[...]... to readers, they are either briefly explained in the text or used as the basis of tasks requiring readers to find out (or work out) for themselves what the terms mean The key concepts are given in bold, the first time they appear in the text, and they are listed in a selective ‘index of terms’ at the end of the book to provide a quick source of reference and act as an aide-mémoire However, the whole... Castilian throughout Spain in administration and the law The successful claimant, Philip V, was the first of the Spanish Bourbon kings, who further extended a tight centralised political system, along the lines of the model being developed then in France, from where he came As a result of their and their pretender’s defeat the Catalans and others had their last residual local laws and privileges revoked... before the arrival of the Europeans What factors do you think contributed to keeping these languages separate and distinct from each other? Consider the geography and size of Latin America Compare the impact of Spanish on this region with similar conquests in other areas, such as the legacy of Latin brought with the Roman Empire At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, hierarchies between these... place during the Republic The regime carefully chose to refer to these languages as ‘dialects’ of Spanish (with the exception of Basque) It was claimed that the non-Castilian languages were inferior, and they were characterised as the speech only of the uneducated and peasantry In the early part of the Franco period infringements of the laws prohibiting the use of languages other than Castilian were... end of the fifteenth century, then, for most commentators marks the birth of modern Spain This period heralds the beginning of the creation of a Castilian hegemony, a hegemony born out of solidarity in the face of the common Moorish enemy, throughout the newly formed state, and, with it, the repression of the minority communities along the peripheries Define and discuss the concept of hegemony Spanish. .. 5 • The establishment of a ‘national’ language 7 • Language in twentieth-century Spain 11 • Further reading 13 Chapter 1 Chapter 1 3 Introduction Spanish is spoken today by over 350 million people For the vast majority of these people Spanish is their mother tongue From the Iberian Peninsula, where Spanish first developed, the language has been exported across many continents and established as the. .. too did the appointment of bishops, with the result that Castilian -speaking bishops were now commonplace in the non-Castilian speaking areas While the lower clergy often resisted this loss of the use of the mother tongue, the Church had an important influence in extending the use of Castilian, both in its ecclesiastic duties and its education services In 1768 Charles III decreed that ‘throughout the kingdom... essentially that of a Castilian identity A further factor contributing to the consolidation of the prestige of Castilian as the national language was the establishment of the Royal Academy of the Spanish language in 1713 What does the Academy’s motto ‘limpia, fija, y da esplendor’ tell us about its role in promoting the Spanish language? Compare this to other language academies in such places as France... were the reasons for this dramatic spread, and the legacy of this enforced dominance can still be seen in many of the places where Spanish is spoken Even in the Iberian Peninsula itself the status of Spanish is not unproblematic as it continues to coexist, sometimes uneasily, with those minority languages that still survive on the peripheries of the Peninsula The history up to the present day of these... Latin America through the tasks set and the further reading lists The structure of the book Part one aims to give the reader an overview of the position of Spanish in the world, including a historical introduction to its development and expansion, a discussion of its geographic range, and an examination of its status and role vis-à-vis other languages with which it comes into contact The tasks include . attitudes in the Spanish- speaking world 60 Further reading 70 vii CONTENTS 6 Register in Spanish 71 Field 74 Tenor 75 Mode 79 Further reading 84 7 Getting the message across: Spanish in the media. Latin America through the tasks set and the further reading lists. The structure of the book Part one aims to give the reader an overview of the position of Spanish in the world, including a historical. 154 Conclusion 158 Further reading 158 12 The vitality of Spanish today 159 Spanish speakers in the USA 160 Puerto Rico and the language question 164 Spanish in the late twentieth century 167 Further reading