Quand la persécution fait le linguiste….

Abstract

The present article, written in the context of a monograph on the theme of Censuras, exclusiones y silencios en la historia de la lingüística hispánica, published by the reviews Estudios de Lingüística del Español, focusses on one of the precursors of Spanish teaching in France at the time when it emerged as a discipline in its own right, namely the beginning of the XVII century. The reference is to Juan de Luna, a Spanish protestant, who had to leave Spain around 1612 to take refuge in France before the political climate became unfavourable on the other side of the Pyrenees, obliging him to flee to England. The subject is approached from a particular standpoint; one which posits that it was precisely because he was persecuted that Juan de Luna discovered his vocation to serve as a Spanish teacher and published several didactic works. First of all, he wrote a Spanish grammar for foreigners in three different versions, all three entitled Arte Breve y Compendiosa […], published in 1616 in Paris for the first two and in 1623 in London for the third. He then authored several didactic dialogues, thirteen in all, and finally an edition of Lazarillo de Tormes (1620), none of which are the direct object of this study. Starting with Juan de Luna's exile and its causes, the study draws on biographical data established from the end of the XIX century and built up throughout the last century. The focus then shifts to the author's bibliography and the publication of didactic and metalinguistic works in the course of his travels. Finally, there is an analysis of those elements which can be considered original and innovative in the linguistic theory of the self-taught grammarian.