A Question regarding the Catalan language...

What was the linguistic policy of King Ferdinand II of Aragon (and by extension, his Trastamara predecessors in Aragon)?

Obviously the various regions of the Spanish kingdoms maintained their own languages and institutions. However, I'm curious as to if Castilian Spanish was promoted by the Catholic kings throughout their many realms (such as at the royal court and in the administration), especially considering the Castilian origin of the Trastamara kings of Aragon.
 
No, at least as far as I know. They had no reason to do that. Ferdinand II mother language was catalan (in fact he was nicknamed "el catalanote" by the castilian nobility), and Ferdinand I, the founder of Trastamara house in Aragon, has an aragonese mother, Leonor of Aragon. In the same way that the spanish or napolitan Bourbons didn't make french offical language, or the Saxe-Cobourg didn't make german offical language in Britain, the aragonese Trastamaras adopted the local mores, what was not difficult since their mother lineage was aragonese. Linguistic diversity was rarely a concern in Medieval and early modern Spain, except if the language was arabic, but still any banning or policy was difficult to enforce without mass media, universal education, with large iliterate population etc.

Obviously, the more widely spoken languages had more options to be used as second "commercial" language by some people in other iberian kingdoms, ad the things become more complicated when tre is a dialect continuum, but it's a different issue.

Anyway, I don't know if its your case, but if it is, you don't have to understand the spanish dynastic unification as a castilian anexation of Aragon. It was a personal union among two equal and independent kingdoms.

Cheers.
 
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