| Spanish Language |
Article Index for Spanish |
Articles about Spanish Language |
Website Links For Spanish Language |
Information AboutSpanish Language |
Spanish () or '''Castilian''' () 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 by 332 million people where official language (1998 data) and 32 million where not (28 million in the US[http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001406.html , 2000 data), current total speakers are more than 400 million. Originating in 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 Telenovela s), and Music Industry within the Globalized Market . NAMING See Also: Names given to the Spanish language and English), but call it (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 to define the official language of the whole State, opposed to (lit. ''the other Spanish languages''). Article III reads as follows: : Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (…) Other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities… 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 , 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 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 , and in others is more common. is the name given to the Spanish language in Argentina , Bolivia , Chile , Ecuador , Paraguay , Peru , Uruguay and Venezuela . 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. Such Castilian dialect, curiously, matches exactly with the Standard Spanish phonetics and makes very little difference (if any) with standard Spanish. It could be told that (in Spanish) "Castilian" is a genetic term with no political or ideological links, being "Spanish" with them (but not necessarily). CLASSIFICATION AND RELATED LANGUAGES Spanish/Castillian is classified-
Spanish/Castilian has closest affinity to the other Spanish languages (from Latin) and dialects (from Spanish itself) spoken within current borders of Spain. Most are mutually intelligible among speakers without too much difficulty.
Between the two main languages spoken on the peninsula, Spanish and Portuguese there is generally a mutual understanding between the standard spoken forms, the fact is a Portuguese speaker with no knowledge of Spanish more or less can understand it, a Spanish speaker who doesn't speak Portuguese will understand nothing but sparse words (if any). Same situation accounts for Catalan (Catalan is closer to Occitan more than Spanish and Portuguese between them). Both Spanish and Portuguese are similar grammars and a majority of vocabulary as well as a common history of influence of Arabic while great part of the peninsula was under Islamic rule (both languages expanded over Islamic territories). The diphthongization of short stressed vowels is common in Spanish as well as the other Romance languages, but absent in Galician-Portuguese. Orbis Latinus Peculiar to Spanish (as in the Gascon dialect of Occitan, surely due to Basque Substratum ) is the loss of Latin initial /f/ when next vowel does not diphtongate, Such cognate words do not necessarily mean the same. Some very common words are also very different between the two. Evolution of Latin consonant clusters took very different routes in the two languages (Spanish and Portuguese words like "pleno", "ocular", "nocturno", "tremular", and so on, are not taken account in the examples below since they were re-adopted directly from Latin during Renaissance and Baroque Ages): Spanish hasn't lost single intervocalic \L\, \N\, which is natural to Portuguese: Latin double intervocalic \LL\ makes Spanish -ll- and Portuguese -l-, \NN\ makes Spanish -ñ- (the Spanish "ñ letter" is actually a way to write "nn") and Portuguese -n-, Spanish has different common features with Catalan which is an East-Iberian language and exhibits many Gallo-Romance traits. Spanish is not mutually intelligible with French or Romanian , or, contrary to popular belief, with Italian . Although the Italian phonological system is very similar to that of Spanish, they vary greatly in grammar vocabulary and morphology and can usually only be understood if one is already familiar with the other language. LADINO 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. HISTORY See Also: History of the Spanish language 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 , Spanish ), Palatalization (Latin , Spanish ) and Diphthong ation ( Stem -changing) of short ''e'' and ''o'' from Vulgar Latin (Latin , Spanish ; Latin , Spanish ). Similar phenomena can be found in most other Romance languages as well. During the , this northern dialect was carried south, and indeed is still a Minority Language in northern Morocco . The first Latin to Spanish dictionary () 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 .'' GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 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) {Link without Title} . 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 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 Europe an 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. VARIATIONS See Also: Spanish dialects and varieties 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 of this dialect is deprecated). Spanish has three ''). Generally speaking, and are informal and used with friends (though in Spain is considered a highly exalted archaism that is now confined to liturgy, and it is used with morarchs, etc.). 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 is the plural form of in most of Spain, although in the Americas (and some particular southern-Spain cities such as Cádiz , and in the Canary Islands ) it is replaced with . It is remarkable that the informal use of in southern Spain does not keep the proper pronoun-verb agreement: while the formal form of "you go" would be , in Cádiz the informal form would be constructed as , making use of the second person of the plural instead of the third (which constitutes the formal construction). This is not the case of Canary Islands, where in most cases the agreement is preserved. 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 countries continue to use or . 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; (formal/familiar). Meanwhile, in Spain there are two; (formal) and (familiar/informal). The RAE (), 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 embarrassingly 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. GRAMMAR See Also: Spanish grammar 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 Preposition s, and with Adjective s generally coming after Noun s. Spanish is also Pro-drop (allows the deletion of pronouns when pragmatically unnecessary) and Verb-framed . SOUNDS See Also: Spanish phonology The consonantal system of Castilian Spanish, by the 16th century, underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from some Nearby Romance Languages , such as Portuguese and Catalan :
The consonantal system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Ladino and in Portuguese, neither of which underwent the shift. Lexical stress Spanish has a Phonemic Stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word (with penultimate stress) means "road" or "I walk" whereas (with final stress) means "you (formal)/he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish syllables are all pronounced at a more or less constant tempo, the language is said to be '' Syllable-timed ''. In a written word, the stressed syllable can always be identified (see Writing System Of Spanish for details). An amusing example of the significance of stress (and intonation) is a puzzle which requires the subject to punctuate: ''como como como como como como'' so that it makes sense. The answer is ''¿Cómo, como como? ¡Como como como!'' (''What do you mean / how / do I eat? / I eat / the way / I eat!''). WRITING SYSTEM See Also: Writing system of Spanish 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'' (, pronounced {Link without Title} ) 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 Accent s ('' 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 (= ''the'' before a masculine singular noun) with (= ''he'' or ''it''). Words that could otherwise be mistaken for function words are often given accents (such as , tea, or and , forms of and either or , respectively). Interrogative pronouns (, , , , etc.) receive accents when in questions or indirect questions. Demonstrative pronouns (, , , etc.) have accents when they refer to a specific, implied object and are not being used as adjectives. In addition, (= ''or'') is written with an accent between numerals to indicate that it is not part of the numerals: e.g., should be read as rather than . Accent marks are frequently omitted on capital letters, but should not be. Interrogative and exclamatory clauses begin with inverted Question ( ¿ ) and Exclamation Mark s ( ¡ ). EXAMPLES OF SPANISH Note, the third column uses the International Phonetic Alphabet , the standard for linguists, to transcribe the sounds. There are several examples of travellers' vocabulary and one literary reference. You can . Both the transcription and the recording represent standard Castilian pronunciation.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||