Volume 2007, Issue 184

Spain's sociolinguistic situation is not as well known on an international level as it should be. Spain as a country projects a marked historical and social image (Lamo de Espinosa 1996). This reality has some clearly positive effects, but also produces some damaging consequences. According to Javier Noya (2002: 4), we Spaniards possess an almost excellent cultural and artistic image of ourselves. On the other hand, however, we are surrounded by the halo of a strong simplifying stereotype, which in turn is surrounded by a great lack of knowledge regarding the reality of the country.

If one takes a birds-eye tour of the social history of the languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, from the Antiquity to the present, there are several key features that can be clearly perceived. Latin, for instance, stands out in this timeline for its role as protagonist during a period of 2000 years. One can also note the importance of linguistic demography, the cycles of which determine the social presence of languages as well as how we view them, since it is these cycles that affect the configuration and extension of the geographic varieties of each language. Linguistically speaking, Spanish history demonstrates the influence that France has had in different times and diverse areas: the importance of Provencal literature, the arrival of European culture by way of the Camino de Santiago and through ecclesiastical reforms, the Medieval re-population movements, or the influence of the French model in linguistic politics of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, what stands out most clearly when considering the mosaic of languages that have come together in the Peninsula over the course of time is the naturalness and normality with which these languages have co-existed on an everyday basis, whether neighboring languages, co-offcial languages sharing the same territory, mixed languages, or languages that mutually influence each other. The case of the Basque Territory is particularly representative due to its secular bilingualism, with the co-existence of extremely different languages from Indo-European and other varieties in the Pre-Historic Age, to modern-day Basque and Castilian. We should not lose sight of the fact that it was a bilingual monk who penned what we consider some of the first testimonies of the Basque language. The aim of this article is to present some of the most important moments in the social history of the Spanish language as it relates to its neighboring languages.

The aim of this article is to present the major characteristics of Spanish in Galicia, where certain linguistic solutions of Spanish came into contact with Galician, the vernacular language following the fragmentation of Latin into the peninsular Romance languages. This study should be supplemented by others primarily concerned with the study of Spanish of Galicia.

This article presents the sociolinguistic aspects of Spanish in contact with Basque in the Basque Country and Navarre. It will take a look at the historical reasons for the presence of Spanish in both territories, the relative status of the two languages, the linguistic characterization of the Spanish in these bilingual areas, or the linguistic results of the contact, the domains where Spanish is used, and so on. It will also detail the language-related legislation that governs the use of Spanish in the two communities and the teaching of Spanish both in compulsory education (primary and secondary) and university-level education.

The present article provides an overview of the historical and sociolinguistic factors that have lead to the current state of bilingualism in Catalonia. Since medieval times, offcial policies and successive waves of Spanish-speaking newcomers have left their mark on both the social identity and the linguistic repertoire of the Catalan speech community. At present, surveys show that, despite the legislative efforts of the past 30 years to normalize Catalan as the language of education, culture, and the public sphere in general, the use of Spanish does not appear to be decreasing; rather, overall, there are increasing numbers of bilingual speakers. This, in turn, is having an effect on the variety of Spanish spoken in Catalonia, which shows certain idiosyncratic features, ranging from lexical and grammatical interference to code-switching and code alternation.

The Balearic Islands are one of the autonomous regions of modern Spain, where both Catalan and Spanish are considered offcial languages and are widely spoken among the population. Historically, the main language of the region has been Catalan, brought to the islands during the Spanish Re-conquest from the thirteenth century onwards. The presence of Spanish was noted much later, as a slow language substitution process starting in the sixteenth century took place. This article analyzes the functional distribution of both languages today, as well as consequences of secular language contact and some attitudinal aspects of Balearic social bilingualism.

The social situation of the region of Valencia reveals a linguistic conflict, where the shift from vernacular Valencian to Spanish occurs without a modification in the social condition. Castilianization was a slow, gradual process of cultural decadence that followed two lines: a) horizontal and progressive in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and b) downwards and spontaneous in the nineteenth century. The War of Succession and Felipe V's Nueva Planta Decree of 1707 were of transcendental importance as they led to a general divorce of language and culture. The Autonomous Law of the Land of Valencia of 1982 states that there are two offcial languages, Catalan and Spanish, and it guarantees the use of either language in any domain. In this regard, linguistic planning has established four types of educational programs for school education (children aged 3–16 years old) depending on the area's linguistic characteristics, the basic classroom language, and the pupil's habitual language.

This article delimits the area which is the object of research from both geographical and linguistic points of view. Beliefs and attitudes of the speakers in this border zone are discussed, as well as the linguistic policy on the Aragon-Catalonia border.

In the western part of the Iberian Peninsula, there are a variety of borders and transitional areas between three linguistic domains: a diffuse isogloss border between Castilian Spanish and Asturian-Leonese, a compressed iso-gloss border between Asturian-Leonese and Galician-Portuguese (in its Galician variety), and a clear border between Castilian Spanish and Galician- Portuguese (in its Portuguese variety). These limits do not coincide exactly with Spanish and Portuguese political borders. The present article is an attempt to review the sociolinguistic situation of certain areas along these linguistic borders: a) Asturian-Galician, spoken in the westernmost part of Asturias, a speech form that can be described as a transitional dialect from Galician to Asturian, b) Leonese-Galician, spoken in the western part of Leon and Zamora, with characteristics similar to those of Asturian-Galician, c) Mirandese, spoken on the northeastern side of Portugal, an Asturian-Leonese speech gradually changing to Galician-Portuguese, d) Jálama speech, spoken in the western part of Cáceres, a kind of Galician-Portuguese influenced by Castilian Spanish an Asturian-Leonese language, and e) Oliventino speech from Olivenza (Badajoz) and Barranquenho speech from Barrancos (Alentejo), Portuguese speech forms influenced by Spanish. In each of these instances, a brief description of demography, glottology, linguistic awareness, legal status, schooling, publishing, mass media, institutions, associative networks, and linguistic standardization will be offered.

Spanish sociolinguistics has many very accurate tools available to describe the situation of its bilingual areas. Some of these tools count the number of speakers of Spanish and of the other co-offcial languages. Since 1975, the Autonomous Communities' governments have promoted statistical knowledge of the linguistic reality through specific projects and sociolinguistic research. In this article, the most important projects dealing with the socio-linguistic situation of bilingual areas are introduced, along with several proposals to improve this kind of information.

M a Teresa Echenique Elizondo and Juan Sánchez Méndez: Las lenguas de un Reino. Historia lingüística hispánica . Madrid: Gredos, 2005.(Isabel Molina) José Luis Blas-Arroyo: Sociolingüística del español. Desarrollo y perspectivas en el estudio de la lengua española en contexto social . Madrid: Cátedra, 2005.(Laura Camargo-Fernández) Henri Boyer and Christian Lagarde, editors: L'Espagne et ses langues. Un modèle écolinguistique? Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002.(Antonio Torres-Torres)

This article examines the patterns of interaction between the Yoruba and Akoko languages. The following three major aspects of societal bilingualism engaged our attention: language ability, language use/choice in a number of domains, and language attitudes. Data on these issues were collected from 1,187 respondents with a multidimensional questionnaire and participant observation. Findings reveal that Akoko speakers are more proficient in Yoruba than in various Akoko languages. Similarly, there seems to be a positive correlation between age, level of education, type of employment, and ability in Yoruba. Language-use data suggest that the process of language shift has started, as language use at home and in the neighborhood domains is tilted in favor of Yoruba. As for language attitudes, a split commitment is discovered in that Yoruba is seen as a symbol of larger ethnic identity, whereas the Akoko languages are positively regarded as vital links with ancestors. The article underscores the need for collaborative efforts between communities, linguists, and government to salvage the languages from eventual death.