La inmersión lingüística: un proyecto de (de)construcción nacional

Galician cantigas, Castilian treatises, and Catalan prose once circulated in the medieval court of King Alfonso X of Castile (Alfonso the Wise) without a second thought. Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts written by Andalusian and Sephardic polymaths were translated and disseminated in Toledo. Iberian writers who spoke different languages often swapped their linguistic codes depending on their target audience, their subject matter, or their chosen genre. From Raimon Llull to Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish authors constructed a cultural canon in their mother tongue. Meanwhile, the global expansion of Castilian Spanish did not entail the demise of the other vernaculars, neither in Spain nor in the New World. Current policies of linguistic immersion are deeply at odds with the best Iberian traditions of tolerance and coexistence.