which took over following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. The Umayyad conquest of Spain began in 711, whereupon the Moors introduced Islam to the region they named الأَنْدَلُس Al-Andalus. Ever noticed that the Arabic script resembles blood flow, the depths of the language having visceral character? The viscerality of Arabic bled into Spanish within Muslim Spain, a potent factor which has profoundly shaped the inherent characteristics of the language. Modern Hispanic intensity thus derives from the synthesis of the two described streams of Muslim and Christian religious devotion.
Although descended from colloquial spoken Vulgar Latin, Spanish is a rich literary language like its ancient forebear. My creative vision has been greatly inspired by this dimension of Hispanic heritage. Hispanic literature is more acutely soulful than in other languages, making it a highly fulfilling and fruitful area of study.
“La razón de la sinrazón que a mi razón se hace, de tal manera mi razón enflaquece, que con razón me quejo de la vuestra fermosura.”
The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason, so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty.
Don Quixote / El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha (pub. 1605), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo”.
The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.
Cien años de soledad / One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
This compelling feature of Hispanic literature makes it relatively easy to visualise the Spanish language, despite its elevated, exclusive, rarefied, involuted literary character. The intense, austere rigour of the language’s monastic origins combined with its Moorish heritage -Arabic being another language of intense religious devotion- make complementary vibrant visuals an especially popular mode of recourse for the keen Spanish learner.
Learning Spanish in a way which is authentic according the all that I have discussed above is extremely hard-going on an emotional level. Beyond the mundane technical level, people end up becoming too attached to one cultural “dimension” at the expense of the grip on the others. Some people fall for the Latin American effervescence, others plough too hard at the intense Ibero-Romance tradition, both normally with nauseatingly pretentious results – and whatever else. The all-important balance so urbanely upheld by natives is rarely achieved. It’s a mess on a social level, no matter how comprehensive and otherwise effective the learning resource. The whole philosophy of Hispanism is off-key. This is why I was enthusiastic to develop and apply my vision, the results meticulously faithful to authentic hispanidad/ Hispanicity.
The Buzz-Concept Project 