• The Art of Spanish

    Author(s):
    Raf Van Rooy (see profile)
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    History of Linguistics and Language Study, Renaissance / Early Modern Studies
    Subject(s):
    Grammar, Linguistics, History, Spanish language
    Item Type:
    Blog Post
    Tag(s):
    History of linguistics, Renaissance grammar books, Spanish language in history
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/2918-e757
    Abstract:
    1492 was a momentous year for Spain. The Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, leading to the continent’s largescale colonization by Europeans. Columbus did so by order of the so-called Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, while actually trying to discover a new travel route to Asia. Those same monarchs ordered, also in 1492, that all Jews be expelled from Spain, as they wanted to make sure that conversos, Jews-turned-Christians, would not return to their old faith. This led to mass migration movements, and expelled Jews fanned out across the whole of Europe and North-Africa. It was only in 2015 that Spain officially annulled this expulsion. Columbus’ discovery of the Americas and the driving away of the Jews had horrendous consequences. It led to an unprecedented and unscrupulous exploitation of an entire continent and greatly reduced cultural diversity in Spain. A homogeneous empire was in the making, and how support this better than by creating a uniform language?
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Online publication    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    3 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
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