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Spanish language

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Spanish (Spanish: español, pronounced "Eh-span-yole", IPA: /espaɲol/), also called Castilian, is a Romance language. It is the most spoken Romance language in the world. As of December 2021, over 489 million people in the world spoke Spanish as their first language.[1]

Spanish
Castilian
Pronunciation[espaˈɲol], [kasteˈʎano]
Native to Andorra
 Argentina
 Belize
 Bolivia
 Chile
 Colombia
 Costa Rica
 Cuba
 Dominican Republic
 Ecuador
 El Salvador
 Equatorial Guinea
 Federated States of Micronesia
 Gibraltar
 Guam
 Guatemala
 Honduras
 Mexico
 Morocco
 Nicaragua
 Panama
 Paraguay
 Peru
 Philippines
 Puerto Rico
 Spain
 Trinidad and Tobago
 United States
 Uruguay
 Venezuela
 Western Sahara
RegionSpain, Latin America and the United States of America (see below)
EthnicitySpaniards
Native speakers[1]
+99 million as a second language[1]
595 million total
Language family
Early forms:
Old Spanish
  • Spanish
Writing systemLatin (Spanish alphabet)
Spanish Braille
Official status
Official language in
24 countries

12 dependent territories

Minority language

International organisations:
Regulated byAssociation of Spanish Language Academies
(Real Academia Española and 21 other national Spanish language academies)
Language codes
ISO 639-1es
ISO 639-2spa
ISO 639-3spa
Linguasphere51-AAA-b
Detailed SVG map of the Hispanophone World v4.png
     Countries where Spanish is the official language

     Countries where Spanish is a co-official language      Countries where Spanish is culturally important or is spoken by more than 20% of the population

     Countries where Spanish is spoken by less than 20% of the population
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
Spanish spoken in Spain

Brief history

The Spanish language came from a dialect of spoken Latin. In 218 BC, it was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans. After evolving and improving for centuries, it is the world’s 4th most spoken language today with over 489 million native speakers, after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi.

Usage

Spanish is used by many people in the world today, partly because Spain traveled and colonized many different parts of the world and created many new countries and governments. The countries with Spanish as an official language are called the Hispanic countries. Most of them are in the Americas, which make up Latin America. They include the following:

In North America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands:

In the United States of America[5] and Belize,[6] most people use English, but Spanish is the second-most common language.

In South America:

Many Brazilians learn Spanish as a second language even though Brazil's official language is Portuguese.[7]

In other parts of the world:

Related languages

The Spanish language was originally the language of Castile.[10] When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Latin changed in different ways in different provinces.[11] The Latin spoken in the Iberian Peninsula developed into the Ibero-Romance language in the 6th century.[12] Castilian and Portuguese became separate languages around the 12th century.[12]

In Spain, there are other languages that also came from Latin that are connected to Spanish, like Catalan, and Galician.[13] Basque, also called Euskera or Euskara, is spoken in the Basque region of northern Spain and the southern region of France. Very different from Spanish,[14] Basque is a language isolate since it is not known to have descended from any language family.

Catalan is not a dialect of Spanish and is actually more closely related to French.[10]

Name

Spanish is sometimes called Castellano[15] because Castile is the region in Spain that is the origin of the language.[11]

The Spanish word for Spanish is "español", and the Spanish word for Castilian is "castellano".[10] In the other Romance languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, such as Galician, Catalan, Asturian, and others, Spanish is usually called "Castellán" or "Castellà" instead of "Spanish".[16][better source needed] In Spain, the name of the subject in schools is "lengua castellana" (Castilian language). However, in the regions of Spain in which people speak only Spanish, people call their language Spanish.[16][better source needed]

In Portuguese, the word "castelhano" is common to mention Spanish,[17] however, in informal language, the most preferred name for the language is "espanhol". Portuguese, which is spoken in Portugal and Brazil, has many similarities to Spanish.[18]

Statistics

In 2009, for the first time in history, Spanish was the most common "mother tongue" language of the western world, more than English. It was also the second most common language on Earth, after Chinese. As of 2016, the three most common languages in the world are:[1]

  1. Chinese: Spoken by about 1.305 billion people
  2. Spanish: Spoken by about 427 million people in 34 different countries
  3. English: Spoken by 339 million people in 108 different countries

Spanish Language Media

  • Most used term castellano or español[source?]

  • The Visigothic Cartularies of Valpuesta, written in a late form of Latin, were declared in 2010 by the Royal Spanish Academy as the record of the earliest words written in Castilian, predating those of the Glosas Emilianenses.

  • Chronological map showing linguistic evolution in southwest Europe

  • Geographical distribution of the Spanish language*     Official or co-official language*     Important minority (more than 25%) or majority language, but not official*     Notable minority language (less than 25% but more than 500,000 Spanish speakers)

  • Percentage of people who self reportedly know enough Spanish to hold a conversation, in the EU, 2005*     Native country*     More than 8.99%*     Between 4% and 8.99%*     Between 1% and 3.99%*     Less than 1%

  • Percentage of the U.S. population aged 5 and over who speaks Spanish at home in 2019, by states

  • Spanish language signage in Malabo, capital city of Equatorial Guinea

  • Spanish language newspaper in the Philippines from 1892

  • Announcement in Spanish on Easter Island, welcoming visitors to Rapa Nui National Park

Related pages

  • Hispanidad, people and nations that share the Spanish language and culture

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 (2020) Fernández Vítores, David (2021): El español: una lengua viva – Informe 2021 . Instituto Cervantes. Report.
  2. ↑ Spanish is partly official in there according to the Catholic Church of Micronesia
  3. ↑ Spanish is partly official in there due to some cultural reasons
  4. ↑ Spanish is occasionally official in there because of the hispanic population. However, about 58 million people speak Spanish there
  5. ↑ Ryan, Camille (August 2013) Language Use in the United States: 2011 – American Community Survey Reports . United States Census Bureau. Report.
  6. ↑ "Belize". The World Factbook. United States Central Intelligence Agency. November 10, 2016. Archived from the original on May 13, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Brazil". The World Factbook. United States Central Intelligence Agency. November 10, 2016. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Spanish is once again a compulsory subject in the Philippines". Archived from the original on July 14, 2010. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Brazil". The World Factbook. United States Central Intelligence Agency. November 10, 2016. Archived from the original on August 31, 2020. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "What Spanish is spoken in Barcelona – Catalan vs. Castilian?". Barcelona University.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "What kind of Spanish is spoken in Madrid – is Castilian the purest type of Spanish?". Madrid University.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Ibero-Romance Languages". Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press. World Heritage Encyclopedia.
  13. ↑ "Languages across Europe: Spain". BBC. October 14, 2014.
  14. ↑ Michelena, Luis, and de Rijk, Rudolf P.G. (February 19, 2009). "Basque Language". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ "Language Throne- The Best Resources To Speak Any Language Fluently". Language Throne. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 en:Names given to the Spanish language
  17. ↑ Aseguinolaza, Fernando Cabo; Abuin, Anxo; Dominguez, Cesar (eds.). A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula, Volume 1. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 978-90-272-3457-5.
  18. ↑ Sala, Marius; Posner, Rebecca (November 30, 2015). "Portuguese Language". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.

Other websites

  This language has its own Wikipedia project. See the Spanish language edition.
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