Elio Antonio De Nebrija’s Linguistic Contributions to the Latin and Spanish Language
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You probably have ever taken Latin or Spanish in highschool or faculty, you most likely used a grammar book that can assist you study the language. You additionally could have puzzled how your Latin or Spanish grammar book was organized, in order that you may study it extra simply. Greater than five-hundred years in the past, Elio Antonio de Nebrija was an educator from Spain whose scholarly contributions to each languages has unofficially made him the daddy of Latin and Spanish grammars.
Nebrija’s biggest contribution to Iberia and the remainder of Europe was the primary Latin grammar book,Introductiones Latinae, written in Spanish in 1481. In 1492, Nebrija additionally composed a Spanish into Latin dictionary. In 1495, he outdid himself by publishing the reverse: a Latin into Spanish dictionary. They have been the primary Latin grammar and dictionaries printed in Europe, which was revolutionary as a result of each book printed earlier than was written fully in Latin. So Iberia’s Spanish, and presumably Portuguese individuals might learn Latin by translating it from Spanish.
Earlier than Nebrija revealed his works, Latin was the language utilized by the Roman Empire many centuries earlier. Over a protracted time period, international locations that had been conquered by the Empire, resembling Spain, France, Italy, Romania and Portugal spoken Classical Latin for written communication and “Vulgar” Latin for oral communication. Because the centuries wore on, dialects of Latin have been being spoken in every of those international locations and have become impartial romance languages. Nonetheless, the formal Classical Latin of the Roman Empire survived in written manuscripts that included classical Roman literature, formal speeches and sermons about morality by the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1492, Nebrija wrote the primary grammar of a contemporary European language to be published- La Grammatica de la Lengua Castellana (Grammar of the Spanish language). To the remainder of Europe, a grammar book in its nation’s personal language was unparalleled. Nebrija truly revealed this book for Isabela, the Queen of Spain, in order that she might use it as a software to centralize the entire different languages from totally different components of Spain into one language-Castilian, for one empire. It was additionally not only for the complete Iberian Peninsula, however the future Spanish-American colonies, which was prophesized by Nebrija himself:
It was prophetic, in that all through the conquest of the Americas, and the centuries of colonialism, language was utilized by the Spanish as a software for conquest: to consolidate political energy, to unfold the Catholic religion, and to unify the empire. (Zhenja La Rosa, language and Empire: The Imaginative and prescient of Nebrija).
Nebrija divided his Grammatica into 4 components: spelling, talking, which means of phrases and their origins, and grammar and components of speech. Nebrija included a fifth half about strategies of educating the “Castilian” (Spanish) language. All of those linguistic parts are utilized in as we speak’s overseas language books, not simply within the Castillian language. Nebrija even revealed his closing book, Reglas de Ortografía Española, to focus extra broadly on the principles for saying and spelling of Spanish phrases.
After Nebrija’s works have been revealed, Castillians (Spaniards) loved a revival in classical Roman literature. They traveled to Italy the place Nebrija studied and have been uncovered to the Italian Renaissance. In consequence, Spain tradition skilled its personal Renaissance; Spain’s variety of literary publications by Spanish authors exploded, a lot in order that this era was generally known as Spain’s “Golden Age” of literature (El Siglo de Oro). books, poetry, theater, and brief tales have been busily being printed within the Castilian language. Among the many first fashionable works have been two that have been written in narrative prose: La Celestina (1499) and Lazarrillo de Tormes (1554). In 1605, the primary a part of the world’s first and, arguably, biggest novel, Don Quijote de la Mancha, written by Miguel de Cervantes, was revealed by fashionable demand.
Elio Antonio de Nebrija’s publications on the Latin and Spanish languages have been groundbreaking. Simply as his first instruction book for Latin was his most vital software for Medieval Europeans to learn Latin, as we speak, the affect of his first Spanish grammar book has been indispensable. With out this linguistic contribution, the remainder of the world wouldn’t have the ability to talk with roughly 400-500 million individuals in twenty-one international locations whose native language is Spanish.
