The Ideology of Standardization in Early Modern Castile: The Unknown Oservaciones de la lengua castellana and the Attack on castellanos viejos

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is not simply to transcribe and edit a manu- script but to emphasize the different levels of meaning of Oservaciones de la lengua castellana. I will demonstrate that this seventeenth-century manuscript can be read first as an orthographical guide that establishes an opposition between the preservation in writing of certain phonemes versus their elimination. Second, the text offers the possibility of transforming this dichotomy into the good Spanish of those who are not castellanos viejos versus the incorrect Spanish of those who speak in the Old Castile manner. Finally, the manuscript reveals the battle between standardization and koineization that took place in Castile after Madrid became the new capital of the Spanish Empire in 1560. Because of these different levels of meaning, Oservaciones de la lengua castellana is a myth that highlights the linguistic discontinuity in the evolution of the Spanish language that started in the second half of the sixteenth century when Madrid became the political, administra- tive, and courtly center of the Empire.¹ Consequently, while there is a necessary philological methodology involved in the edition of this manuscript, the text itself demands a post-philological approach to understand the moment of linguistic rupture and displacement that this manuscript reflects.²