The Politics of Language in the Spanish-Speaking World (review)

Mar-Molinero, well-known for her The Spanish-speaking world: A practical introduction to sociolinguistic issues (London: Routledge, 1997), discusses the history of the development of Spanish (more properly Castilian) as the dominant language of Spain and Latin America. It also treats the situation of the various minority languages spoken in the Hispanic world. Spanish is undoubtedly an important international language for this type of study since it is the third most widely spoken language after Chinese and English. I agree with the author’s basic thesis that ‘the Castilianization process has been unstoppable, but in the late twentieth century we are perhaps beginning to see a greater readiness to tolerate and support a more pluralistic vision’ (63).

As evidence for the aforementioned perspective, the author mentions that the military government of Peru from 1968–1975 declared Quechua an official language in the Peruvian constitution (59). This act served to remind Peruvians of their Inca roots although the writer is correct to point out that many other languages were also spoken in the Inca empire (58). Another excellent example of the stated tolerance and support for pluralism is the case of Guaraní in Paraguay, which has one and a half million monolinguals and two million bilinguals. This is the major reason it is an official language along with Spanish in that country. One can certainly appreciate that the work of the Jesuits there plus the fact that intermarriage was common account for Paraguay’ s high degree of bilingualism, which was responsible, in many ways, for the role that Guaraní would come to play as a marker of national identity (61).

Let me now briefly discuss the case of the minority languages. The history of Catalan shows that it was considered at one time the language of a great empire, along the lines of its neighbors French and Italian (42–47). Thus, it was a wise political move by King Juan Carlos of Spain to open the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona with welcoming remarks in Catalan. Turning to Basque, the author stresses that the rural population fought to protect what they perceived to be a dying culture from Castilianization (47–51). The case of Galician contrasts sharply with that of Catalan in that it was not highly regarded by anyone nor did its speakers have much education (51–52). The prestige language of Galicia has been and continues to be Castilian. As the author puts it: ‘an insecurity and sense of inferiority is always present in any discussion of Galician nationalism’ (52). Nahuatl is characterized by most Mexicans as symbolic of Mexico ’ s past (55–59) even though it has a million speakers according to 1995 statistics (57). It has little national status today; however, in the early nineteenth century with the Mexican Indian population at 64% of the total, the situation for all the indigenous languages was very different (57).

A major conclusion of the work is that the future of Spanish ‘will be determined by issues of politics and power’ (206). The events of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, to name but one place conspicuously in the news in the mid-1990s, made many people aware of the linguistic and human rights situation of the indigenous peoples.

This volume fits nicely in Routledge’s Politics of Language series which has given us other worthwhile studies, such as Peter Mühlhäusler’s Linguistic ecology: Language change and linguistic imperialism in the Pacific region (London: Routledge, 1996). Although the bibliography is extensive (218–30), there is one major omission: Otto Jespersen’s classic Mankind, nation and individual from a linguistic point of view (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925). It should be pointed out as well that ‘George Bush jnr’ is erroneous for George W. Bush (ix).