Iberian Peninsula - Tumblr Posts

B&W verticalisms, mind the cobblestone lover's paradise

Lisboa, Portugal

June 2023

two cats named spain and portugal came to the shelter today and i immediately knew what i had to do

Hey, non-Spanish speaker here with not so much as a drop of blood from those heritages. I've heard the word "Castilian" in relation to the Spanish spoken in Spain proper. Would that be the descriptive equivalent to Hispanic or Latine for people as well, or is it purely just for the language itself?

Ok, this is a huge mess of politics, history and national identity, but ... long story short, if you go back about 1000 years in the past to the iberian peninsula, you would find that the good old latin was starting to break down into different languages, depending on the kingdom they were spoken at:

So, a bunch of conquest wars and dynastic marriages happened, and by the 1500s only three big kingdoms survived: Portugal, Castille and Aragon. Castille and Aragon were united under the same king around that time (the formal integration into what's now Spain didn't happen for a while, it was closer to the United Kingdom, with different laws but common monarch, etc). But even if the diffent kindgoms unified under a single banner, the languages persisted. Even today, the Spanish constitution recognizes four different official lenguages (castillan, catalan, basque and galician), and at least other four are recognized at provincial level: Asturian, Aragonese, Valencian and Aranese (take that, Switzerland!!! four official languages? plueeease)

Now, coming back to your question... Castilian? Castilian is what you probably now as "spanish". It's just the ... well, the proper term for the language, its actual name. It's just called 'spanish' because it's the most commonly spoken language in the country, and because all the invasion/colonization of America was done mostly by the Crown of Castille (Aragon was busy conquering half Italy back then), so by the time 'Spain' become a thing, the language spoken in the castilian colonies that now were known as Spanish colonies was Castilian.

Calling it "spanish" is, in a way, like if you called english "Unitedkingdomish" instead. In Spain, it's more common to call the language "Castilian" than "Spanish", but my impression is that in the Americas almost everyone call it 'Spanish'.

The Guitar (La Guitarra) (1918) by Juan Gris. Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid.