Spanish as a Contact Language

An Ecological History

Israel Sanz-Sánchez

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781474429115
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Spanish Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Languages do not exist beyond their speakers, but the history of individual languages has often been told as if they had a life of their own, emerging from other languages, growing and sometimes dying. When applied to Spanish, this story line commonly begins in spoken Latin, with the language taking shape in medieval Spain before spreading beyond Europe in the colonial period. This book proposes a new take on this narrative. Instead of seeing Spanish as a linguistic entity with linear development, what would its history look like if we think of it as a centuries-long constellation of contact events? A History of Spanish as a Contact Language revisits the evolution of Spanish from the perspective of the ecology of language, centring speakers as the only historical agents of language transmission and change. Taking the speakers' vantage point opens up exciting possibilities to rethink what Spanish is, how it has changed, and who has played a role in this process.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• List of Maps, Figures, and Tables
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Spanish as Myth, Spanish as Contact
• 2. The Ubiquity of Contact: Toward an Ecological Approach to Language Change
• 3. Spanish Before Spain: Ancient, Roman Era, and Medieval Contacts
• 4. Spanish Beyond Spain: Contact Ecologies in the Colonial Era
• 5. Spanish in the Post-colonial World: New Nations, New Citizens, New Contacts
• 6. Recent Contacts: New Language Ecologies in a Transnational World
• 7. Toward New Ecological Narratives in Language Histories
• References
• Index of Languages and Families
• Index of Subjects