Diana L. Ranson is Professor of French and Spanish at the University of Georgia. Her publications include Change and Compensation: Parallel Weakening of /s/ in Italian, French and Spanish (1989) and articles on Spanish historical linguistics, syntactic variation in Modern Spanish, and phonological variation in Modern French. She has taught the History of Spanish, the History of French, Comparative Romance Linguistics, and Old Spanish for over thirty years.

List of figures; List of maps; List of tables; Preface for students; Preface for instructors; Acknowledgments; 1. Why do Spanish speakers say el arte but las artes? The value of studying the history of Spanish; 2. Is it wrong to say cantastes instead of cantaste? A linguist's attitude and approach to language; 3. How and why do languages change and how do linguists know?; 4. Did /f/ change to /h/ in Spanish because of Basque? Four moments of language contact in the history of Spanish; 5. Why is Spanish also called Castilian? The standardization process and its effects; 6. How did FESTA become fiesta but FESTÎVUM became festivo? Regular vowel changes; 7. How did ACÛTUM become agudo? Regular consonant changes; 8. Why is 'milk' leche but 'Milky Way' is Via Láctea? Special tonic vowel changes; 9. Why fieldad but lealtad? Special consonant changes; 10. Why do Spanish speakers sometimes say andé instead of anduve? Morphological changes; 11. Why is mano feminine and día masculine? Changes in case, declension, number, and gender; 12. Why do Spanish speakers sometimes say más malo instead of peor? Origins of nominal elements; 13. Why are there so many verb tenses in Spanish? Origins of verbs; 14. Why is comeré the future of comer but sabré is the future of saber? How regular sound change and analogy lead to regular and irregular forms; 15. Do you say veo el gato or veo al gato? Syntactic changes; 16. How did MÛSC¿LUM 'little mouse' become Spanish muslo 'thigh'? Semantic changes; 17. Why perro 'dog' instead of can? Lexical changes; Appendix: Selections from old Spanish texts; El Auto de los Reyes Magos; Cantar de mio Cid; Razon feita d'amor; Milagros de Nuestra Señora; Calila e Dimna; Glossary of terms; Works cited; Word index; Subject index.