Yuso, the lower of the San Millán monasteries

The Glosas Emilianenses (Spanish for "glosses of [Saint] Emilianus") are glosses written in a Latin codex.  The anonymous author is assumed to have been a monk at the monastery of Suso (the upper one) in San Millán de la Cogolla (now in La Rioja, then in the Kingdom of Navarre).  He wrote about a thousand years ago in three languages:

• A simplified version of Latin
• The medieval form of a Hispanic Romance language (traditionally regarded as Castilian or Old Spanish, but most probably old Aragonese or a related dialect);
• Medieval Basque

The latter two would have been the vernacular languages in the region surrounding the monastery, although there is a possibility that the author of the glosses was an incomer to the area^[1]. The manuscript is significant for its early examples of writing in Basque and a form of Spanish.

[edit] Location of the glosses

The codex is known as Aemilianensis 60 (Aemilianus is Latin for Emilian, "Millán" or "Emiliano" in modern Spanish) and was preserved in the monastery library at Yuso (the lower re-foundation of the monastery), where its significance was recognised in the early twentieth century. The manuscript's current location is the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid. 

[edit] Basque Glosses

This bi-lingual plaque erected in 1974 commemorates the Basque glosses "the first phrases in the Basque language"

Aemilianensis 60 has been publicized as the earliest known codex with inscriptions in Basque, though other codices are posited.  In 2006 Basque inscriptions were reportedly discovered at the archaeological site of Iruña-Veleia: these appeared to predate all codices, but press reports in 2008 indicated that they were a hoax.^[2].

Only two of the glosses in Aemilianensis 60 (of a total of about one thousand) are actually in Basque^[3]. These short texts can be seen on the 1974 plaque. However, it has been suggested that some of the Romance glosses reflect the influence of the Basque language, the implication being that their author was a fluent Basque-speaker.

[edit] Romance Glosses

Page 72 of the Aemilianensis 60 codex. The gloss in the bottom right-hand margin of the page is the most extensive one in the codex.

There is still some debate as to whether the Iberian Romance language of the glosses should be classed as an early form of Castilian or of Aragonese, although some recent studies show that most features belong indeed to the latter^[4]. It is not the only text to be difficult to classify: other texts traditionally assumed to be in Old Spanish, like the Kharjas, are proved to be in a different medieval Romance, Mozarabic, which happens to be classified along with Aragonese in a Pyrenean-Mozarabic group. Some scholars have proposed that it is anachronistic to classify such varieties of Ibero-Romance according to dialectal labels based on geographical particularism before the thirteenth century, leaving the Glosas to be understood as "in an unspecialized informal register of Ibero-Romance."^[5].

However the Romance language of the glosses should be classified, San Millán de la Cogolla's reputation as the "birthplace of the Spanish language" was important in its designation as a World Heritage Site ("cultural" type) in 1997.^[6]

[edit] References

Audio file of gloss "Cono ajutorio de nuestro dueno..."

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