This course will study the history of Spanish language through texts, from Medieval Ages through the present. By the end of the summer, students will be able to read texts of any period, understanding their linguistic differences in order to identify in which historic moment each was written. The objectives of this course are: a) to improve students’ capacity for reading literary texts of any period based on the knowledge of their linguistic features; and b) to study from a historic perspective many aspects of the modern Spanish language (orthography, grammar, varieties of Spanish, etc). All these topics can be most useful to understand linguistics problems that are generally taught in classes of Spanish as a second language (1 unit)

Required text : Material in course pack form to be purchased at Middlebury.

Recommended text: R. Cano Aguilar: El español a través de los tiempos. Madrid, Arco-Libros,1988 (ISBN 84-7635-044-9).