[Gocamino] Aragon in my mind.... and oooops!

[Rosina]

OOOOOOps!
Kind Fernando, Isabel the Great's husband, was, of course from Leon, not from Castilla.? While Leon had, and spoke, its own dialect in the centuries up to the end of the 1400s, the regional language does not seem to have survived, in a meaningful way, the attempts to unify Spain linguistically.
While today "Spanish" (modern version of Castilian) is a language spoken, more or less, ?by more?than a billion people, and growing steadily, in the years before Queen Isabel, Castilian was spoken by barely a few tens of thousands or so.? It was? Queen's Isabel's far-reaching determination to unify a people through a?language that in fact, has made?the language what it is today. 
In New York City alone we have seven, or more, ?24/7 TV channels in "Spanish" and oodles of radio stations and printed publications. . Giant TV chains?like HBO now offer their showings dubbed into Spanish..... etc., etc., etc. 
Now and then you come across ATM signs and stores signs (In New York City!) that say: "English spoken here".
In Queen Isabel's time the one language in common was Latin, which, of course, was beyond the reach of the populace. The Queen herself always bemoaned her lack of a formal education (she came to the throne as a teenager struggling to preserve, foremost, her life) ?but she did learn Latin along the way from a female teacher. When she became more sure of herself and of her power she sent the teacher to teach at the then, and now, illustrious University of Salamanca (the alma mater of an impressive majority of Spain's intellectual giants throughout the centuries); when the powers that were refused to have a female teacher Isabel brought to bear her financial influence on the institution.? Women teachers were then allowed to teach there, albeit behind a curtain.
Salamanca, lies gloriously on the Via de la Plata and? is sort-of like Rome.? You cannot walk half a block without encountering artistic, cultural, historical, and numberless un thought-of treasures. Since the first time I traversed the Via de la Plata and went through the city I have been convinced that no-one should die without?having gone to Salamanca, particularly pilgrims.(Have you ever heard of the "House of shells"?there?)
Anyway, one of the most touching details of?the city is the?recognition in the ancient University' of the defining influence? of the Queen. And, most touchingly, near? the University?there sits the beautifully modest house that the Queen bestowed on her Latin teacher,?and the schoolgirl's? mementos of the monarch contained therein.
Do go!
Hugs.
..
Rosina,??