The Evolution of Spanish

For a long time American students have needed an introductory Spanish historical grammar specifically written for them; the standard book on the subject, Menendez Pidal's Manual de gramatica historica, was written around the turn of this century in Spain, when students were expected to know Latin. Most students of today have no background in Latin since the modern curriculum has placed emphasis elsewhere.

In this standard manual, Lathrop offers a detailed preliminary chapter dealing with the basic facts of Classical Latin important to the development of Spanish, as well as a detailed picture of Vulgar Latin-the language of the masses. It was this spoken language which was the origin of Spanish.

In the second chapter he explains the evolution of vowels and consonants from Vulgar Latin to Spanish, with numerous examples illustrating each point. In the third chapter, he shows how the various grammatical forms, most particularly nouns, adjectives and verbs, evolved from Vulgar Latin to Spanish, again with many examples for each section.

At the end of the volume there is a useful index of words, a detailed, updated bibliography, a translation of Latin words into English, and a general index. [Cervantes & Co. Linguistic Series, Nº 1]