ABSTRACT

The Internet allows to communicate in real time, using computing platforms where any user can read, write, listen, record, and share opinions, and participate in blogs in any language. Based on languages in contact and their impact in society, this chapter investigates how the historical multilingualism in the Iberian Peninsula has resulted in modern Spain's local language-in-education policies. In doing so, it evaluates the most recent data in demographics, statistics, and statutory implementations. At the end of the 15th century, the primacy of Castile and its language initiates a new sociopolitical period with an attempt to create a unified modern nation state under only one dominant language. In the 19th century, in spite of centralizing policies and internal linguistic divisions, a sense of national patriotism emerged to face a common enemy, which was now the French under Napoleon. The 'national' language enabled people to unite with a sense of being Spanish, rather than Galician, Catalan, or Basque.