Gramática de la lengua castellana facts for kids

First page of Nebrija's Grammatica: Dedication and prologue

The Grammar of the Castilian Language (original title: Gramática de la lengua castellana) is a very important book. It was written by Antonio de Nebrija and came out in 1492. This book was the first ever to focus on the rules of the Spanish language. It was also the first grammar book for any modern European language.

When Nebrija showed his book to Queen Isabella in Salamanca, she wondered why such a book was needed. A bishop named Fray Hernando de Talavera answered for Nebrija. He said something very wise, which Nebrija later wrote down:

After Your Highness has conquered many lands and peoples who speak different languages, they will need to learn the laws you set. Our language will be one of those laws. With my book, they will be able to learn it, just like we learn Latin using Latin grammar books.

This meant the book would help people in new lands learn Spanish. It would help unite the kingdom through a shared language.

What's Inside the Book?

Nebrija's book was divided into five main parts. Each part looked at a different aspect of the Spanish language:

• Orthography: This part was about how to spell words correctly. It covered the rules for writing Spanish.
• Prosody and syllables: This section explained how words are pronounced. It looked at things like stress and how words are broken into syllables.
• Etymology and diction: This part explored where words come from (their history). It also talked about choosing the right words to use.
• Syntax: This section focused on how to put words together to form correct sentences. It's about sentence structure.

The fifth part of the book was special. It was made to help people learn Spanish if it wasn't their first language. This was important for teaching Spanish as a foreign language.

The book also listed ten different types of words, called "parts of speech." These included nouns (like "dog" or "house"), pronouns (like "he" or "she"), and verbs (like "run" or "eat"). Other parts were participles, prepositions, adverbs, interjections, conjunctions, gerunds, and supines.

Why Was This Book Important?

Before Nebrija's book, there were books about how to use Latin correctly. For example, Lorenzo Valla wrote a book called De Elegantiis Latinae Linguae in 1471. But Nebrija's Grammatica was the first book to study the rules of a Western European language other than Latin.

After this book came out, people started to see grammar as the study of language rules. This idea lasted for a long time. It was only in the 1800s that linguistics became a scientific way to study language.

Nebrija's book inspired many others. Here are some other important Spanish grammar books that followed:

• Antonio de Nebrija, Reglas de orthographia en la lengua castellana cõpuestas por el Maestro Antonio de lebrixa ("Rules of orthography [...]", 1517) (bdh.bne.es)
• Juan de Valdés, Dialogo đla lengua ("Dialogue on the language", around 1535, a handwritten copy) (bdh.bne.es)
• Andrés Flórez, Arte para bien leer y escribir ("The art of reading and writing well", 1552)
• Martín Cordero, La manera de escribir en castellano ("The way to write in Castilian", 1556)
• Cristóbal de Villalón, Gramática castellana ("Castilian grammar", 1558)
• Gonzalo Correas, Ortografia kastellana, nueva i perfeta ("Castilian orthography [...]", 1630) (bdh.bne.es)
• Real Academia Española, Gramática de la Lengua Castellana, compuesta por el Real Academia Española ("Grammar of the Castilian language", Madrid, 1771) (bdh.bne.es)

Images for kids

• 

  Kids robot icon

See also

In Spanish: Gramática castellana para niños