The Spanish Language of the 21st Century as a Living Community

Abstract

As the myth of Babel illustrates, languages have always represented a unifying element among people, but in modern times their role has been reinforced to the point of becoming the foundation of society. However, there are three linguistic patterns that allow members of a social group to connect, and the last three centuries have been characterized by the successive predominance of each of them. In the 19th century, at least in Europe, language was considered the foundation of the nation. In the 20th century, language served to establish economic interests shared by very large groups of people from almost all over the world. In the 21st century, fueled by social networks enabled by new technologies, we have moved to a point where language primarily sustains living communities. This paper examines the three successive communities of Spanish, the national, the economic and the experiential, and the reasons why the latter has conferred a very peculiar identity on the Spanish-speaking community.