“The Minister of Finance declares: what they say, what they say, not what you say“. The latest mockery of the Andalusian accent, with laughter, came from the mouth of Esperanza Aguirre, former president of the Community of Madrid, imitating the first vice-president of the Spanish government, María Jesús Montero, born in Seville, when criticizing the agreement between the PSOE and the ERC on the fiscal pact for Catalonia. “Patricia melts with her appointment in Cadiz even if she does not understand it”, was the headline a few days ago in a well-known sports newspaper, reporting on a meeting on television. First dates between a woman and a candidate for the National Police of Cádiz, she suggested that he speak more slowly because she did not understand him. “I need your subtitles,” he even told her before agreeing to a second meeting with the Cádiz, as also reported by La Voz Digital. For Igor Rodríguez Iglesias, professor of linguistics at the University of Malaga (UMA) and director of the research group “Sociolinguistic Rights” of the UMA, “what Esperanza Aguirre did has a clear name: glottophobia, that is, linguistic discrimination; in this case, Andalusian”, alluding to two concepts: Castilian centrism and linguistic ideology.
Aguirre’s way of expressing himself has reached, as on other occasions, the Andalusian political sphere. A few days ago, the Council expressed its “total disagreement” with his demonstrations, but the Andalusian PP, which governs the autonomous community with an absolute majority, rejected this Wednesday the disapproval of the former popular leader of Madrid that the PSOE had requested through an amendment to a non-legislative proposal of the PP-A regarding financing that has not become or qualified. According to the popular, “it is not serious” to request this disapproval at this time, in which the PP will seek to confront Pedro Sánchez again and his tax agreement with ERC. The socialist proposal that the Chamber would be invited to express “the need to respect all the territories of Spain, as well as the uniqueness and elements of identity of each of them” will not be seen in plenary either, as contained in the rejected amendment.
Rodríguez Iglesias tells elDiario.es Andalucía that “the political criticism of the vice-president of the government María Jesús Montero is articulated through glottophobia. In other words: glottophobia is a weapon of political delegitimization. The content of what Montero says is not important. The way you say it is important. And this intersects with gender, whose discrimination is also reproduced by women, as is the case with Esperanza Aguirre; “Nothing new in symbolic violence.”
Historical and linguistic Andaluphobia
At this point, the teacher considers it appropriate to keep in mind that “all linguistic varieties are valid and legitimate.” “The fact that the person and what they say are delegitimized by using Andalusian has behind it a historical Andalusophobia. As with other forms of inferiorization of human beings, Andalusophobia is institutionally supported by school and public discourses repeated over the decades, most of them subtle, others explicit.
“Its construction is historical -continues the expert- and has a clear root: the Castilian conquest and the subsequent and progressive system of repartimientos: the material exclusion of being Andalusian was also accompanied by the symbolic exclusion of its legitimacy, which was articulated through linguistic elements and other cultural elements differentiating from Castilian.
According to him, Aguirre reproduces “the ignorant ideology that consists of considering that there are good and bad ways of speaking. To speak badly is to insult, to be rude or impertinent, to not respect, including mocking or imitating with devaluing intention, the way of being and being linguistically and culturally in the world of a people historically devalued or subordinated. It has nothing to do with pronouncing according to the place in which you socialized as a child, as happens with Cubans, Argentines, Mexicans and Castilians themselves. Likewise, oh, what a discovery! It also happens to the Andalusians.
“Aguirre later said that she did not discriminate against Andalusians because she had an Andalusian friend, her party colleague. It is the same strategy that is used in racism, homophobia and sexism: having a black, gay or lesbian friend and mother and/or sister exonerates you from being racist, homophobic and sexist in the same way that saying you love them. a lot of Andalusians and so on exempt you from being an Andaluphobe.
In one week, “we have witnessed several cases of linguistic Andalusophobia that show the state of symbolic violence against the Andalusian people.” In addition to Aguirre and his mockery, the professor adds “how a university student must explain that at the university they do not correct you and they should not correct you because you speak Andalusian (which, when it has happened or is happening, highlights the total ignorance of the student’s part), teacher in this case, in addition to his abuse of power, without in practice there being legal mechanisms to protect the victim from such abuse), a woman from Cordoba in Hawaii who is told that they speak Andalusian. do not go to his restaurant , the man from Cadiz who in First dates He has everything to flirt and he doesn’t end up doing it because he speaks in Andalusian or the early childhood educator who is told that the holiday adaptation period is an invention – and I quote literally – “of a lazy Andalusian so that the teachers work less.
Lack of familiarity
“All this is part of a generalized Andalusophobia,” comments the professor, who also refers to the aforementioned case of Cadiz on television. “The result is that, on the one hand, I don’t want to listen to you because you don’t know how to speak (this is absurd, since speaking is the content, that is, speaking knowing what you are talking about, not the pronunciation) and, on the other hand, implicitly, you are inferior to me, because my way of being linguistically and culturally in the world is legitimate, valid, and yours is illegitimate, invalid. This is racism, that is, an ideological system historically constructed and institutionally supported, among other things, by the educational system itself and media discourses, in which certain human groups are inferiorized, wrongly believing that yours is superior. “This ideological system operates in our society with complete impunity.”
“When a person says that they do not understand Andalusians, what happens is the following: a lack of familiarity with the Andalusian and/or Andalophobic linguistic ideology. The lack of familiarity with a variety initially causes this type of problems with various consequences: the one who excludes is the one who distorts communication, devalues the other and the social and/or cultural group of that person, reproduces ignorant concepts that pass for linguistic because they are learned in the educational system, among others. This lack of familiarity is also related to three aspects: the most obvious is that one is not familiar with the pronunciation; the referents may not be the same; and the lexicon and phraseology may also differ, including the meaning.
Furthermore, in these cases, “linguistic ideology serves as a mediator”, that is, “a pronunciation is expected that is the one that is wrongly considered valid, correct or adequate.” The professor says that “for political reasons, the Spanish variety has been standardized, without linguistic reasons existing or existing. There is not a single linguistic reason. This variety is as situated as the others. The educational system has integrated modern and scientific explanations, but has preserved old explanations, which reflect the social ideology of the past, as well as false beliefs without scientific support. Castilian centrism has crossed the way of thinking about reality: Castile as legitimate and guarantor of the status quo, later replaced by Madrid. Everything else is considered conquered and less legitimate territory. So, on the one hand, we have reality as such, and on the other, this kind of post-truth of Castilian-centrism, which feeds this linguistic, social, cultural and ontological ideology (of being) that contravenes linguistic science and the rule of law, which must be the guarantor of the linguistic, cultural and social rights of peoples, a right based, in turn, on linguistic, anthropological, sociological and even biological sciences.
“There will be other problems, but that’s not the Andalusian accent.”
The Minister of Economy, Finance and European Funds and spokesperson for the Andalusian government, Carolina España, also from the PP, said when asked about this that “the Minister of Finance will have other problems, but it is not the Andalusian accent that is the reason why we have to criticise her”, showing herself to be “totally in disagreement” with her words even though she claims not to have heard them, the Malagasy declaring herself “very proud of the Andalusian accent”.
The spokesman for Adelante Andalucía, José Ignacio García, born in Jerez de la Frontera, has already called for Aguirre’s “condemnation” in the regional parliament for “making fun of the Andalusian accent” and considered his statements “regrettable” because of “our way of speaking.” , no one becomes funny, regardless of the party. “For García, the President of the Council and the Andalusian PP should come out to “paint the face of this lady and defend the Andalusians.” “If a Catalan politician had done that on TV3, today we would have an extraordinary call from Mr. Moreno Bonilla and he would activate his entire propaganda machine,” he said.
Aguirre’s protests also provoked a reaction last week from PSOE-A general secretary Juan Espadas, who said Moreno “knows well” that the PP has “a long tradition of class disrespect towards our Andalusian accent and, in general, towards our culture and our idiosyncrasy. “Unfortunately, the insult and disqualification of those who do not think like you do it every day, but that makes it even more regrettable,” said the Seville-born socialist.
The general coordinator of IU, Toni Valero, also criticized Moreno, also through a message on the chest with the Andalusian flag that is a pure imposture.
Likewise, the spokesman for Vox in the Andalusian Parliament, Manuel Gavira, born in Cadiz, accused Aguirre on Cadena Ser of having committed with his words “a huge lack of respect towards all Andalusians”, defending that they have a “peculiarity when they speak” and that the autonomous community is “a very rich land” where “everyone has a different accent”. “It seems very ugly to me, and I hope that someone will tell this lady that Andalusia is a serious country and that we do not deserve someone like that to play nice with us”, describing Aguirre’s behavior as “embarrassing” and saying that it makes him “very ashamed”.
