Vernacular means proper to a place. Thus, it is possible to speak of a folklore, an architecture or a vernacular name. However, the word we are analyzing presents its true meaning in the context of linguistics, the discipline that scientifically studies languages.
The language of our personal and family environment is known as the mother tongue. In this way, a Japanese child living in Mexico will have a mother tongue, the Japanese that they have learned in the family environment, and, at the same time, they will have a vernacular language, the Spanish that they learn at school and in their social environment. Thus, we can define vernacular language as that which is normally spoken in a certain territory.
The linguistic situation in Spain, Mexico and Argentina
All the languages spoken in Spain come from Latin, except for Basque, which has an unknown origin. Thus, in the Kingdom of Spain there are the following vernacular languages: Spanish, Galician, Catalan and Basque. This classification is not the only one, since some linguists maintain that both Valencian and Mallorcan are different modalities from Catalan.
On the other hand, in some territories other minority languages are spoken (Aranese in an area of Catalonia, Bable in Asturias, Aragonese fabla or Caló in the gypsy community, among others). Due to this linguistic complexity, there are official languages and others that are not. Those that are official are studied in the educational system and are used in the administration and those that do not have this legal recognition are minority linguistic modalities and with a marginal literary tradition.
A similar situation occurs in Mexico, where Spanish is the official language but a number of indigenous languages are also spoken, such as Nahualtl, Mixtec, Zapotec and more than 60 Amerindian languages.
In Argentina the only official language is Spanish, although some ethnic minorities speak Quechua, Toba or Pilagá, as well as a series of dialects. Therefore, Spain, Mexico and Argentina are multilingual countries despite the fact that Spanish is the official language throughout the territory.
Minority languages in education systems
As a general rule, almost all countries have a common official language throughout the territory and in some cases a series of co-official languages in certain areas. This circumstance means that all those minority languages that are outside the educational system become languages in danger of extinction.
It must be borne in mind that if a community of speakers cannot learn their language and culture in the conventional educational system, little by little their way of speaking disappears or becomes a cultural oddity. In this sense, it must be remembered that in France there is an official language, French, together with a series of autochthonous languages that are outside the educational system, such as Corsican, Occitan, Catalan, Breton, Alsatian or Gaston. , all of them disappearing.
Photos: Fotolia – asantosg/berc