An important part of the patrimony of the southwestern part of the United States is Spanish speaking.
A typical
platitude from its usual source on
CathInfo.
Nonsense! The linguistic "
patrimony" of the "
southwestern part of the
United States" is
not Spanish, but instead, numerous
Amerind languages, representing completely different language
families [÷], that had been spoken for centuries as Amerind "tribes" flowed or ebbed across the terrain of the future U.S. Southwest. Near the modern U.S./Mexico border that's the basis for modern
liberal pandering, specifically west of the Rio Grande, languages representing the
Uto-Aztecan,
Yuman-Cochimi, and
Na-Dene families were the most widespread [†].
The Catholic Faith was brought to that region by Spanish speaking priests long before the United States ever existed.
Yes, and "
long before"
Mexico "ever
existed" (a reminder for readers for whom emotion overwhelms a more rational perspective).
If we must follow such rhetoric, then what concessions should have been made to the
French-speaking bishop (born in
France) who was assigned by Rome to Savannah then to St. Augustine, in effect, to restore the Catholic Faith in the 19th-Century
English-speaking states Georgia & Florida? The priests he personally recruited were also
French-speaking (and born in
France).
Hmmm?Imperial Spain was
not an "
empire" like either of the Roman ones, nor did it "
colonize" the New World in the sense that its geopolitical rival England did. Spanish
conquistadors would claim land for their monarch(s), build
presidios (often shortchanged on the soldiers manning them), give leave to their accompanying Catholic missionaries to prose
lytize in the vicinity--except for the condition that the missionaries or their Amerind
neophytes produce enough food for everyone--while they themselves rushed off to seek personal wealth. It was quite rare to encounter Spanish freemen who were willing to endure the risks & hardships of travel across an ocean, then travel thro' strange lands, just so they could be a Catholic farmer or pastoralist
again in the New World like they had been back in Spain.
Any "Spanish" colonizing expeditions into the inland Southwest would have required arduous travel over unfamiliar mostly arid terrain; e.g., Oñate's in 1598 covered perhaps 500 miles measured (loosely by a map's scale) from the northernmost colonial outpost. Despite photos of statues depicting women & children, I doubt that
Spain-born women were ever very numerous there, especially when compared to all the Spain-born men [‡]. It's nowhere nearly as easy as embarking at a European harbor, then disembarking at a legendary Protestant Rock across the ocean. The Spanish conquistador custom--tolerated if not actually approved by the Church--was to choose wives from among the New-World-native populations. Thus the "
mother tongue" of their children could still be the native Amerind language,
not Spanish.
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Note ÷: Thus far more different from each other than, e.g., Spanish from French or even English, and altho' my reference book for that is not within reach, often more different from each other than Latin from Hebrew. No thanks to Columbus for deciding that the Asiatic-looking natives he "discovered" were "Indians", and leaving modern writers to devise awkward words like
"Amerind" to try to undo the long-established confusion.
Note †: This map is consistent with what I remember of the reconstructed distribution of native languages before Columbus arrived: <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Langs_N.Amer.png> (Wikipedia seems to be more reliably factual for its maps, recreated in modern graphic file-formats from out-of-copyright maps, than for its prose).
Note ‡: I use the awkward phrase "
Spain-born" as the plainest way to avoid ambiguity, especially as left unresolved by "Span
ish-born", which might be used for New-World-born offspring of parents who are both "
Spain-born". Yes, the difference
did matter in the society of the Spanish Empire. Alternatives I've read in various authoritative sources have used "Iberian", referring to the European peninsula (and accepting the inclusion of Portugal), and "peninsular" (sometimes capitalized) to mean the same thing.
Topic: Spanish sermons at SSPX Phoenix (Read 6832 times)