A01=Israel Sanz-Sanchez
A01=Israel Sanz-Snchez
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Author_Israel Sanz-Sanchez
Author_Israel Sanz-Snchez
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=CFB
Category=CFF
COP=United Kingdom
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dialect contact
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eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
evolutionary linguistics
historical sociolinguistics
language contact
language ecology
Language_English
PA=Not yet available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Forthcoming
softlaunch
Spanish
Product details
- ISBN 9781474429108
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 Jan 2025
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Languages do not exist beyond their speakers, but the history of individual languages has often been told as if they had a life of their own, emerging from other languages, growing and sometimes dying. When applied to Spanish, this story line commonly begins in spoken Latin, with the language taking shape in medieval Spain before spreading beyond Europe in the colonial period.
This book proposes a new take on this narrative. Instead of seeing Spanish as a linguistic entity with linear development, what would its history look like if we think of it as a centuries-long constellation of contact events? A History of Spanish as a Contact Language revisits the evolution of Spanish from the perspective of the ecology of language, centring speakers as the only historical agents of language transmission and change. Taking the speakers' vantage point opens up exciting possibilities to rethink what Spanish is, how it has changed, and who has played a role in this process.
Israel Sanz-Sánchez is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at West Chester University
