Norma madrileña, norma cortesana y norma americana

Abstract

Since the publication in 1962 of the article by Ramón Menéndez Pidal “Sevilla versus Madrid. Some precisions about the Spanish of America,” the influence of a supposed Madrid norm on the configuration of the broadest dialectal division of American Spanish: the “español del interior” and the “español de la flota” has been widely accepted. This paper analyzes the existence of this Madrid norm, its relation to what we could call “court norm” and its implication in the historical configuration of the American norms by studying different phenomena, especially the history of “yeísmo.” Our conclusion is that it is necessary to take into account the history of American Spanish when explaining its social and dialectal diversity, rather than basing in on the linguistic situation in “Madrid de los Austrias,” which, in turn, should be revised.