Webinar explores Nebrija’s influence on Philippine languages

Instituto Cervantes de Manila will host an online lecture on 18 November at 6 p.m., exploring the legacy of Spanish humanist and grammarian Elio Antonio de Nebrija and his influence on the study and documentation of Philippine languages.

Titled “Nebrija: el imperio de las lenguas” (Nebrija: The Empire of Languages), the webinar will feature Spanish literary scholar Darío Villanueva. Interested participants may register at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/t3fCGfJMeJ.

Nebrija is best known for his Gramática de la lengua castellana (Grammar of the Castilian Language), published in 1492, a pioneering grammar of a modern European vernacular. His grammatical scholarship influenced the study of languages beyond Spain, reaching the Americas and Asia.

The lecture will examine how this intellectual legacy reached the Philippines, where Spanish missionaries and scholars drew on Nebrija’s grammatical categories and analytical framework to describe local languages. Their works reveal the historical connections between European grammatical traditions and the documentation of Philippine languages.

Examples include Francisco Blancas de San José’s Arte y reglas de la lengua tagala (1610), Francisco López’s Arte de la lengua iloca (1627), and Domingo Ezguerra’s Arte de la lengua bisaya de la provincia de Leyte (1663). The connection is explicit in Franciscan friar Melchor de Oyanguren’s Tagalismo elucidado y reducido (en lo posible) a la latinidad de Nebrija (1742), which sought to explain Tagalog through Nebrija’s Latin grammatical framework.

Villanueva is emeritus professor of literary theory and comparative literature at the University of Santiago de Compostela and a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, which he directed from 2015 to 2019. He has also served as rector of the university, president of the Instituto de España, and a member of Spain’s Council of State.

His scholarship spans literary theory, criticism, comparative literature, linguistic pragmatics, and the relationship between language and society. His books include Teoría del realismo literario, El atropello a la razón, and Introducing Comparative Literature: New Trends and Applications, co-authored with César Domínguez and Haun Saussy.

The webinar accompanies the exhibition “Nebrija en Filipinas: La importancia de ser gramático” (Nebrija in the Philippines: The Importance of Being a Grammarian), presented by Instituto Cervantes de Manila in partnership with the Lyceum of the Philippines University, the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, Fundación Nebrija, and other Spanish and Philippine cultural institutions.

On view from 14 October 2026, to 5 February 2027, at the LPU campus in Intramuros, Manila, the exhibition uses historical books, facsimiles, and informative displays to trace Nebrija’s influence on the study of Philippine languages.

Together, the lecture and exhibition offer a closer look at the linguistic and cultural exchanges between Spain and the Philippines, inviting audiences to consider how the grammatical traditions used to document languages also shaped the ways they were understood.