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History of the Spanish language. The Spanish language developed from Vulgar Latin , with influence from Arabic in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula and minor influence from Basque in the north. The conquest of Spain by the Romans began in 218 B.C. and was complete by 19 B.C. Some hypothesize that because most of Spain had long been conquered by the time Julius Caesar completed the conquest of France in 51 B.C., the Latin that came to predominate on the Iberian Peninsula was an earlier form. Latin probably displaced Greek and include Lenition (Latin ''vita'', Spanish ''vida;'' Latin ''lupus'', Spanish ''lobo''), Palatalization (Latin ''annum'', Spanish ''año'') and diphthongation of breve E / O from Vulgar Latin (Latin ''terra'', Spanish ''tierra;'' Latin ''novus'', Spanish ''nuevo;'' Latin ''tempus'', Spanish ''tiempo;'' Latin ''ferrum,'' Spanish ''hierro''). Similar phenomena can be found in most other Romance Languages as well. As the Roman Empire collapsed, the Visigoths invaded Spain in 415 2 and completed their conquest by 573. 3 The Visigoths already spoke Latin bilingually before they arrived. 4 By 600 A.D., the Vulgar Latin dialects of the former empire were no longer mutually-intelligible. 5 The Moors invaded Spain in 711 A.D. Many words were integrated into Spanish from Arabic because the Moors brought foreign technologies and life forms that the Spaniards had no word for. Another reason was the high prestige the Arabic language had in the Early Middle Ages. 6 The impact of Arabic on Spanish was largely restricted to borrowing vocabulary, though. Spain was reconquered by states from the north of Spain. One of these kingdoms was called Castile and was centered in the Cantabrian Mountains . The Spanish language is called Castilian for the influence that this kingdom had on the language. The reconquest of Spain from the Moors is called the '' Reconquista ,'' during which Castile took a leading role. However, because the reconquering states were from the North--an area less colonized by the Romans--they brought a less-Italic version of Spanish with them. 7 From the beginning, the Castilian dialect influenced the other Spanish dialects more than vice versa. 8 The earliest writings in Spanish are definitions of Latin words from the 900s. The first Spanish literature appeared around 1150. 9 (See also Iberian Romance Languages .) The language was later brought to the Americas , Federated States Of Micronesia , Guam , Marianas , Palau and the Philippines , by the Spanish Colonization which began in the 16th century. The Catholic Church preached to the natives in selected local languages like Guaraní , Quechua and Aymará in the Americas, and Tagalog in the Philippines, rather than Spanish, for ease of conversion and to separate them from the direct influence of the non-missionary Spaniards, held by the church to be evil and unfavorable for the natives. In the Americas its usage was continued by the descendants of the Spaniards, whether by the large population of Spanish ''criollos'' or by what had then become the mixed Spanish-Amerindian ('' Mestizo s'') majority. After the wars of independence fought by these colonies in the 19th century, the new ruling elites extended their Spanish to the whole population to strengthen national unity. In the Philippines, this process did not occur for several reasons. It was isolated as the only Spanish colony in Asia, far removed from all of Spain's colonies in the Americas. Rather than being a direct colony of Spain, the Philippines was in fact a colony of another Spanish colony, New Spain , and was administered from Mexico City , thereby lessening the ties and interest of Spain proper, and disabling the large scale Spanish migration experienced across the Americas. In comparison to its counterparts in Spanish America, the Philippine population was, and still is, almost exclusively native, mixed Spanish-Filipinos (Filipino Mestizo s) were dismal in numbers, while Spaniards (of which a great many were actually Mexican '' Criollo s'') accounted for even fewer than the ''Mestizos''. Following the Spanish-American War the small number of Spaniards present in the country eventually returned to New Spain ( Mexico ) and Spain. Ultimately, at the culmination of the Philippine-American War many of the already minuscule ''Mestizo'' population was decimated as casualties of war. English was then declared an official language. Spanish finally ceased to be an official language of the Philippines in 1973. A Creole Language called Chavacano developed as a Lingua Franca in the south when the Spaniards built forts to combat the Muslims and imported workers from all over the country. The local languages, then and now, are not mutually intelligible. Unlike the Philippines, when Puerto Rico became a possession of the United States as consequence of the same Spanish-American War , their population was by then almost entirely of Spanish and mixed Spanish ('' Mulatto '' and '' Mestizo '') descent, thereby enabling the retention of their bequeathed Spanish language as a mother tongue while co-existing with the American imposed English as a co-official. 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. In the Marianas, the Spanish language was retained until the Pacific War . Language Politics In Francoist Spain declared Spanish as the only official language in Spain. ''For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences On The Spanish Language .'' External links
References #Ralph Penny, ''A History of the Spanish Language,'' 2nd ed. (Cambridge: 2002) P. 7. #"Visigoth." ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. #Penny, op. cit. p. 14. #"Vulgar Latin." ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. #Ibid. #Ian Mackenzie, A Linguistic Introduction to Spanish, (2001) p. 124. #Ibid. p. 17. #Ibid. p. 19. #"Spanish language." ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. |