Spanish

Español

Number of native speakers

about 450 million

Official language in

Mexico (110 million), Colombia (47 million), Spain (46 million), Argentina (40 million), Peru (28 million), Venezuela (27 million), Chile (17 million), Guatemala, Ecuador, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Honduras, Paraguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Panamá, Uruguay, Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, EU

Minority language in

United States, Belize, Andorra, Gibraltar, Israel

Language of diaspora

United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Morocco, Israel, Italy, Algeria

Alphabet
27 letters

Grammatical cases
0

Language code
es, spa

Linguistic typology
inflectional , pro-drop , SVO

Language family
Indo-European, Romance

Number of dialects
several hundred dialects (European: Northern Peninsular, Central-Southern Peninsular, Southern Peninsular, Canarian; American: Mexican, Caribbean, Andean-Pacific, Río de la Plata, Chilean, Central American)

Longest word

ciclopentanoperhidrofenantreno

chemistry, Cyclopentanoperhydrophenanthrene

Curious word or sentence

otorrinolaringología

otolaryngology

ferrocarrilero

railwayman

Parangaricutirimícuaro

a town in Mexico, word used as a tongue twister

Introduction

Spanish (español), also called Castilian (castellano), is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region in Spain. Like other Romance languages, it evolved from spoken Latin, after the arrival of the Romans in the Iberian Peninsula (218 B.C.). The colonization of America, initiated in the XVI century, caused Spanish to spread across large areas of both American continents. After gaining their independence, the new American countries started the process of linguistic unification.

Approximately 450 million people speak Spanish as a native language, making it second most spoken language after Mandarin Chinese in terms of its number of native speakers. 60 million people speak Spanish as a second language and 20 million students learn it as a foreign language. It is the third most frequently used language on the Internet (with 182 million users). Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and is also used as an official language by the European Union, Mercosur, FIFA and many more international organizations.

History

Before 3rd century B.C.

Pre-Roman influence
3rd century B.C. – 1st century A.D.

Romanization of the Iberian Peninsula, Latin overtakes pre-Roman languages
409 – 711

Migration period – Visigoth influence
711

Moorish invasion – Arabic influence
722

Beginning of Reconquista
13th century

Alfons X of Castile – initiation of the use of Castilian language extensively (fundation of Toledo School of Translators)

Wikimedia Commons
10 – 14th century

Medieval Spanish
12 – 14th century

Language of lyric poets
1492

End of Reconquista
1492

publication of Grammatica by Antonio de Nebrija – the first book to focus on the structure of a Western European language besides Latin

Wikimedia Commons
1208

First university in Spain (Universidad de Palencia)
15 – 17th century

Early Modern Spanish (classical Spanish)

marked by a series of phonological and grammatical changes that transformed Old Spanish into Modern Spanish
15 – 17th century

Discoveries, language of trade and missionaries, expansion of the language across the Spanish Empire (influence of native American languages)

Linguistic evolution in Iberian Peninsula

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Like its Romance sister languages, Spanish has undergone a number of systematic sound changes during its evolution from Latin. It sometimes introduced diphthongs, and interestingly the initial clusters PL-, CL-, FL- turned into palatal /ʎ/, written ll e.g.: plorare → llorar.

Writing system and pronunciation

The Spanish language uses the Latin alphabet with one additional consonant ñ, which represents a palatal nasal. The five vowels can take the acute acent.

There are 5 digraphs (pairs of characters used together to represent a single sound): ch, ll, rr, gu and qu.

Grammar

Most interestingly there is a crucial and systematic difference between the indicative and subjunctive moods. While the indicative refers to real, or apparently real events, the subjunctive is used to express doubt or uncertainty about hypothetical situations.

Llegaré aunque mi coche no funciona.
I will arrive even though my car isn't running. (ind).
(the speaker knows their car isn't running)
Llegaré aunque mi coche no funcione.
I will arrive even if my car isn't running (sub.)
(the speaker isn't sure if the car will run or not)
Quizás lo pueden hacer.
Maybe they can do it.
(the speaker knows they can but doesn't know if they will)
Quizás lo puedan hacer.
Maybe they can do it.
(the speaker isn't sure if they can)

Noun phrase inflection:

	Male	Female
	the black cat	the round table
Singular	el gato negro	la mesa redonda
Plural	los gatos negros	las mesas redondas

Verb phrase inflection:

Spanish has 3 regular conjugations (-ar, -er, and -ir), e.g. hablar (talk), comer (eat) and dormir (sleep), as well as several dozen irregular verbs or verb groups. A semi-irregular feature is a vowel shift between root-stressed and endings-stressed forms.

	Root-stressed	Ending-stressed
querer want/love	quiero I want/love	queremos we want/love
dormir sleep	duermo I sleep	dormimos we sleep

Inflection paradigm for –ER verbs

Indicative
	Singular			Plural
	1st person	2nd person	3rd person	1st person	2nd person	3rd person
Present	como	comes	come	comemos	coméis	comen
Imperfect	comía	comías	comía	comíamos	comíais	comían
Preterite	comi	comiste	comió	comimos	comisteis	comieron
Future	comeré	comerás	comerá	comeremos	comeréis	comerán
Subjunctive
Present	coma	comas	coma	comamos	comáis	coman
Imperfect	comiera / comiese	comieras / comieses	comiera / comiese	comiéramos / comiésemos	comierais / comieseis	comieran / comiesen
Future	comiere	comieres	comiere	comiéremos	comieres	comieren
-
Conditional	comería	comerías	comería	comeríamos	comeríais	comerían
Imperative		come	coma	comamos	comed	coman

In addition, the following compound tenses can be formed with the auxiliary haber, with examples in the first person singular:

	Indicative	Subjunctive
Compound perfect preterite	he comido	haya comido
Compound pluperfect	había comido	hubiera comido/hubiese comido
Future perfect	habré comido	hubiere comido
Compound conditional	habría comido	-

Word formation and lexicon

About 60% of the Spanish lexicon consists of words derived from Latin, about 10% comes from Greek, 10% from Gothic, 10% from Arabic and 10% from other languages (such as Germanic, Basque, Iberic, Catalan, Maya, Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara and others).

Arabic words in Spanish

Arabic influence on the Spanish language is significant due to the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492. These words are often recognizable from the initial 'al-' (the Arabic definite article).

aceituna
olive
albornoz
bathrobe
alboroto
riot, joy
alcalde
mayor
enchufar
to plug in
naranja
orange

American native languages influence

While discovering new lands, the Spanish conquerers lacked vocabulary when confronted with American nature, so names of thousands of animals, plants and places were borrowed from Amerindian languages. Some of these words are used only in restricted areas of the Spanish-speaking world, but others have become internationally known (for example chocolate, tequila or puma).

Spanish words of Nahuatl origin

Documented Nahuatl words in the Spanish language (mostly spoken in Mexico and Mesoamerica) include an extensive list of words that represent animals, plants, fruit and vegetables, foods and beverages, and domestic utensils.

Many of these words end with the suffix "-tl" in Nahuatl. This word ending, difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers, evolved in Spanish into a "-te" ending (e.g. axolotl = ajolote).

chapulín
grasshopper
guajalote
turkey
ocelote
ocelot
cacao
cacao
chile
chilli pepper
tomate
tomato
chocolate
chocolate
tequila
tequila
papalote
kite

Quechua words in Spanish

pampa
pampas
llama
llama
cancha
playing field / pitch
puma
puma
cóndor
condor
coca
coca
guano
guano

Dialects

The regional variants of the Spanish language are different from one another, more so in pronunciation and vocabulary than grammar. The greatest differences can be found between European Spanish (also called Peninsular Spanish) and Latin-American Spanish, but differences also occur within Spain and Spanish America.

Spanish

Number of native speakers

Official language in

Minority language in

Language of diaspora

Longest word

Curious word or sentence

Introduction

History

Before 3rd century B.C.

Pre-Roman influence

3rd century B.C. – 1st century A.D.

409 – 711

711

722

Beginning of Reconquista

13th century

10 – 14th century

Medieval Spanish

12 – 14th century

1492

End of Reconquista