Cuadernos Dieciochistas (Mar 2013)
School teaching of Spanish language in Andalucía on the Eve of the 19th Century: an introduction to the «Ortographic Dialogue» by A. Balbina Lozano
Abstract
The Ortographic Dialogue by Antonio Balbina Lozano, a school teacher from Cádiz, is a little-known manuscript written at the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th century. Meant to be used in schools, it summarizes Spanish spelling rules according to the Spanish Royal Academy in the 18th Century and the main parts of the sentence, and at the end provides an alphabetical list with doubtful spellings, especially for Balbina’s Andalusian pupils who had a dialectal pronunciation. This work is framed in the pedagogical context of the time in Andalucía and Spain, in the clash between the old First Reader Book from Valladolid and the new pedagogical methods of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, its sources are discussed: the works of the Spanish Royal Academy in the 18th century, above all the Ortography of the Castilian Language, but also the works by Mañer, Cortés Moreno, Palomares and Gayoso.
