Historia del español.

Well for today's entry, I want to talk about my favorite class which is History of the Spanish Language. I figured out in my sophomore or junior year of high school that I loved language. Once I got to college, I took some linguistics classes--and my love of language also grew to encompass the development of language. When I was looking at classes to take here, I knew immediately that I would take this one since it dealt with the history of the language and how it developed.

It easily is my hardest class here, but I love it. I have it Mondays and Wednesday at 3--right after lunch. The other days that I have class at 3, I would rather take a siesta than go to class, but I'm always ready/excited to go to this class. There are only 6 of us in class....Kat, Steph, Rosy, Joel, Jayme, and me. I'm glad it's a small class, as we can all ask questions, and our professor really makes sure that everyone understands. Our professor is the other reason that I love the class. She makes learning about the language really interesting. Plus it's always an added bonus to see what she's wearing and how her hair looks as she is very fashion conscious. Her hair is always perfect (like a Barbie, we say) and her clothes and jewelry always match. I was hoping to take a little video of class today, but it didn't happen--maybe on Wednesday.

We had an exam last Wednesday, and I studied a lot for it. It was covering 6 of the 7 sections that we will talk about over the course of the semester. There was so much material to review, plus lots of memorization. 5 of the 6 sections on the exam were dealing with history and characteristics of languages. We started off talking about Classic Latin and Vulgar Latin and how they existed at the same time, with classic Latin being the language of the educated and also the language of literature. Vulgar Latin was the Latin that was spoken by the common people, the colloquial language. All the Romance languages are derived from Vulgar Latin. We talked about how the Romans invaded Spain in 213 BC and the process of Romanization in the Iberian Peninsula. Then we talked about the arrival of the German invadors, specifically the Visigoths is the 5th century. The Visigoths abadoned their language and religion and converted to Christianity and utilized Vulgar Latin. Then in 711, the Arabs arrived in Spain where they stayed until their expulsion in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella (The Catholic Kings). That's a bit of the history covered. We went into detail of how each invading group affected the language, including characteristics and words that transitioned into Spanish. We also discussed the linguistic varieties in the Iberian Peninsula. Here are what they are--written in Spanish--as I don't feel like translating and am not sure how some of them would translate.
1. Aragonés
2. Gallego-Portugués
3. Asturleonés
4. Mozárabe
5. Castellano
Varieties of Castellano: español castellano, andaluz, canario, papiamiento, español de América, tagalo, y judeoespañol
6. Catalán
Varieties of Catalán: barcelonés, tarragonés, leridano, valenciano, ibicenco, menorquín, y mallorquín

Then we also discussed in detail of how words changed from Vulgar Latin to Spanish today. There were a bunch of different characteristics to learn and things to look for. Plus we also went into detail about the 4 types of Yod, which deals with a diphthong converting into different sounds. Here's an example of that--first the word written in Latin, followed by its transition into Spanish. (If the word is in brackets, it is written phonetically)

ERICIU > [erico] > [erizo] > [eriθo] erizo
--The word erizo means hedgehog in Spanish.

That's just an example--maybe I'll type out a few more if I get a video of part of the class. Well I had the exam last Wednesday--and I did really well! So that's good. All for now--need to finish up some homework and get some sleep!


P.S. I also added some pics from when Amparo dressed us up as Flamenco dancers--so take a peek!