Academic Concepción Company talks to EL PAÍS about the linguistic richness in Mexico and this changed following the fall of the Aztec Empire and independence

Mexican citizen in 1978. She is a member of the Mexican Academy of Language, and as an academic with a foot on both sides of the Atlantic, she has a particular vision of the language that arrived from Europe more than 500 years ago with the conquest of Mexico. It is a version of Spanish shaped by the sea and sailors, she explains, and also by dozens of indigenous languages from all over Latin America. Rather than an imposed language, she considers Mexican Spanish to be proudly itself, and in continuous conflict with indigenous languages.

To mark the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec Empire on August 13, Company spoke with EL PAÍS about the Spanish conquest of Mexico right up to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s demand for an apology from Spain for the events of the past. “It wouldn’t cost Spain anything,” Company believes. “But I believe that both sides are there negotiating, and weighing their votes, and it’s not going to happen.”

continue reading here: El País