Product Description: Since its publication in 2007, A Brief History of the Spanish Language has become the leading introduction to the history of one of the world’s most widely spoken languages. Moving from the language’s Latin roots to its present-day forms, this concise book offers readers insights into the origin and evolution of Spanish, the historical and cultural changes that shaped it, and its spread around the world...read more

'This Spanish-language text covers the history of Spanish from its pre-Roman and Latin roots to its standardized form and its many regional variations. Details of pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary are explained in their historical context,giving the student of Spanish a deeper understanding of the language as a whole'--Provided by publisher.

A History of the Spanish Language through Texts examines the evolution of the Spanish language from the Middle Ages to the present day. Pountain explores a wide range of texts from poetry, through newspaper articles and political documents, to a Bunuel film script and a love letter. With keypoints and a careful indexing and cross-referencing system this book can be used as a freestanding history of the language independently of the illustrative texts themselves.

Why would a Latin Qur'an be addressed to readers who knew no Latin? What happens when translators work on paper rather than parchment? Why would a Jewish rabbi translate a bible for Christians? How can a theorist successfully criticize a version of Aristotle without knowing any Greek? Why were children used to bring down an Amerindian civilization? Why does the statue of Columbus in Barcelona point straight to Israel? Why should a Nicaraguan poet cite a French poem in order to explain a volcano in Nicaragua? This book does more than answer such questions. It uses them to discuss some of the most fundamental and complex issues in contemporary Translation Studies and Cultural Studies. Identifying cultural intermediaries as members of medieval frontier society, it traces the stages by which that society has assisted in the creation of Hispanic cultures. Individual case studies go from the twelfth-century Christian, Islamic and Jewish exchanges right through to the not unrelated complexity of today's translation schools in Spain, mining a history rich in anecdote and paradox. Further aspects trace key concepts such as disputation, the medieval hierarchy of languages, the nationalist mistrust of intermediaries, the effects of decolonization on development ideology, and the difficulties of training students for globalizing markets.

Product Description: Here is a manual for scholars of Old Spanish that departs from tradition in that it guides the reader through a minimal (and painless) course in the fundamentals of linguistics and Latin before discussing the evolution of Latin to Spanish...read more