Bernardo de Aldrete and the Morisco Problem: A Study in Early Modern Spanish Language Ideology

Abstract

introduction to the question In 1606, Bernardo José de Aldrete, 1 Spanish cleric and humanist antiquarian, published the first history of the Spanish language, On the origin and beginnings of the Castilian language or Romance, which is used in Spain today. 2 Aldrete argued that Castilian-also known at the time as Romance and now commonly known as Spanish-had been derived from Latin over centuries of use, with the Visigoths playing a key role in creating the linguistic change. 3 Classical origins and kinship to "The Ancients" were by Aldrete's time commonplace claims with which Renaissance humanists elevated their own societies (Maravall 1966:502-503). 4 Moreover, over one hundred years earlier humanist grammarians such as the eminent Antonio de Nebrija had taken it for granted that Spanish was descended from Latin. Yet in his prologue, Aldrete claimed his was a "work, without doubt full of difficulty and exposed to great danger." Although this assertion may have conformed to generic convention, it proved prophetic. Aldrete had cause to complain repeatedly in the following years about the suffering the book brought him, and to regret that he had ever published it or his other book on the topic: "I only wish that neither the first nor

How to Approach Indigenous Law?

“…According to Sabine MacCormack, "among Nebrija's concerns was to show that the Castilian vernacular of which he composed the very first grammatical analysis was as orderly and systematic as Latin." 138 In America, several friars applied the same argument to the local languages that they put into artes (grammars). In the dedication of his work to King Philip II, Friar Domingo de Santo Tomás insisted on the "exceptional order and policía" of Quechua and claimed that "such being the language, the people who use it should be counted not as barbarous but as possessing policía."…”

¿Qué es el purismo?

“…(Viziana, 1951: 33) Viziana no dice explícitamente de qué "ruin lengua" está hablando, pero como acaba de vituperar la lengua árabe, usando adjetivos muy similares ("civil y abatida") para calificarla 25 , podemos pensar que se trata de esta. Aquí por supuesto, el purismo lingüístico se mezcla con odio racial, en un período de enfrentamiento entre cristianos y moriscos en Granada y Valencia (Woolard, 2002).…”

Translating an Oriental Frame Tale and its Translator in Hapsburg Spain: The Prefaces to theEspejo político y moral(1654, 1659)

“…Woolard (2002 Woolard ( , 2004 discusses the language ideologies of Castilian in Aldrete and López Madera's writings in the context of debates about morisco assimilation in the early seventeenth century Gilbert (2014). andGarcía- Arenal and Rodríguez Mediano (2017) consider the question of Arabic in early modern Spain.16 An earlier translation, the Exemplario, was printed in Spain as late as 1621 in a dual edition with Aesop's fables.…”