Chapter 8

Spanish and Other Languages of Spain in the Second Republic

Henrique Monteagudo
The question of co-official languages is
as complex as that of shared sovereignty.
It is the very heart of national unity.
Miguel de Unamuno, 1931

The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in April 1931, shortly after the collapse of
Primo de Riveras dictatorship, which in 1930 had led to the fall of the monarchy. Elections
were called in June 1931 and over the ensuing months (1931-1933) parliament hosted
numerous debates aimed at discussing and drawing up a new constitution. The election was
won by a coalition of republicans and socialists. The latter had the largest number of MPs,
followed by groups of various ideological persuasions: moderate center-right, left and centerleft and right-wing republican parties. Catalan, Galician and Basque and Navarre nationalists
also won a considerable number of seats (Casanova 2007: 3-37). Intellectuals played a
leading role in the advent of the Republic (Tusell and Garca Queipo de Llano 1990), which
is reflected in the surprisingly large number of them who won seats in this election: out of a
total 446 MPs, there were 47 writers and journalists and 45 university professors (Bcarud
and Lpez Campillo 1978: 34). It is not by chance that the Second Republic was labelled a
republic of intellectuals.
One of the first decisions made by the republican government was to initiate the
process of devolution through legal recognition of self-government to Spains internal
nations. Thus, the Estatuto de Autonoma de Catalua was approved in a referendum held in
August 1931 and authorized the use of Catalan in schools through implementation of
bilingual policies. Almost at the same time, an assembly of Basque and Navarre councils
approved a project for a Statute of Autonomy, and a similar initiative was undertaken in
Galicia. Inevitably, the question of devolution played a central role in the political
discussions of the time as well as in the parliamentary debates surrounding the new

constitution. Closely connected with devolution were issues like state organization, national
identity and the question of the official recognition of Basque, Catalan and Galician.
My aim in this chapter is to analyze the discussions on the political status of Spanish
in relation to the other Spanish languages at that time, especially as it was reflected in the
constitutional debates. I will focus first on the discourses on Spanish, especially on its
history. It will be recalled that the republican constitution was the first in Spanish history to
give Spanish legal recognition as an official language, opening simultaneously the gate for
legal recognition of the other languages of Spain. From a historical point of view, it must be
highlighted that the formula which was finally chosen in 1931 was an obvious precedent for
the formula enshrined in the democratic Constitution of 1978.
Secondly, I will discuss the role played by intellectuals in forging and legitimizing the
aforementioned discourses, focusing especially on Miguel de Unamuno, Ramn Menndez
Pidal and Claudio Snchez Albornoz. All three count among the most prominent figures of
Spanish national culture at the time of the Second Republic, with groundbreaking
contributions in the fields of literature, language, philology and history (Tusell and Queipo de
Llano 1990: 19-38; Varela 1999: 229-57, 293-321). Unamuno, president of the University of
Salamanca, was an acclaimed writer who accrued huge prestige as an intellectual, especially
through his journalistic columns and his public speeches1. Pidal was director of the Real
Academia Espaola and a founding figure of Spanish philology as an academic discipline
(Portols 1986: 45-83). Albornoz was a professor of Spanish History at the University of
Madrid and a leading member of Accin Republicana, one of the governing parties. Both
Albornoz and Unamuno were among the most active members in parliament.

Unamuno: The discursive creator of the Spanish Republic

Unamuno, arguably the most influential Spanish intellectual of his time, made a series of
public interventions on the topics that concern us in this chapter. He delivered three important
parliamentary speeches: one in September-October 1931, in the context of the constitutional
debates, and two in July 1932, in the parliamentary debates about Catalan self-government. In
the constitutional debates he voiced his opposition to devolution and the regions selfgovernment, and expressed his preference for a centralized state (1931i). In line with these
1

Unamuno was hailed, in a petition signed on the 22nd July 1931 by a large group of intellectuals to support his
presidential candidacy, as the creador verbal de la Repblica espaola, that is, the discursive creator of the
Spanish Republic (Rabat and Rabat 2009, 583).

views, he submitted a couple of constitutional amendments, one against the full recognition
of languages other than Spanish (Unamuno 1931j), the other about the powers to be devolved
to the regions and the languages to be used in education (1931k).2 Regarding the Estatuto de
Autonoma de Catalua, he filed one amendment about the official status of Catalan (1932c)
and another about the proposed powers over education to be devolved to the Catalan
government (1932d).
Unamuno also voiced his views in numerous journalistic columns, where he reiterated
and expanded on the views he expressed in parliament. He contributed thus to shaping
Spanish public opinion on these matters, although he repeatedly argued that he was merely
acting as a spokesperson for the common views of the public.3 Thus, on the one hand, in one
of his speeches he claimed to be a privileged representative of the whole nation (I dont
want to say on behalf of whom I am speaking; it might seem smug if I say that I am speaking
here on behalf of Spain, the emphasis is ours), but, on the other hand, he admitted he was
aware of his share of responsibility in shaping Spanish public opinion (2008: 1034, 1048).
Moreover, at the end of this speech he claims to be surprised at the excessively passionate
turn the debates on language had taken, failing to mention the role he himself had played in
arousing such passions (2008: 1058).
As we will see below, his reference to the inflamed passions of the general public is a
characteristic feature in the discourses of those who were reluctant, if not directly opposed, to
grant official recognition to the so-called regional languages. Unamuno was indeed the leader
of a faction of parliamentary hardliners who championed opposition to the rights of minority
languages.

National religion, language worship and imperialism

Unamuno wanted to transfer to the Republic the intellectual and political projects of his own
generation, the so-called Generation of 98, to which scholars attributed the invention of
Spain (Fox 1997, Varela 1999: 9-16, 145-76). In particular, he tried to endow Spanish and
national identity with a kind of mystic aura (Resina 2002). On this point his discourse
displays two of the characteristic traits of modern nationalist discourse: the displacement of
2

To make consultation easy, I will be referring to Unamunos parliamentary speeches, in Unamuno 2008. For
simplicity, I will henceforth omit the name of the author when the reference is clear.
3
Most of these columns are collected in Unamuno 1979 and Unamuno 1984. We are quoting from Unamuno
1931a, 1931h, 1931l, 1931m, 1932a, 1932b and 1932e. For easy consultation, see Unamuno 1979 and Unamuno
1984.

the sacred from religion to politics (lvarez Junco 1993) and the ethnicization of the polity
(Grillo 1980 and Grillo 1989: 23-29). Thus, he described the process that turned Spain into a
nation as a substitution of national culture for the monarchy and Catholicism as defining
features of collective identity. Unamuno himself contributed significantly, along many other
liberal nationalist intellectuals, to the project of nationalization of Spanish culture. As he
says: the State and this is the heart of liberalism must play an active role in the field of
culture, especially against the Church. The cultural struggle, Kulturkampf, becomes a
necessity.4 In Unamuno scholarship it has become almost a commonplace to emphasize his
attempts to infuse politics with religious rhetoric (Rabat and Rabat 2009: 317). Indeed, he
once described his own political role as being that of a culture priest (2008: 1066).
In his press columns Unamuno repeatedly praised popular, secular, national and
traditional religion which constituted for him the soul of the nation.5 The most sacred
dogma in this religious version of Spanish nationalism is that of national unity, which, in his
view, was achieved through divine will (Unamuno 1979: 103). The historical process that led
to the unity of Spain is seen as the teleological development of a god-given plan. This is the
reason why Spanish history, because of its divine origins and transcendental status, becomes
an object of worship. The nation, the fatherland, he claimed, is kept alive through our
worshiping of History, of a past which is unchanging, of an eternal past which at the same
time is an eternal present and an eternal future, which is eternity itself, history itself.
Worshipping the dead is not worshipping death, but immortality (1979: 92, 131). It is
difficult to find a clearer formulation of his understanding of the nation: since it belongs to
the realm of the sacred, the nation has a non-historical and non-temporal essence which is
immortal and eternal, and lies beyond human reach (1979: 97).
Unamuno rejects Rousseaus theory of the social contract, including the doctrine of
federalism (1979: 81-2, 103), holding instead that national unity must be achieved after a free
confrontation between the constitutive groups, whereby the winner, as the strongest group,
imposes its language and culture on the others. In practice, in the case of Spain the main
contenders are Castile and Catalonia, both of which, in conjunction with all the other regions,
must try to dominate all the other peoples: let them conquer us, or let us all conquer each
other (2008: 1045).6 This is the reason he opposes an agreement with Catalan nationalists:
4

Speech delivered in Bilbao in 1908. See Unamuno 2008, p. 239.

Unamuno 1932b, 140; see also 1931b, 57; 1931m, 119; 1932a, 137.
6
This notion of civil war is not new in Unamunos work, even though scholars emphasized it only recently
(Rabat and Rabat 2009: 59, 130). He borrowed this from Herbert Spencer, of whom he had long been an
admirer and follower.
5

With this we want to avoid civil war. Some civil wars lead to true unity between peoples.
Before civil war, unity is false, after civil war there is true unity (2008: 1069). Unamunos
idea of a reciprocal conquering between the various peoples of Spain seems to be either a
utopian wish or else simply an attempt to legitimate the right of the strongest group to
culturally conquer the others.
Now if history acts as a guarantee for the transcendence of the nation, the Castilian
language is a kind of thread uniting the historical generations, making continuity possible.
The language creates a human, historical, spiritual race [raza], it is what turns us into a
community, what creates our communion through space and time (1984: 121). Closely
connected with this is the idea of Spanish/Castilian as the spiritual foundation of the Spanish
empire: Who cares if a part of our spiritual community or spiritual race [raza espiritual] is
split politically from us, if it continues to think by means of our spiritual blood, by means of
our language? (1984: 122). Furthermore, this worship of language is not just an integral part
of the national religion, as it also becomes a kind of religion of empire: there is religiousness
in language. And this religiousness is an integral part of the great Hispanic race [raza
hispnica] on both sides of the Atlantic (1984: 122-3). We see here how Spanish linguistic
nationalism takes on an imperial character, not just with regard to the Americas, but also
inside the Iberian Peninsula itself (Del Valle and Gabriel-Stheeman 2002: 6-7).

National sentiment vs. regional resentment

The sacred unity of Spain is projected into the future as a shared Spanish national mission.
Unamuno uses such a notion in order to differentiate the noble sentiment associated with the
sacredness of the Spanish nation-state from the regional resentment which he sees negatively
in so far as it challenges the former. Thus, in a parliamentary discussion about the official
character of the other languages of Spain, Unamuno started by recognizing that this issue
lies, no doubt, at the very heart of national unity and is what most arouses national
sentiment, to conclude in a lyrical tone with a celebration of a sort of mystical fusion of his
own body with the transcendental nation, embodied in its History, its land and its language. It
is with the final rest in the bosom of the motherland, when historical time is suspended, that
the survival of the Spanish language ensures his individual transcendence:
I feel I am walking down, little by little, under the weight not of years but of centuries full of
memories stemming from History, toward the final and well deserved rest, into my deathbed,

the maternal earth of our Spain, to lie there waiting for the sounds of one single Spanish
language to echo in the grass that grows above me (2008: 1047).7

Unamunos passion for Spanish, indeed the pathos of religious communion with the
language, the nation and the soil, so vividly expressed in this quotation, contrast starkly with
the little affection he showed for regional languages. Indeed, he even denounces the excess
of sentimentality on which regional language supporters allegedly indulge: I want to make it
clear that I will avoid the sentimental tone which, regrettably, has often accompanied
discussion of these issues; supporters of non official, regional languages have all too often
approached this issue sentimentally, rather than politically (2008: 1107-8). For him, the socalled personality of the regions is to a great extent no more than a sentimental myth
(1979: 83). His contrast between sentimientos and resentimientos briefly encapsulates his
opposed feelings for the different languages of Spain: the positive sentiment he associates
with Castilian and Spain versus local resentment (1979: 98), which is peculiar to regional
resentful peoples (1979: 93-4). Sometimes his dislike for regional languages is voiced in a
hardly disguised aggressive tone: I believe one must hurt sentiment and resentment, he
once said in a discussion about the topic in focus (2008: 1034).
He encapsulates the plight of both the Spanish nation and the Spanish language in a
powerful metaphor: Spain as a crucified Jesus. Thus, just like the inscription on the cross,
which was written in three languages, so Spain was being turned into a trilingual country,
where everything is going to be written in the languages that divided parents from their
children, brothers and sisters from their brothers and sisters, in the languages of particular
sentiment and resentment, instead of the Spanish language, which has a universal, imperial
sense (1984: 62). It should not come as a surprise that just a few months after its
proclamation he expressed (Unamuno 1979: 88-9) his feeling of distance toward the Republic
specifically because it granted regional autonomy and official status to regional languages.8

Language struggle and bilingualism

This kind of emotional rhetoric about the afterlife is not new in Unamuno. See the end of a talk he gave in
Bilbao in 1905 (Unamuno 2008: 747). It also appears in a newspaper column of this period (Unamuno 1979:
90).
8
He had made repeated pronouncements on this during the months that preceded the constitutional debates, for
example: No, Spain cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the Republic (Unamuno 1979: 98); if in the end the
Republic dies, Spain can engender a new one, but if Spain dies, there will not be another Republic (Unamuno
2008: 1104).

Unamuno found academic and scientific backing for his linguistic nationalism in biology,
more specifically in evolutionary doctrines about the survival of the fittest. The history of
languages is, according to this view, modelled on nature and is ultimately determined by
biological laws (Huarte Morton 1954: 90-2). This is the reason why Unamuno believes that
any attempt at modifying natural development of languages through social and political
intervention is doomed to fail (2008: 1114). Herbert Spencers social doctrines were
reinforced and complemented by the positivist faith in the progressive character of the laws
of human development leading inescapably towards the unity of the whole of humanity. The
idea that the whole of humanity would one day speak one single language was a corollary of
the belief in the future unity of the human race (Williams 1992: 1-8, 16-7).
The bulk of Unamunos ideas on the question of language unity were already present
in a speech he gave at Poetry Floral Games (Juegos Florales) in Bilbao in 1901, where he
made explicit his belief in a natural teleological plan inevitably leading to a final state of
linguistic unity. He cautions, however, that this process of progressive development toward
unity cannot be imposed extemporaneously or from the outside by force. Self-interest alone
will achieve what cannot be achieved by means of governmental decisions (Unamuno 1968:
241). This is the reason why he opposes any legal and political decision that might interfere
with this natural tendency towards unity. Thus, although he opposed the repression exerted
on minority languages under Primo de Rivera, he firmly believed that the hegemony of
Spanish was a historical necessity and, therefore, became a fierce opponent of the policies of
official recognition for regional languages: official status should not be granted to any
language other than Castilian, the national language (Unamuno 1966: 436). So Unamunos
attitude of tolerance towards regional languages must be understood in the sense that he
trusted that, through natural selection, the national language would prevail in the end
(Juaristi 1997: 65-135).
Unamuno understands that this process of unification will come about spontaneously
through the fusion of the weakest with the strongest languages:
The problem of the multiplicity of languages will be solved through integration, perhaps
through reduction to a multiplicity of styles within one common language. Dialects should not
be repressed, just allowed to fuse with the strongest language, in accordance with the laws of
nature (Unamuno 2008: 963-4).

This idea of evolution through fusion of languages, borrowed from pre-comparative

linguistics, allows Unamuno to present Spanish not simply as a more developed form of
Castilian, but as a sort of ongoing synthesis of all the languages of the Peninsula (2008:
1101). He sees bilingualism merely as a transition stage which will sooner or later lead to
language assimilation, this being another reason for his stubborn stance against the official
recognition of bilingualism: official recognition of bilingualism, he says, is nonsense and
fighting assimilation is a disaster (1979: 82-3). Thus, in order to justify his opposition to the
recognition of co-official status for Catalan, he argues that since this is a question of language
biology, lawmakers have no business here. Further, he has recourse to the alleged authority
of science to claim that there is no true bilingual country anywhere: when a country is
allowed to become bilingual, it ends up by, first, mixing up the two languages and, finally, by
combining them till they fuse into one (2008: 1104).9
Rather than an academic philologist, Unamuno was an ideologue of language or, as he
has been called, a language priest (Huarte Morton 1954: 7-29). Jon Juaristi claims that
Unamuno, in his self-appointed mission as a bard, prevented other possible discourses about
the Basques to emerge and gain public recognition (Juaristi 1997: 107). I would claim that
this is also what he tried to achieve in the language field: to prevent the emergence of
alternative, more egalitarian and democratic discourses that might challenge the hegemony of
Spanish.

Ramn Menndez Pidal: the Spanish language and the Spanish nation
In parliamentary debates Pidal was often quoted as a universally recognized scientific
authority on historical and linguistic matters. Indeed, his authoritative accounts of the history
of Spain and of the Spanish language were met with such wide acclaim that by that time they
had arguably acquired canonical status. The narratives he constructed, however, were not
ideologically neutral (Del Valle 2002). In fact, it could be said that his historical narratives
provide the single most important intellectual contribution for the ideological underpinning of
modern Spanish nationalism (Abelln 1993 (vol.VII): 203-07 and Varela 1999, 238-50). It is
not surprising, then, that he was often quoted in support of the view of Spain as a single
nation-state under the hegemony of Castilian Spanish, and against granting rights to the other
languages of Spain. For example, the Castilian MP Antonio Royo Villanova repeatedly
9

In a lecture at the Liceo Andaluz on May 7,1932 on the topic of bilingualism in Euskadi and Catalonia, he
argues that bilingualism can only be a transitional state (qtd. in Rabat 2009, 597-8).

quoted Pidal in support of his amendment to keep a clear reference to the sovereignty of la
Nacin Espaola (the Spanish Nation) in the final draft of the Constitution. According to
Royos views, the national character of Spain is something unquestionable, unavoidable
(Mori 1932: II, 54), unlike Catalonia which, for him, is not a nation because it is simply
grounded in the possession of a different language. For him, the mere existence of a language
is not sufficient to ground a nation: the nation is not the language, he claimed, rather, what
makes a nation is national consciousness (Mori 1932: (vol. II: 56).
At first sight, it might seem surprising to find that someone like Pidal was quoted,
from a centralist perspective, to the effect that nations were not simply grounded in language.
In fact, this might not be considered as surprising if we bear in mind that for him nations are
defined primarily by ethnic and racial elements including psychological traits and the
privileged mode of expression of their national spirit is literature, rather than language
(Menndez Pidal 1962 [1921]: 14-5). However, it is interesting to note that this rejection of
the link between language and nation always takes place in the context of debates and
controversies about the national character of regions like Catalonia (Monteagudo 2000).
Our eminent philologist argues, however, for a Spanish national character in a couple
of articles published in the newspaper El Sol.10 Pidal rejects the idea, put forward by Catalan
nationalists, that Spain is a state but not a single nation. As he puts it, Spain is the most
homogeneous of the greatest European nations in linguistic and racial terms, clearly
differentiated from the heterogeneous and autocratic empires with which extremist
nationalisms meaning peripheral nationalisms want to associate it (1931a). He argues
that the Spanish nation was constituted historically, well established from around the
thirteenth century (1931b). In this narrative, he accords Castile a leading role: [Castile] had a
clear vision for great collective endeavours, and its hegemony was well deserved in historical
terms, rather than a product of mere chance. Pidal believed in the cultural superiority of
Castile over the other peoples of Spain, and the metaphor he chose to express it was
unambiguous: Castile reached the highest peaks in the curve of culture in Spain (1931a),
which endowed her with a stronger power of attraction and assimilation over the other
peninsular peoples. He insisted that the spread of Castilian over the Peninsula had nothing to
do with the political hegemony of Castile. For him it was a merely cultural phenomenon, as

10

Menndez Pidal 1931a and 1931b. El Sol also published an interview with Pidal shortly afterwards dealing
with most of the issues that interest us here (Arbeloa and Santiago, 1981: 211-17).

he explicitly emphasized the non-political character of the spread of the central language
over the regions (1931a). 11
Further, Pidal also made use of a purportedly scientific argument borrowed from
historical linguistics to support his thesis of a natural, age-old tendency for all peninsular
language varieties to fuse with central Castilian. He invoked the linguistic map of the North
of the Peninsula which, instead of sharp linguistic frontiers, displays large grey transition
zones where the different language varieties mingle with each other. This for him is evidence
of the centuries-old phenomenon of the mixing of all Peninsular cultures, of the fusion of the
peripheral languages with the central language (1931a). We have already encountered this
notion of a kind of natural and spontaneous drift towards unity in Unamuno. Pidal is making
a similar point here, this time grounding unity on the allegedly objective facts provided by
historical linguistics, but fails to provide a convincing explanation for this natural
spontaneous drift towards unity and fusion with Castilian.
Pidal generally had a more tolerant attitude toward the other Spanish languages than
Unamuno and was better disposed toward their official recognition and introduction in school
curricula. Although he could be considered a moderate supporter of the policies of
bilingualism, he always insisted that the bilingual regions like Galicia, Euskadi and
Catalonia should never attempt to get rid of Spanish, and this for two reasons. First, Spanish
was part and parcel of these regions identities as a result of their centuries-old coexistence,
and secondly, Spanish could counter regional parochialism, given that it was a widely
spoken language. Thus, Pidal underscored the role of the school as a guarantee for the
survival of Spanish in these regions (1931a).
The state, through its educational institutions, is entrusted with the mission of
bolstering national consciousness. If this mission fails, then the pre-existing Spanish nation
runs the risk of collapsing and turning simply into a state. There is something paradoxical
here. On the one hand, Pidal seems to be simply asserting an essentialist concept of the
Spanish nation, in so far as he sees it as the result of an unproblematic and natural process of
historical development, as we saw above. On the other hand, the very existence of the nation
seems to depend on the political role of the state in bolstering national consciousness. It is
true that, in his historical and linguistic narratives, he used concepts like hegemony and

11

This argument had been put forward by him in an article published much earlier (Menndez Pidal 1902).

prestige,12 which correctly point to the central role of politics. However, he never quite
abandoned the sharp distinction between culture and politics, and the paradox remained.

Articles 4 and 48/50 of the Constitution

In order to give readers a better understanding of the context in which these debates took
place, I will briefly summarize the process of elaboration of the new republican constitution
(Jimnez de Asa 1932). Shortly after the proclamation of the Republic, the provisional
government appointed a Technical Committee with the task of writing a first draft for the
new constitution. Later, another committee was appointed by the newly elected parliament
with the charge of writing the final draft of the constitution, which was to be submitted for
discussion, amendment and approval at plenary sessions in parliament. We already
mentioned the dispute caused by the use of the term nation in the preamble, but the most
important controversies arouse in connection with discussion of articles 4 and 48 of the final
draft (4 and 50 in the definitive text of the constitution), dealing, respectively, with the
official standing of Castilian vis--vis the other languages, and the devolution of education
powers to regional governments, which included the power to decide on education language
policies.
From our point of view it is interesting to consider the significant differences between
all three versions of the constitution that is, the first draft, the final draft and the definitive
text. It should be recalled that as the constitution was under elaboration, in Catalonia, Euskadi
and Galicia preparatory work had already started towards writing their respective estatutos de
autonoma, all of which included articles relative to language. The amendments to articles 4
and 48/50 which appear in the final draft and the definitive version all go in the direction of
limiting the devolution of power to the regions and securing a higher legal status for Castilian
to the detriment of the other languages. These changes and amendments were proposed by all
state-wide majority parties, both leftwing and rightwing. It seems surprising that
representatives of peripheral nationalist parties did not propose any amendments (with the

12

From the beginning of the twentieth century, some European linguists Gilliron, Meillet, Bartoli explained
the spread of languages outside their original areas as a process of external irradiation from a culturally
influential central point. For the so-called French sociological school and the Italian neolinguistic school the
outward spread of languages was not due to state coercion, but to the superior cultural prestige these languages
have accrued and which speakers of neighbouring areas were spontaneously willing to accept. The notions of
(language) prestige and (social and political) hegemony also feature prominently in the work of Antonio
Gramsci, who underscores the relations between culture, politics and the state. See Lo Piparo 1979: 103-51,
Rossiello 1982, Ives 2004.

exception of Galician nationalists, see Monteagudo 2000) nor participate much in

parliamentary debates.
Of the seven proposals to amend article 4, just one was accepted for consideration
(DSCCRE 40-41).13 One of the most restrictive amendments for regional languages was put
forward by a liberal group called Al Servicio de la Repblica [In the Service of the
Republic], to which Unamuno and other well-known intellectuals belonged. Unamuno
himself was responsible for proposing and defending this amendment which, after discussion
in parliament, was approved and included in the definitive version of the constitution. Thus,
article 4 of the final text reads:
Castilian is the official language of the Republic. All Spanish citizens are entitled to use it and
obliged to know it, without detriment to the rights that state laws might grant to regional and
provincial languages. Unless special laws stipulate otherwise, knowledge or use of regional
languages does not constitute legal requirement for anyone.

Regarding article 48/50, there were ten proposed amendments (DSCCRE 60-61, see
Jimnez de Asa 1932: 308-17 and Azaa 1981: I, 244-47). Alongside Unamuno, Albornoz
played a leading role in the discussion of amendments and in the negotiation of the final
contents of this article, which was the result of an agreement between centre-left republicans
and Catalan nationalists:
Autonomous regions shall be able to organize education in their respective languages, in
accordance to the powers granted to them in their Statues of Autonomy. The study of the
Castilian language is compulsory, and it shall also be used as a vehicular language in all
primary and secondary schools in the autonomous regions. The state shall be able to create or
preserve teaching institutions at all educational levels in the official language of the Republic.

Unamuno is responsible, to a great extent, both for including the obligation for all Spaniards
to know Castilian in article 4 and the obligation for bilingual regions to provide education
with Spanish as a medium of instruction. This was an important precedent for the 1978
constitution, which also includes the obligation to know Castilian. As for the question of the
availability of education in Spanish in Catalan schools, it is no less well-known that it has
13

DSCCRE = Diario de Sesiones de las Cortes Constituyentes de la Repblica Espaola. [Record Book
Proceedings of the Constituent Parliament of the Spanish Republic] Book and page numbers and are given in
brackets.

constantly been an object of concern and media hype for Spanish nationalism since the
Generalitat (the Catalan government) started to implement Catalan immersion policies.

Parliamentary debates: intransigent vs. conciliatory stances

One striking aspect of the parliamentary debates is the relatively low-key participation by
representatives from peripheral nationalisms, who apparently preferred to work behind the
scenes and reach agreements with other groups, rather than engage in public controversies. In
the course of debates, two main positions emerged among representatives of majority statewide parties: first, the intransigent stance of those who, like Unamuno, strongly opposed both
regional devolution and the co-official recognition of Basque, Catalan and Galician. A second
group of MPs showed a more conciliatory attitude accepting both a certain form of
decentralization of state power and some form of legal recognition to languages other than
Spanish. Their priority was to consolidate the republican regime; and, in order to achieve this,
it was important for them to include peripheral nationalists into the constitutional agreement,
especially the influential Catalan left nationalists.
Critical MPs often justified their intransigent stance arguing that they were simply
acting as spokespersons for the whole of Spain, as Unamuno did, usually equating Spanish
public opinion with Castilian public opinion. There were constant warnings about the
importance of these issues and the possible alarm these might cause in the public. Manuel
Azaa, the prime minister, Castilian MP and leader of a leftwing republican group, warned
about the risk of inflaming the passions of the public: there is nothing more sensitive,
nothing which causes more irritation, than the language question (DSCCRE 61: 1891).
Along these lines, other MPs insisted on the centrality of language for more general questions
about identity, sovereignty, power and nationality. Within the critical or intransigent camp,
use of apocalyptic rhetoric and alarmist tone were frequent, for example when they talked of
relinquishing the cultural mission of the state, abandoning our centuries-old spiritual
heritage, and even of high treachery.
While for critics with devolution and minority language rights the hegemony of
Spanish was a necessary condition to guarantee the Spains spiritual unity, the feared risk of
dismemberment was downplayed by the conciliatory camp, which emphasized instead that a
tolerant official attitude towards other languages could be helpful for establishing a new
sense of peaceful coexistence among all Spaniards. As Albornoz, one of the most

distinguished conciliatory MPs, put it: Spain already has geographical, racial, cultural and
spiritual unity, and it also has unity of destiny. He does not see recognition of language and
political rights to minorities as a threat to the common national project: only if we concede
maximum liberties and maximum recognition to regional languages will we all be able to feel
comfortable within this State we are all helping to build (DSCCRE 61: 1884-87). Note,
though, that he speaks of conceding, from a position of superiority, recognition to regional
languages.
In spite of these differences, both intransigent and conciliatory MPs, from the left and
from the right, still had quite a lot in common, as they all relied on the then dominant
narrative about the linguistic history of Spain. Andrs Ovejero, a socialist MP and a literature
professor at the University of Madrid, went the furthest in this direction when he claimed that
our Castilian language was already an official language in Catalonia and Navarre two
centuries before they were politically united with Castile (DSCCRE 40: 994), something
which flies in the face of all historical evidence. Albornoz, more cautiously but no less
significantly, ascribed the hegemony of Castilian to the genius of the race, again
displacing the causes of the process from the sociopolitical field into an allegedly detached
realm of learned high culture:
It was the genius of Castile, spurred by the sharpest minds of our race, which determined that
the regions of Galicia and Catalonia, purely out of their free will, adopted our language, our
culture and our arts (DSCCRE 61: 1885).

There were numerous alarmist warnings coming from the intransigent camp about the
catastrophic consequences that official recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician would
bring about. Thus, Abilio Caldern suggested that all action which was not aimed at
defending Castilian was detrimental to our language, hurtful to our patriotic feelings and
prejudicial to our moral and economic interests. And, characteristically, he also warned
about the risk of Spain becoming a new Tower of Babel, at the same time as Spanish would
have disappeared from Catalonia in a single generation (DSCCRE 40: 990-91). From the
conciliatory camp they replied that these fears were unjustified. Eduardo Ortega, for example,
expressed his total faith in the vitality, the biological, universal force of Castilian, which
must always prevail under any circumstances (DSCCRE 61: 1897). Along similar lines,
according to Albornoz, Castilians should not be concerned in the slightest about the future of
their language, since the latters future is absolutely guaranteed. Albornoz does not fear for

the unity of Spain either, as he believes the latter will always exist as long as this world
exists. He even trusts that Castilian culture will flourish in Catalonia the moment they stop
seeing it as imposed (DSCCRE 61: 1884-87).
As we see in these quotations, the question was often presented in terms of a
confrontation between Castilian culture, often equated with Spanish culture, and Catalan
culture. This is consistent with the already-mentioned fact that some of the MPs seemed to be
acting as Castilian MPs, rather than Spanish MPs. It is the states duty to protect and to
teach Castilian culture, said the Conservative Miguel Maura, who also reproached Catalan
nationalist representatives trying to impose your Catalan spirit at your universities, to the
exclusion of the Castilian spirit (DSCCRE 61: 1889-91). On hearing this reproach, Manuel
Azaa himself replied angrily: Catalan culture is as Spanish as our culture, and both are an
integral part of this country and this Republic (DSCCRE 61: 1892-93).14
The old question of the name of the language, espaol or castellano, was also debated
in relation to proposed amendments of article 4. In fact, perhaps this apparently
inconsequential question of the naming of the language encapsulates better than anything else
the true political stakes of this whole debate. Initially, Spanish seems to have been the
preferred option for a majority. Nationalists from the peripheries rejected this and claimed
that the other languages should also be considered Spanish languages. The Galician Daniel
Castelao, for example, argued that Galician should be considered as Spanish a language as
Castilian (DSCCRE 41: 1013-14), and the Catalan Gabriel Alomar went further when he
complained that equating Castilian and Spanish was an insult to Catalonia and the other
regions: my Catalan language, Basque and Galician are all Spanish languages (DSCCRE
40: 996-97). In the end castellano, Castilian, was the preferred choice for both Castilian
centralists and peripheral nationalists, although probably for opposite reasons.

Conclusion. The heart of national unity

We have identified a contradiction at the heart of what we have termed the intransigent
discourse. On the one hand, they assert the inherent, natural superiority of Castilian language
and culture, denying thereby that politics, in the form of state intervention, had played a
major role in bringing about this regions hegemony. One wonders why, then, they opposed
official recognition for the other languages so vehemently. One cannot avoid the feeling that
14

On Azaas views about Spanish nationalisms, see Blas Guerrero 1991, 124-33.

their insistence on preserving the privileged position of Spanish in education and other staterelated domains reveals that they believed, more than they were prepared to admit, that the
political action of the state is ultimately determining for achieving language hegemony. This
could be the best way to refute their thesis about the intrinsic superiority of Castilian,
pointing instead to the true political factors lying behind its hegemony. On this point the
conciliatory camp seems to have been more consistent: they were convinced that no form of
official recognition of the other languages would be enough to challenge the superior strength
of Castilian language and culture.15
We have pointed out that MPs stances towards the regional languages were not
strictly matched with any political ideology or political party, as intransigent and conciliatory
positions cut across the ideological spectrum. Nevertheless, generally speaking, liberal and
center-left groups (where Azaa and Albornoz belonged) showed a better disposition than
both conservative and leftist groups. That said, both the stances had more in common than it
might appear at first sight; their differences were more a matter of political tactics than
conviction. The intransigent camp insisted that the state should not hesitate to facilitate
rather than hinder the process of linguistic unification already under way, whereas the
conciliatory position viewed such approach as dubiously democratic and strategically
counterproductive. First, it could be an obstacle for the incorporation of peripheral
nationalisms into the republican project and, secondly, a language policy openly restrictive
could trigger a counter reaction, as it happened with Primo de Riveras repressive measures
(Ventall 1976).
The weakest point in the argument of the conciliatory camp was the lack of a truly
pluralist cultural discourse which could have acted as a real alternative to dominant centralist
and nationalist stands. One such discourse was not available in the Spanish intellectual and
academic contexts of that time. Philology, being imbued as it was with nationalist ideas, was
probably unable to provide it. As a consequence, the foundations of the linguistic ideology
that furnished their discourses were shared by both camps. First, they all share the idea of a
monolingual culture which, explicit denials aside, ultimately subordinates language and
culture to the state. Secondly, the hegemony of Spanish is unquestionably assumed to be
based on the superiority of the Castilian language and raza. The spread of Spanish in the
Peninsula is presented as a natural fact, the result of a spontaneous historical tendency
towards unification, driven by an inexorable law of progress. This process is further

15

Menndez Pidal voiced his support for this view, see Arbeloa and Santiago 1981: 215.

legitimized through references to biological science, bringing Darwinian ideas about the
survival of the fittest into the field of language. In this connection, it is interesting to note
their respective attitudes towards bilingualism: while Unamuno rejected it head-on, Pidal and
Albornoz said they were in favour of it (however, their position is quite ambiguous and
somehow half-hearted, and ultimately seems to be based on tactical calculation, rather than
firm conviction). Finally, one cannot avoid the feeling that, whatever their differences, they
were all convinced that Spanish would end up replacing all the other languages, turning Spain
into a monolingual country, which, in their eyes, made it a stronger nation.
We have underscored the role intellectuals like Pidal and Unamuno played, first, in
underpinning the hegemonic Spanish nationalist discourse on language and, second, in
legitimizing political and legal regulations that were in accordance with that discourse.
However, they differ markedly. As an unquestioned academic authority, Pidals could be
characterized as a cold rational discourse, in the sense that it is intellectually solid and
anchored in the scientific field. Unamuno, in contrast, was an acclaimed writer, and his
discourse on language displayed poetic and lyrical overtones. It is weaker than Pidals,
perhaps, from a strictly rational position, but strongly appealing from an emotional point of
view. They could be said to embody two slightly different versions of the same nationalist
discourse on the Spanish language and the Spanish nation. Pidals, in its ambiguity, proved to
be appealing both for the intransigent and the conciliatory stances. Unamunos, on the other
hand, having a more openly nationalistic overtone, proved more appealing to the intransigent
stance. In any case, the notoriety these and other intellectuals enjoyed is not totally unrelated
to the political centrality of the language controversy, in the same way that the passion with
which they defended Spanish cannot be totally detached from their own material and
particular interests as a social group (Hobsbawn 1991: 127).
Finally, the achievement of co-official recognition for the smaller Spanish languages,
alongside Castilian, for the first time in Spanish history was the result of an agreement
between the conciliatory camp and peripheral nationalists, reached through a complex and
protracted negotiation. The conciliatory discourse towards the other languages of Spain
opened up a new path which made possible to pursue peaceful dialogue between Castilian
language and culture and the other languages and cultures of Spain, for the first time
questioning the hitherto dominant monolingual hegemonic culture. For their part,
representatives from peripheral nationalisms did not play as much of a central role in these
debates as one would have expected given the nature of the topics that were discussed.

Instead, they seem to have preferred to concentrate their efforts on the elaboration of their
respective statutes of autonomy.
Be it as it may, official recognition in the Constitution of the other Spanish languages
was an important first step in the direction of constructing new, more inclusive and pluralistic
discourses in Spanish culture, a path which, as we know, was sadly truncated by the fascist
coup in 1936, the civil war and Francos subsequent dictatorship. Within the few years that
the Second Republic lasted, there was not enough time for the practical effects of the new
official arrangement to be fully felt, except briefly in Catalonia. In any case, it constituted an
important legal precedent for the 1978 Constitution. But that is another story.