Markup command trouble

[Simon Albrecht]

Dear list,

I wanted to define a markup command for easy switchable styling of text 
and ran into an issue which seems hard to understand:

%%%%%%%%%%%%
\version "2.23.9"

spanish = \markup\italic \etc

\markup \column {
  \spanish \justify { test }
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%

=> “error: not a markup”

My understanding would have been that \justify returns a list of markups 
and the \spanish command, as if I had just used \italic directly, should 
act on all elements of that list. What did I get wrong? Is it just me or 
should that be made more predictable, if possible?

Best, Simon