The spanish language is strong and thousand-year-old like the vampires.
Over the centuries the language has became stronger because of it's simple structure and the easiness to go from spoken to written language.
AP
El universal
Guadalajara, thursday 03 december 2009
It's birth was around one thousand and four hundred years ago, and it has survived, becoming stronger over the centuries.
It's not a popular vampire, it is the spanish language whose origins come from the Castilla and Leon zone in the center of Spain, and that is now spoken by more than 400 million people in the world.
"Spanish is a thousand-year-old language. We are documentng it's origins in the VI century. This means that the language has lasted for 1,400 years" stated Gonzalo Santonja, who participates in the international book fair in Guadalajara.
"It all began when castillian was a very small language in the center of the iberian peninsula, then it became the language of all Spain, then it went overseas and became the language of all America, and now it's expanding in the United States" he pointed.
But how this happened and why?
The expert assures that it has to do with many factors, one of them like it's simple structure that makes it very easy to go from spoken to written language, unlike french or english whose phonetics and grammar vary greatly.
"Besides, the language has been decisively enriched because we represent the origins, but those who have made spanish great are the people that decided by their own will to feel, love, enjoy, worry and be happy in this language" and leave a written proof, in diferent genres, Santonja assured.
Another factor is the easiness to adopt different modalities and being flexible. Instead of rejecting them and becoming static, the spanish language has guaranteed it's growth and extension because their inhabitants are capable of adopting changes.
Spanish Phrases that are understood in Latinamerica and viceversa and that soon are used in both sides of the Atlantic make people "feel comfortable speaking spanish, regardless they learnt it in Colombia or Chile".
"This shouldn't be perceived as negative, we should think that some words are a different solution than yours. Then it's important to think why it is given and which one is the most plastic, which one is the most adequate to the circumstances and from there we make an integration norm.
Santonja affirmed that besides all this spanish is a "really good sounding language, that has thousands of hues and infinity of entries... and it has an enormous depth with thousands of millions of terms.
Because of this in communities in the United States with strong hispanic immigration like Los Ángeles or New York, it feels alive and in expansion.
According to the expert, many of the people who feel obliged to travel to the United States to improve their quality of life and that of their families, could leave their language behind by feeling expelled from their countries or by feeling that they don't owe them nothing because of the deplorable living conditions they had.
However, they decided to cling to this language instead of loosing it, which is an admirable phenomenon.
To his perception, the denominated
spanglish that mixes english and spanish, more than a deformation of the language is an evidence of that attachment to the roots: instead of entirely embracing the language of the place where they live, they keep spanish alive in their homes and with the people close to them.
"Spanish wins the battle because it has always been an street language" ,Santonja stated
However, he said that we need to keep working hard to preserve those one thousand four hundred years of history. And the first thing we should do is to solve poverty and consolidate democracy so people can channel their energies in cultivating their culture, reading and worrying about speaking, reading and thinking properly in their language instead of surviving with dignity.
"The future is solidly marked, but we need to solve the situation of social injustice that prevails in many of the inhabitants of the spanish language", he concluded "This has to be solved for everyone's sake".
Translated from
Idioma español, milenario y fuerte como los vampiros - El Universal - Cultura
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