Spanish (español) or Castilian (castellano) is an Iberian Romance language. It is the most-widely spoken Romance Language, and the fourth most-widely spoken language in the world according to some sources, while other sources list it as the second or third most spoken language. It is spoken as a first language by about 402 million people, and by a total of 500 million including non-native speakers.[citation needed]
Originating in Spain and whence it was later brought by Spanish explorers, colonists, and empire-builders to the Western Hemisphere and other parts of the world during the last five centuries, Spanish is one of the top five most spoken languages worldwide, and is one of the six official working languages of the United Nations. It is one of the most important global languages (along with English and French), that is spoken on all continents: most extensively in North and South America, Europe, and certain parts of Africa and Asia. Its importance also resides in the international expansion and recognition of Spanish language literature, film industry, television industry (especially telenovelas), and music industry within the globalized market.
Spanish people tend to call this language español when contrasting it with languages of other states (for example: in a list with French and English), but call it castellano (Castilian, from the Castile region) when contrasting it with other languages of Spain (such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan/Valencian). In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole State, opposed to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. the other Spanish languages).
However, in some parts of Spain, mainly where people speak Galician, Basque, and Catalan, the choice of words can reveal somehow the speaker's sense of belonging, and even their political views. People from bilingual areas might consider it offensive to call the language español, as that is the term that was chosen by Francisco Franco — during whose dictatorship the use of regional languages was forbidden — and because it connotes that Basque, Catalan and Galician are not languages of Spain. On the other hand, more nationalist speakers (both Spanish and regional nationalists) might prefer español either to reflect their belief in the unity of the Spanish State or to denote the perceived detachment between their region and the rest of the State.
For the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, speakers of the language in some areas refer to it as español, and in others castellano is more common. Castellano is the name given to the Spanish language in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
Some philologists use "Castilian" only when speaking of the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, stating that it is preferable to use "Spanish" for its modern form. Castilian can be also a subdialect of Spanish spoken in most parts of modern day Castile. This dialect has a number of characteristics and a specific pronunciation different to the one of Andalusia or Aragon for example, where different subdialects are spoken.
Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of the Indo-European languages, descended largely from Latin and having much in common with its European geographical neighbours.
Spanish is related to other Romance languages in terms of phonology (pronunciation), grammar and orthography (spelling). Of these, Portuguese is of particular importance due to the presence of Portuguese-speaking Brazil in largely Spanish-speaking Latin America. Spanish is also closely related to Catalan, Asturian, Galician and several other Romance languages. Italian is similar enough to Spanish to make communication possible between speakers of both languages. Spanish has diverged further from other Romance languages such as French and Romanian.
Portuguese is orthographically similar in many ways to Spanish but it has a very distinctive phonology. A speaker of one of these languages may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other (although generally it is easier for a native speaker of Portuguese to understand Spanish than the other way around).
In some places, Spanish and Portuguese are spoken almost interchangeably. Portuguese speakers are generally able to read Spanish, and Spanish speakers are generally able to read Portuguese, even if they cannot understand the spoken language. In fact, the number of bilingual speakers in Brazil (where Portuguese is the official language) has greatly risen because nearly every nation bordering Brazil is Spanish-speaking.
Ladino, which is essentially medieval Castilian and closer to modern Spanish than any other language, is spoken by many descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.
The Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Celtiberian, Basque and Arabic, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo). Similar phenomena can be found in most other Romance languages as well.
During the Reconquista, this northern dialect was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in northern Morocco.
The first Latin to Spanish dictionary (Gramática de la Lengua Castellana) was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija. When Isabella of Castile was presented with the book, she asked, What do I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?, to which he replied, Ma'am, the language is the instrument of the Empire.
From the 16th century on, the language was brought to the Americas, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marianas, Palau and the Philippines by Spanish colonization. Also in this epoch, Spanish become the main language of Politics and Art across the major part of Europe. In the 18th century, the French took its place.
In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara and parts of the United States, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City, that had not been part of the Spanish Empire.
For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.
Spanish is one of the official languages of the United Nations and the European Union. The majority of its speakers are confined to the Western Hemisphere, and Spain.
With approximately 106 million first-language and second-language speakers, Mexico boasts the largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world. The four next largest populations reside in Colombia (44 million), Spain (c. 40 million), Argentina (39 million) and the United States of America (U.S. residents age 5 and older who speak Spanish at home number 31 million).
Spanish is the official and most important language in 22 countries: Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea (co-official French), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Puerto Rico (co-official English), Spain (co-official Catalan, Galician and Basque), Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara (co-official Arabic).
In Belize, Spanish holds no official recognition. However, it is the native tongue of about 50% of the population, and is spoken as a second language by another 20%. It is arguably the most important and widely-spoken on a popular level, but English remains the sole official language.
In the United States, Spanish is spoken by three-quarters of its 41.3 million Hispanic population. It is also being learned and spoken by a small, though slowly growing, proportion of its non-Hispanic population for its increasing use in business, commerce, and both domestic and international politics. Spanish does hold co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. See Spanish in the United States for further information.
In Brazil, Spanish has obtained an important status as a second language among young students and many skilled professionals. In recent years, with Brazil decreasing its reliance on trade with the USA and Europe and increasing trade and ties with its Spanish-speaking neighbours (especially as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc), much stress has been placed on bilingualism and Spanish proficiency in the country (the same is true of Portuguese proficiency in neighbouring countries). On July 07, 2005, the National Congress of Brazil gave final approval to a bill that makes Spanish a mandatory foreign language in the country’s public and private primary schools [2]. The close genetic relationship between the two languages, along with the fact that Spanish is the dominant and official language of almost every country that borders Brazil, adds to the popularity. Standard Spanish and Ladino may also be spoken natively by some Spanish-descended Brazilians, immigrant workers from neighbouring Spanish-speaking countries and Brazilian Sephardim respectively, who have maintained it as their home language. Additionally, in Brazil's border states that have authority over their educational systems, Spanish has been taught for years. In many other border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayo-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Portuñol is also spoken.
In European countries other than Spain, it may be spoken by some of their Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, primarily in Andorra (where it is spoken by a great part of the population, despite having no official status), the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom where there is a strong community in London. There has been a sharp increase in the popularity of Spanish in the United Kingdom over the last few years. It is spoken by much of the population of Gibraltar, though English remains the only official language. Yanito (llanito), an English-Spanish mixed language is also spoken.
Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is the seventh most spoken language in Australia; where there is a strong community in Sydney. It is also spoken by the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, but Spanish has long since been forgotten, and now only exists as an influence on the local native languages.
In Asia the Spanish language has long been in decline. Spanish ceased to be an official language of the Philippines in 1987, and it is now spoken by less than 0.01% of the population, or 2,658 people (1990 Census), though recently there seems to have been a resurgence in interest in the language among educated youth. The sole existing Spanish-Asiatic creole language, Chabacano, is spoken by an additional 0.4% of the Filipino population; 292,630 (1990 census). Most other Philippine languages contain generous quantities of Spanish loan words. Among other Asian countries, Spanish may also be spoken by pockets of ex-immigrant communities, such as Mexican-born ethnic Chinese deported to China or third and fourth generation ethnic Japanese Peruvians returning to their ancestral homeland of Japan.
In the Middle East and North Africa, small Spanish-speaking communities exist in Israel (both standard Spanish and Ladino), northern Morocco (both standard Spanish and Ladino), Turkey (Ladino), and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla which are part of Spain.
In North America and the Caribbean, Spanish is also spoken by segments of the populations in Aruba, Canada (mainly in Toronto and Montreal), Netherlands Antilles (mainly on Bonaire, Curaçao and St. Maarten), Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (mainly on St. Croix).
In Antarctica, the territorial claims and permanent bases made by Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Spain also place Spanish as the official and working language of these enclaves.
There are important variations among the regions of Spain and throughout Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or laísmo of this dialect is deprecated).
Spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: tú, usted, and in some parts of Latin America, vos (the use of this form is called voseo). Generally speaking, tú and vos are informal and used with friends (though in Spain vos is considered a highly exalted archaism that is now confined to liturgy). Usted is universally regarded as the formal form, and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers. The pronoun vosotros is the plural form of tú in most of Spain, although in the Americas (and some particular southern-Spain cities such as Cádiz) it is replaced with ustedes. It is remarkable that the informal use of ustedes in southern Spain does not keep the proper pronoun-verb agreement: while the formal form of "you go" would be ustedes van, in Cádiz the informal form would be constructed as ustedes vais, making use of the second person of the plural instead of the third (which constitutes the formal construction).
Vos is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun in various countries around Latin America, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Zulian state of Venezuela. In Argentina, Uruguay, and increasingly in Paraguay, it is also the standard form used in the media, whereas media in other voseante countries continue to use usted or tú. Vos may also be present in other countries as a limited regionalism. Its use, depending on country and region, can be considered the accepted standard or reproached as sub-standard and considered as speech of the ignorant and uneducated. The interpersonal situations in which the employment of vos is acceptable may also differ considerably between regions.
Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. The Spanish dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural; ustedes (formal/familiar). Meanwhile, in Spain there are two; ustedes (formal) and vosotros (familiar/informal).
The RAE (Real Academia Española), in association with twenty-one other national language academies, exercises a controlling influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar guides and style guides. In part due to this influence, and also because of other socio-historical reasons, a neutral standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.
Some words are different, sometimes embarrasingly so, in different coutries. Most Spanish speakers will recognise the Spanish forms, even where they are not normally used, but Spaniards will not recognise American usages. For example, Spanish mantequilla, aguacate, albaricoque become manteca, palta, damasco in Argentina (butter, avocado, apricot). The everyday Spanish words coger (catch, get, pick up) and concha (seashell) are seriously rude in parts of the Southern Cone of South America.
Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but small noun declension and limited pronominal declension. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.)
As for syntax, the unmarked sentence word order is Subject Verb Object, though variations are common. Spanish is right-branching, using prepositions, and with adjectives generally coming after nouns.
Spanish is also pro-drop (allows the deletion of pronouns when pragmatically unnecessary) and verb-framed.
The pronunciation of any Spanish word can be perfectly predicted from its written form.
Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of ñ (eñe). Historically ch (che, pronounced [tʃ]) and ll (doble ele) were until 1994 defined as single letters, with their own names and places in the alphabet (a, b, c, ch, d, …, l, ll, m, n, ñ, …). Since 1994 these letters have been abolished, and replaced with the appropriate letter pair. This effectively means that spelling is visibly unchanged, but words with "ch" are now sorted between "ce" and "ci", instead of following "cz", and similarly for "ll".
The letter u sometimes carries diaeresis (ü) after the letter g, and stressed vowels carry acute accents (á) in many words. These marks usually indicate deviations from what would be expected if one followed the customary rules of Spanish orthography. For example, gue indicates that the g is hard before the e sound. However, güe means that the u is also pronounced (in this case, with the w sound.) Accent marks usually indicate that the customary rules of accentuation (stress the last syllable of any word ending in a consonant (including y) other than n or s; stress the next to last syllable otherwise) are to be ignored. In a few cases, an accented letter is used to distinguish meaning: compare el (= the before a masculine singular noun) with él (= he or it). Words that could otherwise be mistaken for function words are often given accents (such as "té", tea, or "dé" and "sé", forms of "dar" and either "saber" or "ser", respectively). Interrogative pronouns (que, cual, donde, quien, etc.) receive accents when in questions or indirect questions. Demonstrative pronouns (ese, este, aquel, etc.) have accents when they refer to a specific, implied object and are not being used as adjectives. In addition, o (= or) is written with an accent between numerals to indicate that it is not part of the numerals: e.g., 10 ó 20 should be read as diez o veinte rather than diez mil veinte. Accent marks are frequently omitted on capital letters, but should not be.
Interrogative and exclamatory clauses begin with inverted question ( ¿ ) and exclamation marks ( ¡ ).
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Spanish language".
last update April 28th, 2006