A History of the Spanish Language

by Ralph Penny

This is a thoroughly revised, updated and expanded 2002 edition of Ralph Penny's authoritative textbook, first published in 1991, which provides a clear and elegant account of the development of Spanish over the last 2,000 years. Although principally oriented towards 'internal' history, 'external' history is also considered and referred to throughout. In this new edition, as well as adding insights from more recent scholarship throughout the text, Professor Penny has added a chapter which discusses the nature of linguistic history, the concept of World Spanish, processes of convergence and divergence in Spanish, and the English/Spanish interface. This edition also contains a glossary of technical terms, guidance on further reading, and suggested topics for discussion.

Genres: History, Language, Linguistics, Nonfiction, Spanish Literature, Spain

420 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 1991

Reviews

[Austin Lynch]

Pretty approachable as long as you have a decent grasp of phonetic terminology. I'm sure a Spanish historical grammar would be very interesting to someone with better knowledge of either Latin or another modern Romance language. I'll be coming back to the section on the development of the verb once my understanding of the modern Spanish verb is better.

This is a high 3-star as it does everything it says on the back cover, it just didn't necessarily 'wow' me the way some exceptional textbooks have.

[Jon-Erik G. Storm]

Best book on the topic.

[Serena]

One of the best and most approachable surveys.

[Catherine]

It was mandated and I hated it, but a non-linguist's opinion on a linguistics book is not the most relevant thing in the world.