Acceso usuarios
Colombia
During the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the first ten years of the twentieth, a small group of Colombian intellectuals became respected linguistic and philological authorities. Through their research on Spanish language, aboriginal languages and Latin classics – inspired by the historical and comparative paradigm for the study of language – they obtained recognition from the European scientific community, mainly in Germany and France. By focusing on Rufino José Cuervo, the most prominent Colombian philologist/linguist at the turn of the century, this article attempts to show that the successful integration of these intellectuals in transnational scientific networks, as well as their privileged position among the Spanish and Latin American letrados resulted mainly from two cultural practices: correspondence and “cultural pilgrimage”. These practices played a key role in Cuervo’s strategy of cultural communication and transmission that aimed to establish contact with prominent figures in linguistic and philological studies in Europe in order to validate and legitimate his work, particularly his opinion on the question of the unity of the Spanish language.
