In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • From the EditorEmpires and Mother Tongues
  • John Nieto-Phillips (bio)

The axiom is so familiar it almost goes without saying, and it yet always bears remembering: Language is Power. Throughout the ages, words and word systems have nourished and galvanized peoples or, variously, divided and condemned them to the margins. Words have triggered wars and sealed armistices. Where imperial tongues have collided, new lexicons have sprouted, new identities have evolved.

This issue of Chiricú Journal examines those collisions and their aftermath. When language is contested—as it constantly is—power relations hang in the balance. “The Politics of Language” calls our attention to political as well as creative uses of language in geopolitics, education, and literature. The critical and creative pieces that comprise this issue shed light on the tensions that emerge between and within Spanish- and English-language regimes. They also celebrate the work that language—through innovation and regeneration—does in the everyday lives of Latinas/os/xs, among Indigenous peoples, and in the Lusophone world.

________

In 1492, the Spanish historian, poet, and astronomer, Antonio de Nebrija authored the first-ever compendium of Spanish grammar, which he dedicated to Queen Isabella I of Castile. It is said that when Nebrija presented the book to the queen, she asked, “Why should I wish to read such a book, when I already know the language?” To this, Nebrija famously replied, “Your Majesty, language is the perfect instrument of empire.” During more than four centuries of conquest, the Castilian language proved one of Spain’s most effective tools for exercising its global power. Once codified, Spanish not only unified Spain’s disparate subjects, it suppressed or vanquished other (Indigenous) languages.

When the Spanish empire met its end in 1898, its language remained the mother tongue of millions of its former subjects. Today, half-a-billion people around the globe speak Spanish, of whom more than 50 million reside in the [End Page 1] nation that captured Spain’s vestigial colonies: the United States. In the wake of the Spanish-American War, language remained both a living reminder of Spain’s former grandeur and the durable instrument of its linguistic and cultural influence, or “soft power.”

A main exponent of Spain’s soft power was (and arguably remains) la Real Academia Española, or RAE. Modeled in 1713 after la Académie Française, the RAE’s mission was to “clean, fix, and give splendor” to the Spanish language by codifying and policing it. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the RAE extended its influence throughout its former colonies—and, notably, into the United States—by establishing partner academies. In this issue’s lead article, Ana Celia Zentella shows how the RAE, in alliance with those partner academies, has held steadfast to its founding mission to defend Spanish against “impurities” and “deformities”—both of which, presumably, are embodied in what is commonly called “Spanglish.” Not surprisingly, the RAE’s effort has inspired more resistance than collaboration by US scholars and pedagogues. Several of the contributions in this issue beautifully illustrate ways that teachers of Spanish, along with writers, artists, and even merchants, embrace a range of translingual practices as a badge of Latina/o/x identity. Those practices offer poignant testimony to the wondrous mutability of language. They also reveal the vanity of any quest to fix or purify a language—as if language were a precious metal. (The RAE’s founding statutes feature the image of a scalding crucible, symbolizing the purification of Spanish.) Nor can regimes hold forth against its evolution.


Click for larger view
View full resolution
Figure 1.

“The founding statutes of the Royal Spanish Academy, published in 1715.”

By challenging empires and orthodoxy, language recovery becomes possible. As Serafín Coronel-Molina (Issue Editor) and Américo Mendoza-Mori demonstrate, the recovery of endangered languages, such as Quechua, is an act of both [End Page 2] resistance and community survival. To the extent that Latinas/os/xs focus predominantly on contests between and within imperial languages (i.e., English and Spanish) we are complicit in marginalizing Indigenous languages and cultures. Coronel-Molina and Mendoza-Mori call for a nuanced framework as we unpack language dilemmas...

pdf

Share