Table Of ContentAlso by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow
The Story of French
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong
THE
S T O R Y
OF
S P ANI S H
Jean-Benoit Nadeau
and Julie Barlow
& ST. martin’s GRIFFIN fó NEW YORK
the story of Spanish. Copyright © 2013 byJean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. All
rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address
St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Translations are by the authors unless otherwise noted.
Maps are by Julie Benoit unless otherwise credited.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Nadeau, Jean-Benoit.
The story of Spanish / Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. — First Edition,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-65602-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02316-2 (e-book)
1. Spanish language—History. I. Barlow, Julie, 1968- II. Title.
PC4075.N33 2013
460.9—dc23
2013002633
ISBN 978-1-250-04904-9 (trade paperback)
St. Martin’s Griffin books may be purchased for educational, business, or promotional
use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and
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First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: July 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
A Guide to Spanish Pronunciation
X
Maps
Spain Today xiii
La Reconquista (814) xiv
La Reconquista (900) xiv
La Reconquista (1210) XV
La Reconquista (1360) XV
Latin America Today xvi
U.S. Minority Population by County (2010) xvii
U.S. Minority Population Change by
County (2000-2010) xviii
Introduction 1
1. The Land of the Rabbits 7
2. Vulgar Language 17
3. Waiting for the Godos 27
4. Almost Arabic 36
5. The Curious Case of Castilian 49
6. The Kings’ Speech 58
7. The Prince of Language Buffs 67
8. The World According to Portugal 78
9. Fourteen Ninety-two 88
10. New Turf 98
11. The Accidental Grammarian 106
12. A Loss for Words 116
13. The Canary Effect 126
14. The Missionary Position 140
15. Moving Norte 150
16. Golden Age 159
17. Sunset on Spanish 172
18. The Bourbon Identity 183
VI CONTENTS
19. The Secret Lives of Language Academies 193
20. Riding the Tiger 205
21. Standard Shift 219
22. Enter the United States 232
23. The Spanish Renaissance 245
24. The Latin Rage 257
25. Learning Curve 272
26. The Franco Years 282
27 The Secret Agent of the Boom 298
28. From Ketchup to Salsa 311
29. I Say Spanglish, You Say Spanish 329
30. Spanish Dollars 342
31. The Department of Urgent Spanish 354
32. The Language of the Cervantes 365
33. Traces of the Future 378
Appendixes 387
Spanish Speakers by Country 387
Spanish Speakers, Other Countries 388
Learners of Spanish as a Foreign Language 389
Influence of Language by Absolute Numbers 390
Influence of Spanish by Rank 391
Hispanic Nobel Prizes by Country 393
Select Bibliography 395
Index 409
Acknowledgments
We are thankful to a great number of people for aiding us in the
research and writing of this book.
The list begins with our late agent, Ed Knappman, who passed
away before he could read the manuscript. Ed, and his wife, Eliza
beth, believed in The Story of Spanish when it was still a sketch on a
restaurant place mat. Shortly before his death, Ed passed the ba
ton to Roger Williams, our new agent, who has supported our
work with skill and friendship.
Michael Flamini, our editor at St. Martin’s Press, also believed
in this project while it was still a collection of rough ideas. He was
generous with his encouragement and guidance during the re
search and writing. We are also grateful to the team of editors,
correctors, cover designers, publicists, marketers, salespeople, and
more at St. Martin’s Press, who crafted the finished product and
got the book into our readers’ hands (or their e-book reader). We
would like to extend our thanks to our copy editor, Cynthia Mer
man. There are a lot of facts in this book and she truly scoured the
manuscript.
Many more people also helped us make the book a reality. We
thank Andrée Laurier of the Canada Council for the Arts as well
as Brad Hector from the Canada-United States Fulbright Founda
tion. The financial backing of both organizations was vital to the
book’s development. We also are deeply grateful to Yvan Nadeau,
our “guardian angel,” as well as to our assistant and organizing
genius, Veronica Louis, and to Tensy Cordoba, our patient and
enthusiastic language coach.
In the Spanish-speaking world, key actors played an important
role, starting with Dario Villanueva, secretary general of the Real
Vlll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Academia Española (the Royal Academy of Spanish) and Hum
berto López Morales, director of the Asociación de Academias de
la lengua española. We also address special thanks to Rosa Arboli
and Miguel Somovilla, who are, respectively, head librarian and
head of communications at the Academia, for their enthusiastic
support. Jose María Martinez, of the Instituto Cervantes, gave us a
lot of his valuable time. And without the input of the Fundación
Telefónica, we would have entirely overlooked the unprecedented
study carried out to evaluate the economic value of Spanish. Pro
fessor José Antonio Alonso, director of the University of Madrid’s
Institute of International Studies in Alcalá de Henares, was very
helpful in explaining it to us.
We gained early moral support and encouragement from Ale
jandra de la Paz, executive director of the Mexican Cultural Insti
tute in Washington; as well as Guillermo Corral Van Damme,
cultural industries policy director general of the Spanish Embassy
in Washington; Javier Francisco Oterino Cuchí, cultural attaché at
the Spanish embassy in Ottawa; and Maria Julia Rodriguez, who
was cultural minister at the Canadian embassy of Argentina. The
Arizona State University at Phoenix also gave useful institutional
backing, including access to its library and databases. And Emily
Spinelli, executive director of the American Association of Teach
ers of Spanish and Portuguese, opened a few more doors.
In Phoenix, Arizona, where we spent six months in 2010 as part
of Julie’s Fulbright grant, a number of people supplied precious
help. First among them was Erik Lee, associate director of the
North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State
University, who supplied us with a lot of good advice, insight, and
help, and who in so doing became a good friend. We also thank
NACTS director Rick Van Schoik and Sara Sonnenberg for wel
coming us and helping us get the most out of our time at ASU, as
well as Jaime Aguila for his advice.
In Phoenix, we owe a warm thank-you to Gantry York, orga
nizer of the Phoenix Amigos Meetup Group, who oriented us
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ¡X
through bilingual Phoenix and steered us toward some excellent
sources for interviews. We were also fortunate to meet a rich vari
ety of people at our daughters’ school, notably Rona Johnson, Ali
cia Webber, Michelle Greenberg, and Irma Garcia, who became a
permanent resident of the United States shortly after we left Phoe
nix. And we are grateful to our neighbors in Tempe, Billy and
Ashlee Miller, for helping us and our daughters feel at home.
We are also grateful to a number of friends who over the years
helped us forge a personal connection to Spanish. Among those are
Nuria and Claude Godcharles in Palo Alto and Celia Vara in Ali
cante, Spain, who opened our eyes to the reality of La Movida.
A Guide to Spanish Pronunciation
There are a lot fewer sounds in Spanish than in English. Al
most all Spanish words adhere to the following pronunciation rules.
Vowels
In Spanish, each vowel is pronounced separately. Auto (car) has
four sounds, one for each letter.
A sounds like the a in the musical note fa.
E sounds like the ay in play when stressed—e.g., médico (doctor). If
not stressed, it sounds more like the e in bet—e.g., estudio (study).
/ sounds like the e in be but shorter.
O sounds like the o in the musical note do.
U sounds like oo but shorter. Before most vowels, it becomes a
semivowel that sounds like the w in wall—e.g., fuego (fire). U is
always silent after q, as in que. After g, u is generally silent-—e.g.,
guerrilla. But ifgu is followed by a consonant, the u is pronounced—
e.g., gusto.
Y; when used as a vowel, sounds like the e in be but shorter-—e.g.,
y (and). When used as a semivowel, it sounds like the jy in yo-yo-—
e.g., hoy (today).
Consonants
B, D, F, K, L, M, N, P, and T. are pronounced the same way as
they are in English.
xi A GUIDE TO SPANISH PRONUNCIATION
C in front of a, o, and u is pronounced like k-—e.g., canal. In front
of e and i, there are variations. In the Americas and some parts of
Spain, c is pronounced like s. In northern Spain, c is pronounced
like th in path.
Ch\ Until 1994, this was a distinct letter (in the dictionary) but not
anymore. It is pronounced ch.
G is complicated. In front of e and i, it sounds like a throaty h—
e.g., general. In front of a o, or any consonant, it is hard—e.g., gato
(cat). The special case is in front of u. Then it may sound like gw—
e.g., lengua (language), or it is hard g—e.g., guerrilla. Or it may
disappear into wa—e.g., guardia (guard).
H is always silent.
J is called la jota. It sounds like a very throaty h.
LI: Until 1994, this was a distinct letter (in the dictionary) but not
anymore. Depending on the location, it sounds like the y in yo-yo
(e.g., llama) or the soft j of measure or pleasure. But in some dia
lects, it may sound like the lli in million.
TV is a distinct letter in the dictionary that falls between n and o. It
sounds like the English ng of sing—e.g., niño (child).
Q is always pronounced like k and is always combined with a silent u.
R at the beginning of words or when appearing as rr sounds like a
long trill. A single r anywhere else is almost always pronounced
like a very short trill, or a single tap of the tongue.
S sounds like s except when it comes in front of /, m, and d. In
those cases, it sounds like z.
