Lecture on Different Spanishes

The lecture on the different Spanishes was done by María Asunción Pérez Pajares on Wednesday, 2nd March 2011 at 10h30 am.
In my opinion, this lecture was one of the most interesting of the week, because, for people who really love the Spanish language, it was fascinating to know about the history of the language, in which countries it is spoken and the many “Spanishes” in relation to the original Spanish (Spain).
During the lecture, Asun talked about the several languages spoken in Spain besides Spanish and how the accent changes from community to community. For example, in Andalucia, they don’t pronounce the “z” and “c” before “e” and “i” as the Castellanos do; they pronounce both consonants as /s/, known as lisp (“seseo” in Spanish). We can also see this “way” of pronouncing the words in Latin America, where the majority of countries speak Spanish, due to the fact that most of the colonisers came from Andalucia.
She also talked about the difference between “Spanish” and “Castellano”. According to the Spanish Real Academia, the terms Spanish and Castellano are synonyms but appeared in differents periods. The term “Castellano” comes from reino of Castilla in the Medieval times, when “Spain” didn’t exist. The term “Spanish” came from the Medieval latin Hispaniolus.
I believe that it was an excellent lecture, especially for being out of the ordinary and allowing interaction among participants.

Tânia Moutinho