La traducción de América

The present article analyses the linguistic policy of the Spanish empire in America. It describes the neglect of education which resulted in massive illiteracy at the end of the colonial period, the continued use of Amerindian languages for religious purposes and the creation of a literate society which determined once and for all the supremacy of Spanish as the vehicle for high culture. This process brought about the cultural annihilation of the indigenous civilizations because not only were the codices and other pre-Colombian documents burned, but also the brilliant early translations containing the history of the original peoples of America were suppressed and banned.