Aspectos do bilingüismo Português-Castelhano na época moderna

Abstract

The importance of the Castilian language is undoubtedly a culturally important fact in Early Modern Portugal, particularly between the mid-fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries. This essay highlights some aspects of this phenomenon, which, despite inevitable variations in different contexts, received significant expression in a number of fields of Portuguese culture and society — among them, the court, literature and intellectual culture, and politics. The importance of Castilian only began to decline in Portugal from the eighteenth century onwards, a fact that may be accounted for both by the relative loss of Spanish influence over Portugal, and by the ascent of a new cultural paradigm, mainly derived from French culture.