HISPANOSPHERE: UNITY IN DIVERSITY

Abstract

The study of linguistic categorization in pluricentric languages is feasible only when their inherent variability is taken into account, as language varieties spoken by communities shaped under distinct historical, geographical, and cultural conditions inevitably exhibit specific features across all levels of linguistic structure and in usage. Spanish, which emerged from the convergence of several languages—including Celtic, Latin, Greek, Germanic, and Arabic—has, through a long history of expansive diffusion, evolved into a Spanish-speaking continuum. This continuum is documented in contemporary information resources through various designations that reflect the linguistic cultures of different parts of the Spanish-speaking world. This article examines a range of interrelated elements of varying status within this continuum: the supranational standard (norma panhispánica); the multiple national standards of Spain and the nineteen Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America; a number of regional Spanish idioms; territorial Spanish idioms; and a limited set of idioms of national identity, creoles, and hybrids. All forms of the Spanish language—whether officially recognized, registered in international codification systems, or described in linguistic research—reflect the complex dialectic of unity and diversity characteristic of the modern Spanish-speaking world. The typologically oriented model of the Spanish-speaking continuum (conceived as a system of idioms and norms of varying status) proposed in this study will serve as a methodological framework for subsequent research on the categorization of emotions across different Spanish-language idioms, based on data from comparable corpora.