Comparisons with Greek as a Tool for Asserting the Prestige of the Castilian Language in Golden Age Spain

Stefanchikov Igor' Vyacheslavovich PhD in Philology Education and methodology specialist of the Department of Ibero-Roman Language Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1, p. 51 i.stf@ya.ru Other publications by this author

IntroductionBefore the invention and wide spread of printing in Europe, Latin was an absolute authority as the language of high culture, university education, the Catholic Church, and international communication ^{[5, p. 10]}.

A study of the catalog of incunabula — the first printed European books created before 1501 — shows that about 70% of them were published in Latin (for comparison: 10.8% were written in German, 8% in Italian, 5.7% in French, 1.9% in Dutch, 1.4% in Spanish) ^[13]. However, at the turn of the XV–XVI centuries. "there is a period of growing interest in the national languages spoken by the overwhelming majority of the population" ^{[4, p. 179]}.

The sphere of the use of folk languages is expanding, moving more and more from the oral form of existence to the written one, which increases attention to the issues of forming a language norm, achieving orthographic uniformity, as well as developing principles for describing folk languages ^{[2, p. 14]}. The gradual rise of the Castilian language in the territory of modern Spain and its transformation into the main language of writing (we should recall the activities of Alphonse the Wise in this direction already in the XIII century) "put on the queue the question of its ordering, about giving a certain uniformity to its grammar and spelling" ^{[6, p. 493]}. Works devoted entirely or partially to the rules of writing in the Castilian language are beginning to appear: "The Rules of spelling of the Castilian language" by Antonio de Nebrija (Reglas de ortographia en la lengua castellana, Alcala de Henares, 1517), "A Treatise on spelling and accents in the three main languages" by Alejo Venegas de Busto (Tractado de Orthographia y accetos en las tres lenguas principales, Toledo, 1531), "The Art of Reading and writing" by Bernabe de Busto (Arte para aprender a leer y escribir, Salamanca, 1533), "The Art of Correct Reading and Writing" by Andres Flores (Arte para bien saber leer y escriuir, Valladolid, 1552), "Castilian Spelling and Pronunciation" by Juan Lopez de Velasco (Ortographia y Pronounciacion Castellana, Burgos, 1582), "Manual for Easy Teaching children to Read and write" by Pedro Simon Abril (Instruci?n para ense?ar a los ni?os f?cilmente el leer y el escribir, Zaragoza, 1590), etc.

At the same time, the development of the political and linguistic self-consciousness of the Romance speech States makes the problem of linguistic autonomy urgent. This is manifested, on the one hand, in attempts to compare various folk languages using arguments that convince the reader "of the superiority of one Romance language over another" ^{[4, p. 180]}, on the other hand, in the appearance of many works "glorifying the virtues of the corresponding Romance dialects", in which, although the Latin language is given due as the "mother" who nursed them, "autonomy is stipulated in relation to her" ^{[4, p. 180]}. It is noteworthy that in the titles of works of this genre, the words "defense" or "praise" are often found: "Dialogue in praise of our language" (O Dialogo em louvor da nossa linguagem, Lisbon, 1540), included in the "Grammar of the Portuguese language" by Jo?o de Barros, "Defense and Glorification of the French language" by Joachin du Belle (La Deffence, et Illustration de la Langue Francoyse, Paris, 1549), "In Defense of the Florentine language and Dante" (In difesa della lingua Fiorentina, et di Dante, Florence, 1556), "A book in praise of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Castilian and Valencian languages" by Raphael Martin de Visian (Libro de alaban?as de las lenguas Hebrea, Griega, Latina, Castellana y Valenciana, Valencia, 1574), "The rules of writing and spelling of the Portuguese language followed by a dialogue in defense of the same language" Peru di Magallancha Gandavo (Regras que ensinam a maneira de escreuer e orthographia da lingua Portuguesa, com hum Dialogo que a diante se segue em defensam da mesma lingua, Lisbon, 1574).

The Castilian language at this time is in a special position among other folk languages. With the unification of Castile and Aragon, the completion of the Reconquista, as well as the discovery of the New World (all in 1492), it gradually becomes the language of a large empire with extensive possessions both in the Old (Spanish Netherlands, Kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, etc.) and in the New World. The political prestige of the Spanish crown determines the linguistic prestige of its official language, and the heyday of the empire coincides with the era of the Golden Age of Spanish Culture (late XV — mid XVII centuries), during which literary works were created that entered the treasury of world culture. The idea of the intrinsic value of the Castilian language runs through a large number of works of the XVI–XVII centuries, as devoted to linguistic issues proper (comments by Fernando de Herrera on the works of Garcilaso de la Vega (Obras de Garci Lasso de la Vega, con anotaciones de Fernando de Herrera, Seville, 1580), "On the Names of Christ" by Luis de Leon (De los Nombres de Christo, Salamanca, 1585), "On the origin and beginning of the Castilian language" by Bernardo de Aldrete (Del origen y principio de la lengua castellana, Rome, 1606), etc.), and not ("The Life of our Lord Jesus Christ" by Cristobal de Fonseca (Vida de Christo Se?or Nuestro, Toledo, 1596), "Commentaries on the Seven Psalms of Penance" by Pedro de Vega (Declaracion de los Siete Psalmos Penitenciales, Madrid, 1602), "History of Philip II" by Luis Cabrera de Cordoba (Historia de Phelipe Segundo, Madrid, 1619), etc.).

At the same time, "the apology of one language is almost always associated with its comparison or opposition to some other or other languages" ^{[5, p. 39]}, and the choice of the opponent language varies depending on the epoch. For writers and scientists of the XVI–XVII centuries. the great classical languages that enjoyed great authority — Latin and Greek - remained models (Hebrew was often included among them as the language in which the sacred texts of the Bible were written) ^{[11, p. 128]}. Those who spoke in defense of folk languages inevitably turned in their arguments to these "universal" languages, in which they continued to read, write and speak in various parts of Europe and the world ^{[11, p. 128]}. At the same time, in the light of the well-established opinion about the Romance languages as a product of the "spoilage" of Latin and the desire characteristic of the Renaissance to restore its classical purity, apologists of folk languages had to overcome the inertia of such a view of the object of their protection.

At the same time, the humanistic ideology contained a paradox: the desire for classical values and a surge of interest in their study made ancient samples closer, and one of the postulates of the Renaissance was that "a language learned naturally by birth is as beautiful and worthy of respect as Greek and Latin, which had the status of enduring values" ^{[4, p. 180]}. According to Ramon Menendez Pidal, it was at this time that humanism "clipped the wings" of Latin and brought Romance languages to the historical stage ^{[4, p. 180]}. Under these conditions, the Latin language was a natural competitor, a model for grammatical description and study of Romance languages. Therefore, it is quite natural that in their apologies the authors first of all appealed to him.

The attention of researchers in the context of studying discussions about the "protection of language" has also always been focused primarily on the comparison of Romance languages with their "mother". Less has been written about the Greek language, which often occupies a special position of "arbitrator" in the dispute of Romance languages with Latin. In this article, we will focus primarily on how Spanish authors of the late XV — mid XVI centuries use comparisons with the Greek language as a tool for asserting the prestige of the Castilian language. The role of the Greek language in the Spanish "language dispute"

It seems logical to begin consideration of the issue with the first ever full—fledged grammatical manual for the study of the national language - "Grammar of the Castilian language" (Gram?tica castellana, Salamanca, 1492) by Antonio de Nebrihi.

In the prologue to his work, Nebrikha draws a parallel between the stages of language development and the phases of the formation and extinction of great empires and states: the Kingdom of Israel (Hebrew), the Greek polis civilization (Greek), the Roman Empire (Latin), the Kingdom of Castile / Spain (Castilian). Nebrikha formulates this idea as follows — "language has always been a companion of the empire": "siempre la lengua fue compa?era del imperio" ^{[19, p. 99]}.

He discusses the stages of the life of the Greek language as follows: his "childhood" falls on the era of the Trojan War, the heyday — on the era of Alexander the Great, the sunset — on the period that began with the Roman conquest, when the rise of Latin begins ^{[19, p. 101]}. The Castilian language, according to Nebriha, appears as another great language, the heir of Greek and Latin, and his childhood falls on the period of the formation of Christian kingdoms (Castile, Leon, etc.), the beginning of the rise — on the era of Alphonse the Wise, Nebriha himself is a contemporary of the apogee of the power of the native dialect: "lo cual hezimos enel tiempo mas oportuno que nunca fue hasta aqui. por estar ia nuestra lengua tanto en la cumbre que mas se puede temer el decendimiento della: que esperar la subida ^{[19, p. 107]}" ("The position of the Spanish language is so high that one can rather fear its fall than expect further ascension" ^{[4, p. 181]}).

Thus, the Castilian language, being in its heyday, needs to be brought to the norm on the model of classical languages, in which the grammarian sees both a political benefit (the spread of the language among the newly conquered peoples) and a task aimed at preserving the language itself — just as they were fixed in grammatical descriptions at the time and thanks to this, the Greek and Latin languages have been preserved, despite the political extinction of civilizations that made them languages of high culture. Nebrija himself claims to be the "Castilian Zenodotus" or Cratet: "En la ?ania dela cual io quise echar la primera piedra. y hazer en nuestra lengua lo que zeno doto en la griega y Crates en la latina" ^{[19, p. 107]}.

The description of the Castilian language is made by Nebrikha through constant comparisons with Greek and Latin; in phonetics and spelling, he calls for following classical patterns: "lo cual siempre guardaron los griegos y latinos y nos otros avemos de guardar" ^{[19, p. 167]}. At the same time, he justifies some common mistakes characteristic of native Castilian speakers (in particular, the indistinguishability of sounds denoted by the letters b and v), referring to the fact that they are characteristic even of Greek, which has lost the original pronunciation of its beta (?) ^{[14, p. 30]}.

Other observations by Nebrich place Castilian not just on the level of classical languages, but are also intended to show that in some respects it has achieved the ideal by taking the best from both. In particular, the question in which the Castilian language found a golden mean between Greek and Latin is the use of the article with common names and its absence before proper names: "E asi lo hazen los griegos <...> entre los cuales y los latinos tuvo nuestra lengua tal medio y templanza: que siguiendo los griegos puso articulos sola mente alos nombres comunes <...> y quitamos los articulos delos nombres proprios a imitacion y semejan?a delos latinos. Lo cual nuestros maiores hizieron con mas prudencia que los unos ni los otros" ^{[19, p. 243]}. He also notes some advantages of Castilian that are absent in other languages (including Greek). In particular, he distinguishes in his native language a part of speech that is absent in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic — an indefinite participle name (nombre participial infinito, i.e. a participle form acting as a binding term in analytical verb forms such as he cantado, habr?an hecho, etc.) ^{[19, p. 259]}, and also notes the exceptional richness of the Castilian language in the field of deminuative and aumentative suffixation, in respect of which even Greek cannot be compared with Spanish ^{[19, p. 215]}.

An illustrative detail: talking about the term "barbarian", which the Greeks called all foreigners who were not involved in Greek culture, and the Romans — all foreigners, excluding the Greeks, Nebrikha suggests that the Spaniards refer to "barbarians" all, minus those who speak Spanish and two classical languages — Greek and Latin: "Nos otros podemos llamar barbaros a todos los peregrinos de nuestra lengua sacando alos griegos y latinos" ^{[19, p. 287]}.

Another famous work of the Spanish Renaissance, in which the Greek language is repeatedly mentioned, is the Dialogue on Language by Juan de Valdez (Dialogo de la lengua, Naples, 1535-1536; published in 1736).

According to the (erroneous ^{[1, p. 22-24]}) opinion of the humanist, ancient Greek was the main language of the Iberian Peninsula before the arrival of the Romans (coexisting with Phoenician and Basque). Valdez admits that earlier, like many, he considered Basque to be the main substrate language, but then changed his position for two main reasons: 1) it was in Greek that the Greeks who arrived on the Iberian Peninsula communicated with the local population, who thus eventually learned the richer language of the newcomers; 2) Valdez believes that most of the words and expressions of the Castilian language, not borrowed from Latin or Arabic, are Greek, which also proves the character of Greek language as a substrate ^{[23, p. 20]}.

Comparing the linguistic situation on the Iberian Peninsula in antiquity and in the modern era, Valdez comes to the conclusion that "just as Latin is the basis of all the languages of the peninsula, although it has "admixtures" (mezcla) from other languages, so Greek was then, previously, the basis to which the features of other languages were mixed" ^{[2, p. 54]}: "quiero decir, que as? como la lengua que hoy se habla en Castilla, aunque es mezclada de otras, la mayor y m?s principal parte que tiene es de la lengua latina, as? la lengua que ent?nces se hablaba, aunque ten?a mezclas de otras, la mayor y la m?s principal parte della era de la lengua griega" ^{[23, p. 19]}. Such a view of the linguistic panorama of pre—Roman Spain and the highlighting of the Greek heritage in the Castilian language (Valdez dwells in detail in his dialogue on the issue of lexical borrowings from the Greek language, listing a large number of specific lexical units - we note that many of which he attributed to the Greek by mistake) implicitly works to increase the prestige of the native language.

At the same time, Valdez notes that the Castilian language still does not have a "long tradition of written classical monuments" ^{[2, p. 164]} and therefore is more "popular" ("vulgar") than, for example, Tuscan, whose authority is sanctified by such names as Boccaccio or Petrarch: "la tengo por m?s vulgar, porque veo que la toscana est? ilustrada y enriquecida por un Bocacio y un Petrarca <...> y como dabeis, la lengua castellana nunca ha tenido quien escriba en ella con tanto ciudad y miramento cuanto ser?a menester" ^{[23, p. 9]}. The recipe for solving this problem is offered by Cristobal de Villalon in his work "Scholastic" (El Schol?stico, Valladolid, 1550?; published in 1911). Setting out the reasons that prompted him to write the book in Castilian, he explains his choice by the desire to make it more accessible to the general reader and the fact that it is always easier for a person to convey his idea in his native language than in a foreign one.

Native speakers of Spanish, Villalon argues, should value the language given to them by God and nature no less than any other languages, no matter how authoritative they may have, and contribute to its development and enrichment of the written tradition — and in this the Greek authors can act as teachers of Castilians: "allende que la lengua que Dios y naturaleza nos ha dado, no nos deue ser menos apazible ni menos estimada que la latina, griega y hebrea, a las quales creo no fuesse nuestra lengua algo inferior si nosotros la ensalgassemos y guardassemos y puliessemos con aquella elegancia y ornamento que los griegos y los otros hazen la suya" ^{[20, pp. 29-30]}.

It was the love of their native language that allowed the Romans and Greeks to elevate their languages, and the Spaniards, if they want their language to reach the same degree of perfection as the classical languages, need to follow the example of the ancients.

This idea runs like a thread through many works of the second half of the XVI — first half of the XVII century .

Francisco de Medina, in the prologue to the work devoted to the study of the poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega (Obras de Garci Lasso de la Vega, con anotaciones de Fernando de Herrera, Seville, 1580), following Nebriha, speaks about the connection between the political power of a particular empire and the prestige of its language, illustrating his thought by referring to Greek, "the best and most abundant of all human languages" ("aquella lengua entre las profanas la mejor i mas abundante" ^{[20, p. 109]}), which was improved in parallel with the expansion of its distribution area. Noting the virtues of the Castilian language, which in turn became the language of the great empire, Medina, on the one hand, complains about the negligent attitude of the native speakers themselves ("somos, dir? tan descuidados, o tan inorantes? que dexamos perderse aqueste raro tesoro, que posseemos" ^{[20, p. 110]}). At the same time, he (as if responding to Valdez) singles out Garcilaso de la Vega among the poets who brought glory to the native dialect, who proved that the national language is able to rise to the heights that only Greek and Latin reached, if only not to neglect it: "el ilustre cavallero Garci Lasso de la Vega, <...> en quien claro se descubri?, <...> que no es impossible a nuestra lengua arribar cerca de la cumbre, donde ya se vieron la Griega i Latina, si nosotros con impiedad no la desamparassemos" ^{[20, p. 116]}.

Ambrosio de Morales in his "Speech on the Castilian language" (Discurso sobre la lengua castellana, Cordoba, 1586) also suggests taking an example from the ancient Greeks (whom he calls "the source from which humanity draws all its wisdom" ^{[20, p. 73]}) and the Romans, who did not shun their own language, but on the contrary, they highly valued him. Another writer of the era, the Augustinian monk Pedro Malon de Chaide, in the treatise "The Conversion of Magdalene" (Libro de la conversi?n de la Magdalena, Barcelona, 1588), expresses an important thought: any language itself can become the language of a great culture. Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and other ancient Greek philosophers wrote in "their own Castilian" ("Platon, Aristoteles, Pitagoras, y todos los filosofos escriuieron su filosofia en su Castellano" ^{[15, p. 17]}, which means that there are no fundamental obstacles for Spaniards to create in their native language, familiar to them better than any foreign — especially since, according to the monk, it is not inferior in wealth to Greek or Latin: "Pues si nuestro Espa?ol es tan bueno como su Griego, y como el lenguaje Romano" ^{[15, p. 17]}.

Thus, an important idea of the period under consideration is that "classical languages owe their perfection to the efforts of people who wrote in them" ^{[5, p. 63]} (and above all — as in their native language).

This position is shared by famous writers of the Golden Age: Lope de Vega, in the dedication to the play "True Lover", who defends the use of the native language with reference to the great Greek and Latin poets ^{[22, p. 253]}, or Miguel de Cervantes, through the mouth of Don Quixote, arguing that all the great ancient poets wrote in languages "absorbed with mother's milk", therefore neither Homer wrote in Latin (leaving aside the historical implausibility of such an assumption), nor Virgil — in Greek: "el grande Homero no escribi? en lat?n, porque era griego, ni Virgilio no escribi? en griego, porque era latino; en resoluci?n, todos los poetas antiguos escribieron en la lengua que mamaron en la leche, y no fueron a buscar las estranjeras para declarar la alteza de sus conceptos" ^{[7, p. 826]}. By the end of the XVI century. the political prestige of the Castilian language is no longer in doubt.

The case was not limited to the famous historical episode, during which on April 17, 1536, Charles V, in the presence of Pope Paul III, as well as the French and Venetian ambassadors, addressed the audience in Castilian, thereby declaring the right of the Spanish language to universality: "y no espere de m? otras palabras que de mi lengua espa?ola, la quai es tan noble que merece ser sabida y entendida de toda la gente christiana" ^{[17, p. 217]} ("Don't expect any other words from me except in my Spanish, which is so noble that it deserves the whole Christian world to know and understand it"). The power of the Castilian crown in the XVI–XVII centuries and the richness of the culture of the Golden Age spread the fashion for the Spanish language far beyond the Iberian Peninsula, and its positions at the courts and in the upper strata of society in Rome, Paris, Vienna, Brussels at that time were stronger than ever ^{[20, p. XXVII]}.

Contemporaries proudly noted the wide spread of the Castilian language in Europe and the world; Jose de Siguenza wrote in 1599 that the Spanish language had achieved such greatness and conquered such vast spaces that neither Greek nor Latin could compare with it: "Tal es la grandeza y el espacio que ha ocupado en compaa de las Reales banderas nuestra lengua, cosa que nunca la gozaron la Griega ni Latina" ^{[22, p. 250]}. The feeling of pride in the privileged position of the native language that overwhelmed writers and thinkers reached its apogee by the beginning of the XVII century and is reflected in the evolution of the attitude of Spanish writers and thinkers to the linguistic side of the native dialect proper.

Francisco de Quevedo, in his unfinished work In Defense of Spain (Espa?a defendida, 1609-1612), argues that the Spanish of Luis de Granada is in no way inferior in elegance to the Greek of Demosthenes, Aeschines and Isocrates or the Latin of Cicero and Quintus Hortensius Gortala: "?Son? por ventura <...> la elegancia griega mejor en los labios [de] Dem?stenes, Eschines o Is?crates, o la latina en Cicer?n u Hortensio, que la espa?ola en las obras de Fray Luis de Granada?"^{[21, pp. 43-44]}. Jeronimo de San Jose in 1651 in his "Genio de la historia" (Zaragoza, 1651) "declares that his Spain has long surpassed Greek and Roman culture in their heyday" ^{[4, p. 181]}: "ya nuestra Espa?a, tenida un tiempo por grosera, i barbara en el lenguage, viene oi a esceder a toda la mas florida cultura de los Griegos, i Latinos" ^{[20, p. 139]}.

Sometimes the apology of the Spanish language takes on bizarre forms when the Spanish language is already thought of as superior to Latin in all respects, but not Greek. The most interesting for consideration in this article is the work "The Art of the Castilian language" by Gonzalo Correas (Arte grande de la lengua castellana, Madrid, 1625). Despite the fact that the book was first published in 1903, it is well studied and is often regarded as a monument to the linguistic thought of its era.

Correas, continuing a long tradition, refers to classical languages as a model of perfection. However, if in the works of the XVI century. "proof of proximity to Latin is equivalent for humanists to proof of the greatness of the language" (in particular, Martin de Visiana "proves the superiority of Valencian, based on its strict compliance with Latin and the fact that, in the author's opinion, unlike Castilian, he avoided the influence of Arabic" ^{[5, p. 14]}), then for Correas Latin in this role completely gives way to Greek, which the philologist calls the "king of languages" (in the original: "Reina de las Lenguas", "queen of languages" — author's note). At the same time, Castilian, Correas believes, has come closest to this ideal, and in some respects (more on this below) surpasses it: "I con todo eso, siendo la Espa?ola mas apartada, es la qe mas se ajusta i conviene con ella en propiedad, frases i copia, Art?culos i maneras de hablar, i en ser clara, i en la qe mejor se trasluze la Griega" ^{[8, p. 297]}.

The view of Greek as the most perfect language is certainly not something new: the idea of its advantage over Latin was widely spread among humanists ^{[16, p. 21]}. Apologists of other Romance languages have repeatedly declared the native dialect the best among others, linking its advantages with the maximum approximation to the language of the ancient Greeks, as did the French Hellenist Henri II Etienne (Stephen) in his work "A Treatise on the correspondence of the French language to Greek" (Traict? de la conformit? du langage Fran?ois auec le Grec, Paris, 1565): "pareillement la langue Fran?oise, pour approcher plus pres de celle qui a acquis la perfection, doibt estre estimee excellente pardessus les autres" ^{[9, p. 19]}. And in Spain itself, back in 1533, Dio Gracian, the translator of Plutarch, in a dedication to Emperor Charles V, pays tribute to the virtues of the Castilian language, speaking of its greatest similarity to Greek: "I wanted to translate <...> from Greek, so the translation would be more correct: since the properties and manner of speech of Greek correspond much better to Castilian than any other" ^{[3, p. 84]}.

In this sense, the work of Correas is another statement in the dispute about the superiority of a particular Romance language — Spanish, Italian, French — over all others. It is worth noting that among non-Roman authors, for whom Latin was less of a reference point, such a practice of comparison with Greek was even more common ^{[16, p. 22]}.

However, Correas not only extols his native language and puts it in second place after Greek, but also rates it much higher than Latin: "Mas dejando por asentado i notorio qe la Lengua Griega fu? la mejor de las humanas qe hablaron los hombres, pretendo aq? mostrar qe la Espa?ola es la segunda, i la primera de las qe hoi se hablan, i qe la Latina es mucho imferior" ^{[8, pp. 297-298]}.

Among the advantages of the Spanish language in comparison with Latin and even Greek, he highlights the harmony of sound and ease of pronunciation ("es mas f?zil en la pronunziazion qe la Latina, i aun qe la mesma Griega, i otras doctrinales i vulgares qe tienen muchas de las dichas asperezas i debilidades" ^{[8, p. 301]}), a more perfect spelling ("I la Ortograf?a Castellana es mucho mejor qe la Latina, en qe los Romanos fueron mui b?rbaros" ^{[8, p. 301]}), as well as the absence of a case system, the functions of which are performed by articles, prepositions and pronominal clitics, allowing more clearly and nuanced convey semantic shades: "la eleganzia de nuestros Art?culos, i la grazia i perfezion delos Positivos le, les, los, la, las, lo, i Pronombres me, te, se, nos, vos, os, qe aclaran, traban, ajustan i llenan la orazion Castellana, i la hazen cumplida i redonda, es imposible espresar-la la qe no tiene otros tales, como la pobre Latina. Ni aun la mesma Griega, con ser tan copiosa, cumple con esto como la Castellana" ^{[8, p. 304]}. He also speaks about the lexical richness of Castilian, in which only Greek can compete with him, while Latin — and here Correas refers to the opinion of ancient authors — Lucretius, Cicero, Quintilian and Horace — in this respect demonstrates "poverty and sterility" ("pobreza i esterilidad") ^{[8, p. 307]}.

All these advantages of the Castilian language are complemented, on the one hand, by impenetrability to borrowings, on the other hand, by the ability to integrate them harmoniously, which explains its "unspoiled" compared to Latin, which Correas considers just another language of foreign conquerors (which was perceived by part of the local Spanish elite, while the bulk of the population allegedly continued speak the native Castilian language).

It should be noted here that Correas was a supporter of the theory of "castellano primitivo" put forward by Gregorio Lopez Madera at the turn of the XVI–XVII centuries, or the theory of biblical origin, according to which Castilian (along with Latin) was one of the 72 languages that appeared as a result of the Babel. The popularity of this theory (among its supporters, in addition to Correas, was, for example, the writer and rhetorician Bartolome Jimenez Paton ^{[5, p. 87]}) is a very important indicator of the mood of the era when "the study of their national past began to excite the minds of people who realized the commonality of their historical past and learned the scope of their imperial present and future" ^{[4, p. 187]}.

The Castilian language in the light of the theory of "castellano primitivo" turned out to be a carrier of one of the most important characteristics, which served as a very important argument in disputes about the prestige of a particular language, namely antiquity — in it it was now not inferior to either Greek or Latin. Such an idea of the genesis and age of the Spanish language, associated with the rejection of the view of Latin as the "mother" of Castilian, allows Correas to take a fresh look at the relationship between the two languages: his native dialect is now gaining genuine autonomy, supported by history itself, and the positive characteristics that his predecessors endowed Latin with are for Correas actually Castilian, not inherited from any ancestor language - and, conversely, it becomes possible to think of some features of Latin as adopted from the Castilian language ^{[16, p. 32]}. The Greek language, in its interpretation of the "dispute about language" between Latin and Castilian, now in some sense plays the role of an ally of the latter.

Among other things, Correas makes a curious judgment about the origin of the Castilian alphabet, which, in his opinion, only "seems" Latin ("I si ahora nuestras Letras <...> parezen Latinas" ^{[8, p. 18]}), whereas in reality it was borrowed by the ancient population of Spain directly from the Greeks: "es mas zierto qe de los Griegos tornararamos, ? tomamos estas figuras, qe n? de los Latinos" ^{[8, p. 18]}. Correas' general opinion on the relationship between Greek, Castilian and Latin is succinctly formulated in the following thought: "everything that is good in Latin, he owes to Greek — except what he took from Spanish": "la Romana, qe casi todo cuanto tiene bueno es de la griega demas de lo que antes ten?a de la Espa?ola" ^{[8, p. 297]}. The higher authority of Latin, Correas believes, is due solely to "the difficulty of studying it, as opposed to the ease of learning the native language" ^{[5, p. 94]}. Conclusion

Summing up the consideration of cases of appeals to the Greek language in the context of various apologies of the Castilian language presented in the works of A. de Nebrija, H. de Valdez, C. de Villalona, F. de Medina, A. de Morales, F. de Quevedo, G. Correas and other writers and thinkers of the Spanish Golden Age, it can be noted that the Greek language invariably acts as the highest reference point in discussions about the vernacular.

Since the Latin language is the main opponent of Castilian, the attitude towards it evolves first of all; if in the earliest of the analyzed texts ("Grammar of the Castilian language" by A. de Nebrihi, "Dialogue about the language" by H. It is considered in conjunction with Greek as one of the classical languages with indisputable authority, and Latin authors, like Greek, are an example to follow, then by the XVII century. the "dispute about language" is gradually resolved in favor of Castilian, and in this confrontation the Greek language often acts as its role model. The "ally" is a trend most clearly manifested in the writings of Gonzalo Correas.

At the same time, recognizing the unshakable authority of the "king of languages" (which, in particular, is manifested in attempts to emphasize his presence in pre-Roman Spain and/or to find in the Castilian language phenomena and linguistic units similar to Greek or borrowed from it), the authors, seeking to assert the prestige of the native language or demonstrate its exceptional qualities, in in some cases, they put it even higher than the Greek.