From Latin to Castilian: The Evolution of Language and Power in Spain, Study notes of Political Science

Download From Latin to Castilian: The Evolution of Language and Power in Spain and more Study notes Political Science in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Discourse, Dictators and Democrats Lecture 8 From Latin to Spanish Topics • Review: How reform of Latin distinguished Franks from servi • Adoption of Frankish Latin in Spain after 1085 succeeded by use of Castilian for rule from ca. 1250 • Continuous differentiation of Castilian from other forms of Spanish preserved undemocratic rule until after death of Franco in 1975 and the adoption of a new constitution in 1977 – Under the new constitution el Castellano remains the state’s official form of Spanish but regional forms are official within the corresponding region Review • Frankish power was declining as Latin of the rulers became more like the Latin spoken by servi, the term for the ruled • Requiring each letter to be pronounced separately, revival of a Latin never previously spoken produced: – Elongating diagrams in the form of additional syllables during pronunciation – An elevating metaphor placing Franks next to angels placed in Heaven by attribution of shared Latin – A privative opposition between liber and servus, free and bound – Obstacles to communication as a cost of identification among the rulers and the enforcers of rule, as Franks could not understand the revised Latin The Iberian Peninsula • Just as theodisc-speaking Franks learned Latin when they entered the Roman army in the north, so a thiuda called “Visigoths” learned Latin when hired for the Roman army in the southwest • Like the Frankish kings in the north, their kings replaced the Romans as rulers in the south Visigoths • “Visigoth” is apparently a historical error • Speakers of a variant of theodisc known as Goths ended up living around the Black Sea, where the Bible was translated into their language before 383 CE • An early king of some of these Goths was called Ostrogotha • A Roman serving a later king, Theodoric, in Italy who wrote a history of the Goths interpreted Ostrogotha’s name as meaning “East Goth” in their language – Ostro-gotha – Austra-sia • He apparently inferred that other Goths who were Theodoric’s enemies must be “West Goths,” or Visigoths • Apparently they called themselves something represented in Latin as “Tervingi” Spain • Overthrown in the Italian peninsula by Theodoric’s Ostrogoths in 493, other “Visigoths” continued to rule in what are now southern France and Spain • What language they spoke is unknown • They left documents written in Latin, which by this time was a language spoken by much of the population of Spain in some form 2 Political Vulnerability • Uncertainty about the identity and language of the Visigoths suggests that they should have had difficulty sustaining their rule – What was their basis for parochial altruism? – Half the Visigothic kings ruling from Toledo died by violence committed by other Visigoths • When Muslims invaded from North Africa in 711, they defeated the last Visigothic king supposedly because much of his army suddenly deserted – Jewish garrisons are thought to have surrendered the Visigoths’ fortresses to the Muslims because of religious persecution by their masters • Latin speakers with theodisc names were able to preserve a form of rule only in the far north because the area was too remote for the Muslims to bother conquering it – To this day many Spanish names are recognizably of German origin Castile • Shortly after Pippin becomes king of the Franks in 751, some of these Latin-speakers begin settling the upper reaches of the Ebro River • Needing to protect themselves against Muslim raids, they build wooden forts called castella in Latin • The territory comes to be called Castile • Separated by mountains from the capital, they begin to speak a different form of Spanish – Illorum lingua resonat quasi tympanotriba – “Of that yonder language sounds like a tambourine-player” – “Loud and arrogant” – or “soft and effeminate”? • Discourse cues identity: Castilian sounds different, “Castilians” appear Conquest • If distinctive discourse cues identity and identity evokes parochial altruism, Castilians should become effective fighters – Castilians led by King Alfonso VI of Leon capture Toledo in 1085 – Muslim Arabic speakers have intermarried with latini-speaking Mozarab (Christian) aristocracy of Toledo, lost discursive distinctiveness, and fallen into disunity – The capture of Toledo is called reconquista, but if Castilians are a new identity, they can never have been there previously • To assert superiority over the Mozarabs, Alfonso VI imports a Frankish bishop to install Alcuin’s pronunciation of Latin in church ritual in place of the old “Visigothic” ritual practiced by the Mozarabs • Alcuin’s Latin also becomes the language of royal documents • Ruling nobility speaks el Castellano to each other Uncertainties • Alfonso VI was king of Leon, Castile, and part of Galicia • He acquired Castile only when his brother Sancho, whom their father had made King of Castile on his death, tried to take Leon from his brother Alfonso • What makes Alfonso a Castilian rather than a Leonese? • Their father had been count of Castile but was himself appointed by Sancho of Navarre and was not from Castile • Somehow “Castilian” rather than “Leonese” became the identity of the new rulers of Toledo • It is a mystery why From Latin to Castilian • After 1250 a shift from Latin to Castilian in royal documents was completed under Alfonso X that had begun under his father • Alfonso X organized the translation of Arabic writings into Castilian – Some of these concerned the art of rule – Others were translations of ancient Greek philosophers – Much concerned astrology • Subject matter suggests that maybe Alfonso and his father were trying to build up a capacity to repress not dependent of Latin-writing churchmen whose compositions propagated Roman ideas about these matters • Repression requires cooperation between enforcers and maintainers of the distinctive discourse Effect of Translation • Having been brought from the remote north by conquerors, Castilian was already distinct from Toledo dialect and other regional varieties of latini • In order to translate Arabic and Greek terms, Alfonso’s translaters coined or imported terms from Arabic and Latin • Imports made el Castellano as different from Spanish dialects as rulers’ English became from English dialects after 15th century