El impacto del culto a San Millán en el nacimiento de la lengua española en Valderredible, Cantabria (España)

Abstract

In this article I identify the presence of linguistic features in Cantabrian toponyms in order to suggest that the apparent diffusion of these features from Valderredible (a region of some 300 km2 situated in the extreme south of the Autonomous Community of Cantabria, Spain), and by extension the diffusion of the nascent Spanish language, was the result of the establishment there of an important pilgrimage center. This pilgrimage center began to flourish in the 6th century after one of the rock-cut churches of Valderredible was inhabited by a hermit named Emiliano, better known as San Millán, whose cult of devotion was continued during the following centuries by a community of anchorites. I explain that the prestige associated with the cult to Millán in Valderredible was a key factor in the dissemination of archaisms that contributed to the formation of the archaic character of Spanish.