Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr.
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr. (1880–1958), a professor at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, was an internationally known scholar because of his studies in Spanish and Spanish American
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
and
philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
. He was especially known for his promotion of the study of the Spanish language and literature.


Personal life

Aurelio Espinosa, one of 14 siblings, was born in El Carnero, Colorado in the mostly Hispanic
San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It co ...
, on September 12, 1880 to Celso and Rafaela Espinosa. His parents, descendants of the first New Mexicans to settle in Colorado in the mid-1800s, lived on a homestead and raised cattle and sheep. He learned about Spanish folk tales and ballads from his uncle, Don Ramon Martinez, who lived in the mountains of southern Colorado. The Espinosas moved to
Del Norte, Colorado Del Norte is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory town, Statutory Town that is the county seat of Rio Grande County, Colorado, Rio Grande County, Colorado, United States. The town's name is most commonly pronounced /ˈdɛl nɔɹt/. The ...
by 1895 when Espinosa began attending the Del Norte High School. He graduated in June 1898. The family then moved to
Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
so Espinosa and his older brother, Tobias, could attend college there. He married in 1905, to Margarita García, also of New Mexican Spanish descent, and had five children, Margarita, Aurelio, Jose Manuel, Josefita, and Francisco Ramon. Four of their children became educators. He died on September 4, 1958 after a long illness.


Career

Espinosa attended the
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
in Boulder, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1902. Immediately after, he started work at the
University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
, where he became a professor of modern languages. He received his MA from University of Colorado, and in 1909, he completed his Ph.D. cum laude at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. His dissertation earned him the attention of several people in the United States, one of the most noted, Prof. Ford of
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, who recommended Espinosa to the head of the Romanic Languages department at Stanford University, who offered him a position in the department. He joined Stanford faculty in 1910 and remained there until his retirement. He became the chairman of the Department of Romanic Languages from 1933 to 1947. He retired from his position at Stanford University in 1947. He was known for his association with major figures also in his field of studies. He became a lifelong friend and colleague of
Ramón Menéndez Pidal Ramón Menéndez Pidal (; 13 March 1869 – 14 November 1968) was a Spanish philologist and historian."Ramon Menendez Pidal", ''Almanac of Famous People'' (2011) ''Biography in Context'', Gale, Detroit He worked extensively on the history of t ...
, to whom he presented 200 versions of forty uncollected ballads in Spain (similar to what his son would do later before the Spanish civil war). He also corresponded with Fernando Ortiz. He also worked with anthropologists, especially
Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
and
Elsie Clews Parsons Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons (November 27, 1875 – December 19, 1941) was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes—such as the Tewa and Hopi—in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexi ...
. With Boas, he studied the influence of Hispanic folklore among the
Pueblo Indians The Puebloans or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Currently 100 pueblos are actively inhabited, among which Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zun ...
of New Mexico. He was also amongst the founders of the Societe Internationale de Dialectologie Romane in 1909, the American Association of Teachers of Spanish in 1917 (later president in 1928), and the
Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
in 1925. He was president of the
American Folklore Society The American Folklore Society (AFS) is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world, which aims to encourage research, aid in disseminating that research, promote the responsible ...
for the years 1924 and 1925. The Spanish government granted him the name of Commander of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica; he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso the Wise), and was a member of the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica. He was a member of the
Royal Spanish Academy The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
,
the Hispanic Society of America The Hispanic Society of America operates a museum and reference library for the study of the arts and cultures of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America, the Spanish East Indies, and Portuguese India. Despite the name, it ...
, and the Academia Hispanoamericana de Ciencias y Letras de Cádiz. Espinosa received two honorary degrees: one from the
University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...
, and the other from the University of New Mexico.


Legacy

Espinosa was one of the first academic folklorists who took interest in using American materials, creating a precise methodology and framework to folklore studies. He started his examination and analysis of the Spanish language more than fifty years after the U.S.-Mexico War and the subsequent occupation of New Mexico by Anglo-Americans, which means he came to study a cultural identity that was disrupted and often contested. Despite his conservative politics, Espinosa did contribute largely to the study of New Mexican culture and how intertwined that culture is with that of its Spanish settlers during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. He began with his dissertation, ''Studies in New-Mexican Spanish'' (1909), which was published in three parts (Phonology, Morphology, the English Elements) between the years 1909 and 1914. In this work, he emphasizes how the Spanish dialect spoken in New Mexico is a perfect conservation of the Spanish that was first introduced during the sixteenth century. He also described the fusion between the two languages (English and Spanish) that became common in Northern New Mexico due to the settling of Anglo-Americans; this fusion included the incorporation of English-origin words and the Hispanicization of certain words. Along with the study of the interaction between the languages, he also studied Spanish ballads, folktales, proverbs, riddles, children's games, and nursery rhymes. He was the first to collect vast numbers of versions of the same ballads/folktales (especially noted is the ''Tar Tar Baby'' story) and therefore create a lens into the New Mexican and Spanish ideas of morality and ethics, human virtue and failing, their political and social views, and their history. He did extensive research with Franz Boas on the influence of Spanish on the Pueblo Indians, natives of the New Mexico region. They looked into the Spanish influence on prayers, aspects of their dances and ceremonies on Catholic religious days, influences on their folktales and nursery rhymes, and the appearance of Spanish ballads in the oral tradition of the Pueblo Indians. He wrote a number of articles for the ''Catholic Encyclopedia''.


Works

Many of his works were also published in France, Spain, and Germany, hence his international recognition.


See also

*
John Alden Mason John Alden Mason (January 14, 1885 – November 7, 1967) was an American archaeological anthropologist and linguist. Mason was born in Orland, Indiana, but grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown. He received his undergraduate degree from the Univ ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Espinosa, Aurello Macedonio Sr. 1880 births 1958 deaths Neomexicanos University of Colorado Boulder alumni University of Chicago alumni University of New Mexico faculty American folklorists American philologists Contributors to the Catholic Encyclopedia American Folklorists of Color 20th-century philologists