Spanish language

Spanish, Castilian
español, castellano
Pronunciation	[espaˈɲol], [kasteˈʎano]
Spoken in	(see below)
Native speakers	First language 329[1] million to 400[2][3][4] million. 500 million as first or second language.[5]  (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Romance Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish, Castilian
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	21 countries De jure:  Bolivia  Colombia  Costa Rica  Cuba  Ecuador  El Salvador  Equatorial Guinea  Guatemala  Honduras  Panama  Paraguay  Peru  Puerto Rico  Spain  Venezuela De facto:  Argentina  Chile  Dominican Republic  Mexico  Nicaragua  Uruguay International Organisations:  United Nations  Andean Community  European Union  Mercosur  Organization of American States  Union of South American Nations (see many more)
Regulated by	Association of Spanish Language Academies (Real Academia Española and 21 other national Spanish language academies)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa
ISO 639-3	spa
Linguasphere	51-AAA-b
Countries where Spanish has official status.   Countries and U.S. states where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population.   Countries and U.S. states where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10-20% of the population.   Countries and U.S. states where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5-9.9% of the population.
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Spanish (español) or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of spoken Latin in central-northern Iberia around the ninth century^[6] and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile (present northern Spain) into central and southern Iberia during the later Middle Ages.

The transition from medieval to modern Spanish is marked by the devoicing and shifting of the sibilant consonants of the old language (known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes), which began in the fifteenth century. Early in its history, the Spanish vocabulary was enriched by its contact with Basque and Arabic, and the language continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of other languages, as well as developing new words. Spanish was taken most notably to the Americas as well as to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, where it became the most important language for government and trade.^[7]

In 1999 there were, according to Ethnologue, 358 million people speaking Spanish as a native language and a total of 417 million speakers^[8] worldwide. Currently these figures are up to 400^[3][4] and 500^[5] million people respectively. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.^[9] Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and is used as an official language by the European Union and Mercosur.

Due to its increasing presence in the demographics and popular culture of the United States, particularly in the fast-growing states of the Sun Belt, Spanish is the most popular second language learned by native speakers of American English. The increasing political stability and economies of many larger Hispanophone nations, the language's immense geographic extent in Latin America and Europe for tourism, and the growing popularity of warmer, more affordable, and culturally vibrant retirement destinations found in the Hispanic world have contributed significantly to the growth of learning Spanish as a foreign language across the globe.

Spanish is the third most commonly used language on the Internet after English and Mandarin. It is also the second most studied language and second language in international communication, after English, in the world.^{[10][11] [12]}.

Contents 1 Names of the language 2 Grammar 3 Phonology 3.1 Segmental phonology 3.1.1 V and B 3.2 Prosody 4 Geographical distribution 4.1 Europe 4.2 Latin America 4.3 United States 4.4 Africa 4.5 Asia 4.6 Oceania 4.7 Antarctica 4.8 Spanish-speakers country by country 5 Dialectal variation 5.1 Voseo 5.1.1 Grammar 5.1.2 Extension in Latin America 5.2 Ustedes 5.3 Usted 5.4 Vocabulary 6 History 7 Relation to other languages 7.1 Vocabulary comparison 7.2 Judaeo-Spanish 8 Writing system 9 Organizations 9.1 Royal Spanish Academy 9.2 Association of Spanish Language Academies 9.3 Instituto Cervantes 9.4 Official use by international organizations 10 See also 11 References 12 Bibliography 13 External links

Names of the language

In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called castellano (Castilian) as well as español (Spanish), that is, the language of the region of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan. Speakers of these minority languages prefer the term castellano, as they consider their own languages equally "Spanish". The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. the rest of the Spanish languages). Article III reads as follows:

El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. (...) Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas... Spanish is the official Spanish language of the State. (...) The rest of the Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...

The Spanish Royal Academy, on the other hand, uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested. The Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, 'from—or pertaining to—Hispania'.^[13] Other authorities^[14][15] attribute it to a supposed medieval Latin *hispaniōne, with the same meaning. The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Spanish Royal Academy) states that, although the Spanish Royal Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms, español and castellano, are regarded as synonymous and equally valid.^[16]

The name castellano is preferred in El Salvador^[17] (uniquely in Central America), as well as in all of Spanish-speaking South America except Colombia. The term español is more commonly used to refer to the language as a whole when relating to a global context.

Grammar

Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender noun system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but with inflection of nouns, adjectives, and determiners limited to number and gender. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.)

Spanish syntax is considered right-branching, meaning that subordinate or modifying constituents tend to be placed after their head words. The language uses prepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns for case), and usually—though not always—places adjectives after nouns, as do most other Romance languages. Its sentence structure is generally subject–verb–object, although variations are common. It is a "pro-drop", or "null-subject" language—that is, it allows the deletion of subject pronouns when they are pragmatically unnecessary. Spanish is described as a "verb-framed" language, meaning that the direction of motion is expressed in the verb while the mode of locomotion is expressed adverbially (e.g. subir corriendo or salir volando; the respective English equivalents of these examples—to run up and to fly out—show that English is, by contrast, "satellite-framed", with mode of locomotion expressed in the verb and direction in an adverbial modifier).

Phonology

Segmental phonology

The Spanish phonemic inventory consists of five vowel phonemes (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) and 17 to 19 consonant phonemes (the exact number depending on the dialect). The main allophonic variation among vowels is the reduction of the high vowels /i/ and /u/ to glides—[j] and [w] respectively—when unstressed and adjacent to another vowel. Some instances of the mid vowels /e/ and /o/, determined lexically, alternate with the diphthongs [je] and [we] respectively when stressed, in a process that is better described as morphophonemic rather than phonological, as it is not predictable from phonology alone.

The Spanish consonant system is characterized by (1) three nasal phonemes, which in syllable-final position lose their contrast and are subject to assimilation to a following consonant; (2) three voiceless stops and the affricate /tʃ/; (3) three or four (depending on the dialect) voiceless fricatives; (4) a set of voiced obstruents—/b/, /d/, /g/, and sometimes /ʝ/—which alternate between fricative and plosive allophones depending on the environment; and (5) a phonemic distinction between the "tap" and "trilled" r-sounds (single and double r in orthography).

In the following table of consonant phonemes, /θ/ and /ʎ/ are marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate that they are preserved only in some dialects. In most dialects they have been merged, respectively, with /s/ and /ʝ/, in the mergers called, respectively, seseo and yeísmo. The phoneme /ʃ/ is in parentheses () to indicate that it appears only in loanwords. Each of the voiced obstruent phonemes /b/, /d/, /ʝ/, and /g/ appears to the right of a pair of voiceless phonemes, to indicate that, while the voiceless phonemes maintain a phonemic contrast between plosive (or affricate) and fricative, the voiced ones alternate allophonically (i.e. without phonemic contrast) between plosive and fricative pronunciations.

Table of consonant phonemes of Spanish^[18]

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar	Palatal		Velar
Nasal	m				n	ɲ
Plosive	p	b	t	d				k	ɡ
Fricative	f		θ*		s	(ʃ)	ʝ	x
Affricate						tʃ
Trill					r
Tap					ɾ
Lateral					l	ʎ*

V and B

The letters V and B are both normally pronounced identically as /b/ or similar, and this is the only correct pronunciation. The Royal Spanish Academy considers the /v/ pronunciation for the letter V to be incorrect and affected. However, some Spanish speakers maintain the pronunciation of the /v/ sound as it is in other western European languages. The sound /v/ is used for the letter V, in the Spanish language, by a few second-language speakers in Spain whose native language is Catalan, in the Balearic Islands, Valencian Community and southern Catalonia.^[19] In the USA it is also common due to the proximity and influence of English phonology, and the /v/ is also occasionally used in Mexico. Some parts of Central America also use /v/ which the Royal Academy attributes to the interference of local indigenous languages.

Historically, the /v/ pronunciation was uncommon, but considered correct well into the twentieth century.

Prosody

Spanish is classified by its rhythm as a syllable-timed language, meaning that each syllable has approximately the same duration regardless of stress.^[20][21]

Spanish intonation varies significantly according to dialect, but generally conforms to a pattern of falling tone for declarative sentences and wh-questions (who, what, why, etc.), and rising tone for yes/no questions.^[22][23] Subject/verb inversion is not required in questions, and thus the recognition of declarative or interrogative may depend entirely on intonation.

Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth last or earlier syllables. The tendencies of stress assignment are as follows:^[24]

• In words ending in vowels and /s/, stress most often falls on the penultimate syllable.
• In words ending in all other consonants, the stress more often falls on the last syllable.
• Preantepenultimate stress (stress on the syllable that comes three before the last in a word) occurs rarely and only in words like guardándoselos ('saving them for him/her/them') where clitics follow certain verbal forms.

In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous minimal pairs which contrast solely on stress such as sábana ('sheet') and sabana ('savannah'), as well as límite ('boundary'), limite ('[that] he/she limits') and limité ('I limited'), or also "líquido", "liquido" and "liquidó".

The spelling system unambiguously reflects where the stress occurs: in the absence of an accent mark, the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last letter is "n", "s", or a vowel, in which cases the stress falls on the next-to-last syllable; if and only if the absence of an accent mark would give the wrong stress information, an acute accent mark appears over the stressed syllable.

Geographical distribution

Spanish is the primary language of 20 countries worldwide. It is estimated that the combined total number of Spanish speakers is between 470 and 500 million, making it the second most widely spoken language in terms of native speakers.^[26][27] Spanish is the third most spoken language by total number of speakers (after Mandarin and English). Global internet usage statistics for 2007 show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the Internet, after English and Mandarin.^[28]

Europe

In Europe, Spanish is an official language of Spain, the country after which it is named and from which it originated. It is widely spoken in Gibraltar, although English is the official language.^[29] It is also commonly spoken in Andorra, although Catalan is the official language.^[30]

Spanish is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.^[31] Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland, Spanish is the native language of 1.7% of the population, representing the largest minority after the 4 official languages of the country.^[32]

Spanish is the fourth most widely studied second language in Western Europe after English, French, and German. In countries where those languages are natively spoken (chiefly the United Kingdom, France, and Germany), Spanish is often the third most popular foreign language. Neighboring Portugal and France have considerable minorities of their population with a high degree of competency in Spanish.

Latin America

Most Spanish speakers are in Latin America; of all countries with a majority of Spanish speakers, only Spain and Equatorial Guinea are outside the Americas. Mexico has the most native speakers of any country. Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure—of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official with Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní),^[33] Ecuador and Peru (co-official with Quechua and, in some regions, Aymara), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language (co-official with English) in Puerto Rico.^[34]

Spanish has no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize; however, per the 2000 census, it is spoken by 43% of the population.^[35][36] Mainly, it is spoken by the descendants of Hispanics who have been in the region since the seventeenth century; however, English is the official language.^[37]

Spain colonized Trinidad and Tobago first in 1498, introducing the Spanish language to the Carib people. Also the Cocoa Panyols, laborers from Venezuela, took their culture and language with them; they are accredited with the music of "Parang" ("Parranda") on the island. Because of Trinidad's location on the South American coast, the country is greatly influenced by its Spanish-speaking neighbors. A recent census shows that more than 1 500 inhabitants speak Spanish.^[38] In 2004, the government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005.^[39] Government regulations require Spanish to be taught, beginning in primary school, while thirty percent of public employees are to be linguistically competent within five years.^[38]

Spanish is important in Brazil because of its proximity to and increased trade with its Spanish-speaking neighbors, and because of its membership in the Mercosur trading bloc and the Union of South American Nations.^[40] In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making Spanish language teaching mandatory in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil.^[41] In many border towns and villages (especially in the Uruguayan-Brazilian and Paraguayan-Brazilian border areas), a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.^[42]

United States

According to 2006 census data, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Latino by origin;^[43] 34 million people, 12.2 percent, of the population more than five years old speak Spanish at home.^[44] Spanish has a long history in the United States because many south-western states were part of Mexico, and Florida was also a colony of Spain. The language recently has been revitalized in the U.S. by an influx of Hispanic immigrants. Spanish is the most widely taught language in the country after English. Although the United States has no formally designated "official languages," Spanish is formally recognized at the state level in various states in addition to English. In the U.S. state of New Mexico, 40% of the population speaks the language. It also has strong influence in metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, New York City, Tampa, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Chicago, and in the twenty-first century the language has rapidly expanded in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Washington, DC. Spanish is the dominant spoken language in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. With a total of 33,701,181 Spanish speakers, according to US Census Bureau,^[45] the U.S. has the world's second-largest Spanish-speaking population.^[46] Spanish ranks second, behind English, as the language spoken most widely at home.^[47]

Africa

In Africa, Spanish is official in Equatorial Guinea (co-official with French and Portuguese), as well as an official language of the African Union. In Equatorial Guinea, Spanish is the predominant language when native and non-native speakers (around 500,000 people) are counted, while Fang is the most spoken language by number of native speakers.^[48][49]

Today, in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, an unknown number of Sahrawis are able to read and write in Spanish, and several thousands have received university education in foreign countries as part of aid packages (mainly in Cuba and Spain). Sahrawi Press Service, the official news service of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic of Western Sahara, has been available in Spanish since 2001,^[50] the official site of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is in Spanish^[51] and RASD TV, the official television channel of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, broadcasts in Spanish.^[52] The Sahara Film Festival, Western Sahara's only film festival, mainly shows Spanish-language films. Spanish is used to document Sahrawi poetry and oral traditions and has also be used in Sahrawi literature.^[53] Despite Spanish having been used by the Sahrawi people for over a century due to Western Sahara's history as a former Spanish colony, the Cervantes Institute has denied support and Spanish-language education to Sahrawis in Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria.^[54] A group of Sahrawi poets known as 'Generación de la Amistad saharaui' produce Sahrawi literature in Spanish.^[55]

Spanish is also spoken in the Spanish cities in continental North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla) and in the autonomous community of Canary Islands (143,000 and 1,995,833 people, respectively). Within Northern Morocco, a former Franco-Spanish protectorate that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish as a second language.^[56] It is spoken by some communities of Angola, because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War, and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned in time for their country's independence.^[57]

Asia

Spanish was used by the colonial governments and the educated classes in the former Spanish East Indies, namely the Philippines, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. From 1565 to 1973 it was an official language of the Philippines. Up to 1899 it was the language of government, trade and education, and spoken as a first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos. In the mid-nineteenth century the colonial government set up a free public school system with Spanish as the medium of instruction. This increased the use of Spanish throughout the islands and led to a class of Spanish-speaking intellectuals called the Ilustrados. Although Spanish never became the language of a majority of the population,^[58] Philippine literature and press primarily used Spanish up to the 1940s. It continued as an official language until the change of Constitution in 1973. Following the U.S. occupation and administration of the islands in 1899, the American government increasingly imposed English, especially after the 1920s. The US authorities conducted a campaign of introducing English as the medium of instruction in schools, universities and public spaces, and prohibited the use of Spanish in media and educational institutions.

After the country became independent in 1946, Spanish remained an official language along with English and Tagalog-based Filipino. However, the language lost its official status in 1973 during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. In 2007 the Arroyo administration announced that it would pass legislation to reintroduce Spanish in the Philippine education system. In 2010 a Memorandum was signed between Spanish and Philippine authorities to cooperate in implementing this decree. Today, Radio Manila broadcasts daily in Spanish. Worthy of mention is the Chabacano language, a Spanish-Philippine pidgin, spoken by 600,000 people both in the Philippines and Sabah.

The local languages of the Philippines retain much Spanish influence, with many words being derived from Spanish from Spain and Mexican Spanish, due to the control of the islands by Spain through Mexico City until 1821, and directly from Madrid until 1898.^[59]

Oceania

Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is also spoken in Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. The U.S. Territories of Guam and Northern Marianas, and the independent states of Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia all once had majority Spanish speakers, since the Marianas and the Caroline Islands were Spanish colonial possessions until the late nineteenth century (see Spanish-American War), but Spanish is no longer used by the masses but there are still native and second-language speakers. It also exists as an influence on the local native languages and is spoken by Hispanic American resident populations.

Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty regulates international relations with respect to Antarctica. Argentina and Chile, both Spanish speaking countries, claim territories according to this treaty. The Argentine Antarctica sector had a winter population of 169 in 1999, and in the Chilean Antarctic Territory, according to the national census of 2002, the population was 130 (115 male, 15 female).^[60]

Spanish-speakers country by country

The following table shows the number of Spanish-speakers in some 70 countries.

Country	Population[61]	Spanish as a native language speakers[62]	Bilingual and as a second language speakers (in countries where Spanish is official)[63] or as a foreign language (where it is not official)[64]	Spanish speakers as percentage of population[65]	Total number of Spanish speakers
Mexico	112,336,538 [66]	104,135,971[67]	6,515,519	98.5%[65]	110,651,490
United States	312,813,000 [68]	35,468,501[69]	14,531,499	16%	50,000,000[70][71][72]
Spain	47,150,819 [73]	41,964,229[74]	4,620,780	98.8%[65]	46,585,009
Colombia	46,302,000 [75]	45,802,000[76]	130,080	99.2%[65]	45,931,584
Argentina	40,900,496 [77]	36,333,605 [78]	4,321,488	99.4% [65]	40,655,093
Venezuela	29,487,000 [79]	28,410,047 [80]	725,281	98.8% [65]	29,133,156
Peru	29,797,694 [81]	25,059,861 [82]	744,942	86.6% [65]	25,804,803
Chile	17,291,300 [83]	17,041,797 [84]	85,914	99.3% [65]	17,127,711
Ecuador	14,306,000 [85]	11,907,200 [86]	2,126,986	98.1% [65]	14,034,186
Guatemala	14,361,666 [87]	8,617,000 [88]	3,116,482	86.4% [65]	12,408,479
Cuba	11,235,863 [89]	11,235,863 [90]		99.4% [65]	11,168,448
Dominican Republic	10,225,000 [89]	10,006,500 [91]	177,600	99.6% [65]	10,184,100
Bolivia	10,426,154 [92]	6,047,169 [93]	3,117,420	87.9% [65]	9,164,589
Honduras	8,215,313 [94]	8,007,563 [95]	125,597	99.0% [65]	8,133,160
El Salvador	6,183,002 [96]	6,168,902 [97]		99.7% [65]	6,164,453
France	65,821,885 [98]	440,106 [99]	5,721,380	9.4%	6,161,486 [63]
Nicaragua	5,822,000 [89]	5,331,876 [100]	315,464	97.0% [65]	5,647,340
Morocco	31,759,997[101]	20,000 [102]	5,480,000	17.32%	5,500,000 [103][104]
Brazil	190,732,694[105]	460,018[106][107]	5,000,000[108]	2.86%	5,460,018
Costa Rica	4,615,646 [109]	4,530,228 [110]	48,493	99.2% [65]	4,578,721
Paraguay	6,337,127 [111]	3,612,162 [112]	446,145	69.5% [65]	4,404,303
Puerto Rico	3,998,000 [89]	3,802,098 [113]	147,926	98.8% [65]	3,950,024
United Kingdom	62,041,708 [114]	184,867 [115]	3,737,633	6.4%	3,922,500 [63]
Uruguay	3,372,000 [89]	3,221,800 [116]	113,108	98.9% [65]	3,334,908
Panama	3,508,000 [89]	3,006,957 [117]	258,991	93.1% [65]	3,265,948
Philippines	94,013,200 [118]	2,930 [119]	3,013,843	3.2%	3,016,773 [120]
Germany	81,802,000 [121]	178,976 [122]	2,527,996	3.3%	2,706,972 [63]
Italy	60,605,053 [123]	422,249 [124]	1,968,320	3.5%	1,635,976 [63]
Equatorial Guinea	1,170,308 [125]	1,683 [126]	1,057,446	90.5% [65][127]	1,059,129
Canada	34,605,346 [128]	909,000 [129]	92,853 [64]	2.9%	1,001,853
Portugal	10,636,888 [130]	9,570 [131]	727,282	6.9%	737,026 [63]
Netherlands	16,665,900 [132]	59,578 [133]	622,516	4.1%	682,094 [63]
Belgium	10,918,405 [134]	85,990 [135]	515,939	5.5%	601,929 [63]
Romania	22,246,862		544,531	2.4%	544,531 [63]
Sweden	9,045,389	101,472 [136]	442,601	6%	544,073 [63]
Australia	21,007,310	106,517 [137]	374,571 [138]	2.3%	481,088 [64]
Poland	38,500,696		316,104	0.8%	316,104 [63]
Austria	8,205,533		267,177	3.3%	267,177 [63]
Ivory Coast	20,179,602		235,806 [64]	1.2%	235,806
Algeria	33,769,669		223,000 [139]	0.7%	223,379
Denmark	5,484,723		219,003	4%	219,003 [63]
Israel	7,112,359	130,000 [140]	45,231	2.5%	175,231 [141]
Japan	127,288,419	78,952 [142]	60,000 [64]	0.1%	138,952
Switzerland	7,581,520	123,000 [143]	14,420	1.7% [144]	137,420
Bulgaria	7,262,675		133,910	1.8%	133,910 [63]
Belize	301,270	106,795 [145]	21,848	42.7%	128,643 [145]
Netherlands Antilles	223,652	10,699	114,835	56.1%	125,534
Ireland	4,156,119		123,591	3%	123,591 [63]
Senegal	12,853,259		101,455 [64]	0.8%	101,455
Greece	10,722,816		86,742	0.8%	86,742 [63]
Finland	5,244,749		85,586	1.6%	85,586 [63]
Hungary	9,930,915		85,034	0.9%	85,034 [63]
Aruba	101,484 [146]	6,800	68,602	75.3%	75,402 [147]
Croatia	4,491,543		73,656	1.6%	73,656 [63]
Trinidad and Tobago	1,317,714 [148]	4,100 [149]	61,786	5% [150]	65,886
Andorra	84,484	29,907 [151]	25,356	68.7% [152]	58,040
Slovakia	5,455,407		43,164	0.8%	43,164 [63]
Norway	4,644,457	12,573	23,677	0.8%	36,250 [63]
Russia	140,702,094	3,320	20,000 [153]	0.01%	23,320
China	1,339,724,852[154]	3,055[155]	20,000 [156]	0.002%	23,055
New Zealand	4,173,460	21,645 [157]		0.5%	21,645
Guam	154,805		19,092	12.3%	19,092 [158]
US Virgin Islands	108,612	16,788		15.5%	16,788
Lithuania	3,565,205		13,943	0.4%	13,943 [63]
Gibraltar	27,967	13,857		49.5%	13,857
Turkey	73,722,988 [159]	1,134 [160]	12,346 [161]	0.031%	13,480
Cyprus	792,604			1.4%	11,044 [63]
Jamaica	2,804,322	8,000		0.3%	8,000
Luxembourg	486,006	3,000	4,344	1.5%	7,344 [63]
Malta	403,532	6,458		1.6%	6,458 [63]
Western Sahara	513,000 [61]	n.a.[162]	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
Other immigrants in the E.U.		906,816 [163]
Other Spanish students					4,861,027 [164]
Total native speakers in the world + bilingual and as a second language where Spanish is official:	6,974,970,386 (Total World Population)[165]	424,226,358 [2]	29,233,543	6.5%	453,459,901 [166]
Total with Spanish speakers as a foreign language:			80,116,016	7.23%	504,342,374 [5][167]

Dialectal variation

There are important variations in the spoken Spanish of the various regions of Spain and throughout the Spanish-speaking areas of the Americas.

Three of the main phonological divisions are based respectively on (1) the phoneme /θ/ ("theta"), (2) the phoneme /ʎ/ ("turned y"^[168]), and (3) the "debuccalization" (also frequently called "aspiration") of syllable-final /s/. The phoneme /θ/ (spelled z, or c before e or i)—a voiceless dental fricative as in English thing—is maintained in northern and central Spain, but is merged with the sibilant /s/ in southern Spain, the Canary Islands, and all of Latin American Spanish.^[169] This merger is called seseo in Spanish. The phoneme /ʎ/ (spelled ll)—a palatal lateral consonant sometimes compared in sound to the lli of English million—tends to be maintained in less-urbanized areas of northern Spain and in highland areas of South America, but in the speech of most other Spanish-speakers it is merged with /ʝ/ ("curly-tail j")—a non-lateral, usually-voiced, usually-fricative, palatal consonant—a "y-sound" (spelled y). This merger is called yeísmo in Spanish. And the debuccalization (pronunciation as [h], or loss) of syllable-final /s/ is associated with southern Spain, the Caribbean, and coastal areas of South America.

In Spain, the speech of Madrid is commonly regarded as the standard variety for use on radio and television,^{[170][171][172][173]} although positive attitudes toward southern dialects have increased significantly in the last 50 years.

In addition to variations in pronunciation, minor lexical and grammatical differences exist. For example, loísmo is the use of slightly different pronouns and differs from the standard.

The variety with the most speakers is Mexican Spanish. It is spoken by more than twenty percent of the world's Spanish speakers (107 million of the total 494 million, according to the table above). One of its main features is the reduction or loss of unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/.^[174][175]

Voseo

Spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: tú, usted, and vos. The use of the pronoun vos and/or its verb forms is called voseo.

Grammar

Vos is the subject form (vos decís) [you say] and object of a preposition (a vos digo) [to you I say], while "os" is the direct object form (os vi) [I saw you] and indirect object without express preposition (os digo) [I say to you].^[176]

Since vos is historically the 2nd-person plural, verbs are conjugated as such despite the fact the word now refers to a single person:

«Han luchado, añadió dirigiéndose a Tarradellas, [...] por mantenerse fieles a las instituciones que vos representáis» (GaCandau Madrid-Barça [Esp. 1996]).

The possessive form is vuestro: Admiro vuestra valentía, señora. Adjectives, when used in conjunction with vos, do not agree with the pronoun but instead with the real referents in gender and number: Vos, don Pedro, sois caritativo; Vos, bellas damas, sois ingeniosas.^[176]

Two main types of voseo may be distinguished: reverential and American dialectal. In archaic solemn usage, voseo expressed special reverence and could be used to address both the second person singular and the second person plural. In contrast, the more commonly known American form of voseo is always used to address only one speaker and implies closeness and familiarity.^[176] Unlike the first type, the second one need not involve vos and may instead be expressed simply in the use of the plural form of the verb (even in combination with the pronoun tú).

The pronominal voseo employs the use of vos as a pronoun to replace tú and de ti, which are second-person singular informal.
^[176]

• As a subject vos employs: «Puede que vos tengás razón» (Herrera Casa [Ven. 1985]) instead of «Puede que tú tengas razón»
• As a vocative: «¿Por qué vos la tenés contra Álvaro Arzú?» (Prensa [Guat.] 3.4.97) instead of «¿Por qué tú la tienes contra Álvaro Arzú?»
• As a term of preposition: «Cada vez que sale con vos, se enferma» (Penerini Aventura [Arg. 1999]) instead of «Cada vez que sale contigo, se enferma»
• And as a term of comparison: «Es por lo menos tan actor como vos» (Cuzzani Cortés [Arg. 1988]) instead of «Es por lo menos tan actor como tú»
  ^[176]

However, for the pronombre átono (that which uses the pronominal verbs and its complements without preposition) and for the possessive, they employ the forms of tuteo (te, tu, and tuyo), respectively: «Vos te acostaste con el tuerto» (Gené Ulf [Arg. 1988]); «Lugar que odio [...] como te odio a vos» (Rossi María [C. Rica 1985]); «No cerrés tus ojos» (Flores Siguamonta [Guat. 1993]). In other words, in the previous examples the authors conjugate the pronoun subject vos with the pronominal verbs and its complements of tú.^[176]

The verbal voseo consists of the use of the second person plural, usually omitting the /i/ sound, for the conjugated forms of the second person singular: vos vivís, vos comés. The verbal paradigm of voseante is characterized by its complexity. On the one hand, it affects, to a distinct extent, each verbal tense. On the other hand, it varies in functions of geographic and social factors and not all the forms are accepted in cultured norms.^[176]

Extension in Latin America

Vos is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun, although with wide differences in social consideration. Generally, it can be said that there are zones of exclusive use of tuteo in the following areas: almost all of Mexico, the West Indies, Panama, most of Peru and Venezuela, Coastal Ecuador and the Andean coast of Colombia.

They alternate tuteo as a cultured form and voseo as a popular or rural form in: Bolivia, north and south of Peru, Andean Ecuador, small zones of the Venezuelan Andes and most notably in the state of Zulia, a great part of Colombia, and the oriental border of Cuba.

Tuteo exists as an intermediate formality of treatment and voseo as a familiar treatment in: Chile, the Venezuelan Zulia State, the Pacific coast of Colombia, Azuero Peninsula in Panama and the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Areas of generalized voseo include Argentina, Costa Rica, East of Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Colombian region of Valle and Antioquia.^[176]

Ustedes

Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. "Usted" (Ud.) was initially the written abbreviation of "vuestra merced" (your grace). The dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural for daily use, ustedes (formal or familiar, as the case may be, though vosotros non-formal usage can sometimes appear in poetry and rhetorical or literary style). In Spain there are two forms — ustedes (formal) and vosotros (familiar). The pronoun vosotros is the plural form of tú in most of Spain, but in the Americas (and in certain southern Spanish areas such as Seville, Cádiz and in the Canary Islands) it is replaced with ustedes. It is notable that the use of ustedes for the informal plural "you" in southern Spain does not follow the usual rule for pronoun–verb agreement; e.g., while the formal form for "you go", ustedes van, uses the third-person plural form of the verb, in Seville, Cádiz and other parts of Western Andalusia the informal form is constructed as ustedes vais, using the second-person plural of the verb. In the Canary Islands, though, the usual pronoun–verb agreement is preserved in most cases. The 'ustedeo' is mainly used in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia

Usted

In Honduras especially in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, "usted" is used as a formal pronoun between couples. It is used to portray respect between the romantic couple, while between colleagues and friends "vos" is used. "Usted" is also used to portray respect between someone who is a generation older or is of higher authority. In that same context, "usted" is used in couples and among parents and children, in Andean (from the Andes mountains)people from Colombia and Venezuela.

Vocabulary

Some words can be different, even significantly so, in different Hispanophone countries. Most Spanish speakers can recognize other Spanish forms, even in places where they are not commonly used, but Spaniards generally do not recognize specifically American usages. For example, Spanish mantequilla, aguacate and albaricoque (respectively, 'butter', 'avocado', 'apricot') correspond to manteca, palta, and damasco, respectively, in Argentina, Chile (except manteca), Paraguay, Peru (except manteca and damasco), and Uruguay. The everyday Spanish words coger ('to take'), pisar ('to step on') and concha ('seashell') are considered extremely rude in parts of Latin America, where the meaning of coger and pisar is also "to have sex" and concha means "vulva". The Puerto Rican word for "bobby pin" (pinche) is an obscenity in Mexico, but in Nicaragua it simply means "stingy", and in Spain refers to a chef's helper. Other examples include taco, which means "swearword" (among other meanings) in Spain and "traffic jam" in Chile, but is known to the rest of the world as a Mexican dish. Pija in many countries of Latin America and Spain itself is an obscene slang word for "penis", while in Spain the word also signifies "posh girl" or "snobby". Coche, which means "car" in Spain, central Mexico and Argentina, for the vast majority of Spanish-speakers actually means "baby-stroller" or "pushchair", while carro means "car" in some Latin American countries and "cart" in others, as well as in Spain. Papaya is the slang term for "vagina" in the parts of Cuba and Venezuela, where the fruit is instead called fruta bomba and lechosa, respectively.^[177][178]

History

Spanish emerged from its ancestral Vulgar Latin (common Latin) dialects in the ninth century. Latin had been brought to Iberia by the Romans during the Second Punic War around 210 BC, absorbing influences from the native Iberian languages such as Celtiberian, Basque and other paleohispanic languages. Later, it gained other external influences, most notably from the Arabic of the later Al-Andalus period.^[179]

Local versions of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish in the central-north of Iberia, in an area defined by the then remote crossroad strips of Alava, Cantabria, Burgos, Soria and La Rioja, within the Kingdom of Castile (see Glosas Emilianenses). In this formative stage, Spanish (Castilian) developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese, and was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages). This distinctive dialect progressively spread south with the advance of the Reconquista, and so gathered a sizable lexical influence from Al-Andalus Arabic, especially in the later Medieval period.

The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages, including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o—which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in the following table:

Latin	Spanish	Italian	French	Romanian	Portuguese/Galician	Aragonese	Asturian	Catalan	English
petram	piedra	pietra	pierre	piatrǎ	pedra	piedra	piedra	pedra	'stone'
moritur	muere	muore	meurt	moare	morre	muere	muerre	mor	'dies (v.)'
mortem	muerte	morte	mort	moarte	morte	muerte	muerte	mort	'death'
terram	tierra	terra	terre	ţară	terra	tierra	tierra	terra	'land'

Spanish is marked by the palatalization of the Latin double consonants nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año, and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo).

The consonant written ⟨u⟩ or ⟨v⟩ in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably "fortified" to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with the consonant written ⟨b⟩ (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩.

Peculiar to Spanish (as well as to the neighboring Gascon dialect of Occitan, and sometimes attributed to to a Basque substratum) was the mutation of Latin initial f- into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h-, still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects it is still aspirated in some words. Compare the examples in the following table:

Latin	Italian	Portuguese	Aragonese	Galician	Asturian	French	Catalan	Occitan	Romanian	Gascon	Spanish	Ladino	English
filium	figlio	filho	fillo	fillo	fíu	fils	fill	filh	fiu	hilh	hijo	fijo	'son'
fabulāre		falar	fablar	falar	falar						hablar	favlar	'to speak'
focum	fuoco	fogo	fuego	fogo	fueu	feu	foc		foc		fuego	fuego	'fire'

Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table:

Latin	Ladino	Spanish	Portuguese	Romanian	Galician	Asturian	English
clamāre	lyamar	llamar	chamar	chema	chamar	llamar	'to call'
flammam	flama	llama	chama	flacără	chama	llama	'flame'
plēnum	pleno	lleno	cheio	plin	cheo	llenu	'full'
octō	ocho	ocho	oito	opt	oito	ocho	'eight'
noctem	noche	noche	noite	noapte	noite	nueche	'night'
multum	muncho	mucho	muito	mult	moito	munchu	'much'

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spanish underwent a dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants, known in Spanish as the Reajuste de las sibilantes, which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter j and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter z (and for c before e or i). See History of Spanish for details.

The Gramática de la lengua castellana, written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija, was the first grammar written for a modern European language.^[180] According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I, she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire.^[181] In his introduction to the grammar, dated August 18, 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."^[182]

From the sixteenth century onwards, the language was taken to the Americas and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote, is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").^[183]

In the twentieth century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara, and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City. For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Relation to other languages

Spanish is closely related to the other Iberian Romance languages: Asturian, Catalan, Galician, Ladino, Leonese and Portuguese. Catalan, an Iberian language is more similar to Occitan to the north than to Spanish or Portuguese to the west. It should be noted that although Portuguese and Spanish are very closely related, particularly in vocabulary (89% lexically similar according to the Ethnologue of Languages), syntax and grammar, there are also some differences that don't exist between Catalan and Portuguese. Although Spanish and Portuguese are widely considered to be mutually intelligible, it has been noted that while most Portuguese speakers can understand spoken Spanish with little difficulty, Spanish speakers face more difficulty in understanding spoken Portuguese.^[184] The written forms are considered to be equally intelligible, however.

Vocabulary comparison

Spanish and Italian share a similar phonological system. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%.^[185] The lexical similarity with Portuguese is greater at 89%. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or Romanian is lower (lexical similarity being respectively 75% and 71%^[185]): comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is low at an estimated 45% – the same as English. The common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would.

Latin	Spanish	Galician	Portuguese	Astur-Leonese	Aragonese	Catalan	Italian	French	Romanian	English
nos	nosotros	nós(outros)¹	nós	nós, nosotros	nusatros	nosaltres (archaically also nós)	noi (altri)²	nous (autres)³	noi	we
frater germanum (lit. "true brother")	hermano	irmán	irmão	hermanu	chirmán	germà (archaically also frare)5	fratello	frère	frate	brother
dies Martis (Classical) feria tertia (Ecclesiastical)	martes	martes	terça-feira	martes	martes	dimarts	martedì	mardi	marţi	Tuesday
cantiō (nem, acc.), canticum	canción	canción/cançom4	canção	canción (in Asturian canciu)	canta	cançó	canzone	chanson	cântec	song
magis or plus	más (archaically also plus)	máis	mais (archaically also chus/plus)	más	más,"més"	més (archaically also pus)	più	plus	mai/plus	more
manum sinistram (acc.)	mano izquierda (also mano siniestra)	man esquerda	mão esquerda (archaically also sẽestra)	mano esquierda (in Asturian manzorga)	man cucha	mà esquerra	mano sinistra	main gauche	mâna stângă	left hand
nihil or nullam rem natam (acc.) (lit. "no thing born")	nada	nada/ren	nada (neca and nula rés in some expressions; archaically also rem)	nada (in asturian un res is the same of nada)	cosa	res	niente/nulla	rien/nul	nimic/nul	nothing

1. also nós outros in early modern Portuguese (e.g. The Lusiads)
2. noi altri in Southern Italian dialects and languages
3. Alternatively nous autres
4. Depending on the written norm used. See Reintegracionismo
5. Medieval Catalan, e.g. Llibre dels feits del rei en Jacme

Judaeo-Spanish

Judaeo-Spanish (also known as Ladino),^[186] which is essentially medieval Spanish and closer to modern Spanish than any other language, is spoken by many descendants of the Sephardi Jews who were expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century.^[186] Therefore, its relationship to Spanish is comparable with that of the Yiddish language to German. Ladino speakers are currently almost exclusively Sephardi Jews, with family roots in Turkey, Greece or the Balkans; current speakers mostly live in Israel and Turkey, and the United States, with a few pockets in Latin America.^[186] It lacks the Native American vocabulary which was influential during the Spanish colonial period, and it retains many archaic features which have since been lost in standard Spanish. It contains, however, other vocabulary which is not found in standard Spanish, including vocabulary from Hebrew, French, Greek and Turkish, and other languages spoken where the Sephardim settled.

Judaeo-Spanish is in serious danger of extinction because many native speakers today are elderly as well as elderly olim (immigrants to Israel) who have not transmitted the language to their children or grandchildren. However, it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardi communities, especially in music. In the case of the Latin American communities, the danger of extinction is also due to the risk of assimilation by modern Castilian.

A related dialect is Haketia, the Judaeo-Spanish of northern Morocco. This too tended to assimilate with modern Spanish, during the Spanish occupation of the region.

Writing system

Spanish language
The main characters of Don Quixote, a master work in Spanish literature.
Overview
Pronunciation · History · Orthography · Varieties Names given to the Spanish language
Grammar
Determiners · Nouns · Pronouns Adjectives · Prepositions Verbs (conjugation • irregular verbs)

Spanish is written in the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the character ⟨ñ⟩ (eñe, representing the phoneme /ɲ/, a letter distinct from ⟨n⟩, although typographically composed of an ⟨n⟩ with a tilde) and the digraphs ⟨ch⟩ (che, representing the phoneme /t͡ʃ/) and ⟨ll⟩ (elle, representing the phoneme /ʎ/). However, the digraph ⟨rr⟩ (erre fuerte, 'strong r", erre doble, 'double r', or simply erre), which also represents a distinct phoneme /r/, is not similarly regarded as a single letter. Since 1994 ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ have been treated as letter pairs for collation purposes, though they remain a part of the alphabet. Words with ⟨ch⟩ are now alphabetically sorted between those with ⟨cg⟩ and ⟨ci⟩, instead of following ⟨cz⟩ as they used to. The situation is similar for ⟨ll⟩.^[187][188]

Thus, the Spanish alphabet has the following 27 letters and 2 digraphs:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z.^[189]

ch,^[190] ll.^[191]

The letters "k" and "w" are used only in words and names coming from foreign languages (kilo, folklore, whiskey, William, etc.).

With the exclusion of a very small number of regional terms such as México (see Toponymy of Mexico), pronunciation can be entirely determined from spelling. Under the orthographic conventions, a typical Spanish word is stressed on the syllable before the last if it ends with a vowel (not including ⟨y⟩) or with a vowel followed by ⟨n⟩ or an ⟨s⟩; it is stressed on the last syllable otherwise. Exceptions to this rule are indicated by placing an acute accent on the stressed vowel.

The acute accent is used, in addition, to distinguish between certain homophones, especially when one of them is a stressed word and the other one is a clitic: compare el ('the', masculine singular definite article) with él ('he' or 'it'), or te ('you', object pronoun), de (preposition 'of'), and se (reflexive pronoun) with té ('tea'), dé ('give' [formal imperative/third-person present subjunctive]) and sé ('I know' or imperative 'be').

The interrogative pronouns (qué, cuál, dónde, quién, etc.) also receive accents in direct or indirect questions, and some demonstratives (ése, éste, aquél, etc.) can be accented when used as pronouns. The conjunction o ('or') is written with an accent between numerals so as not to be confused with a zero: e.g., 10 ó 20 should be read as diez o veinte rather than diez mil veinte ('10,020'). Accent marks are frequently omitted in capital letters (a widespread practice in the days of typewriters and the early days of computers when only lowercase vowels were available with accents), although the Real Academia Española advises against this.

When ⟨u⟩ is written between ⟨g⟩ and a front vowel (⟨e i⟩), it indicates a "hard g" pronunciation. A diaeresis (⟨ü⟩) indicates that it is not silent as it normally would be (e.g., cigüeña, 'stork', is pronounced [θiˈɣweɲa]; if it were written ⟨cigueña⟩, it would be pronounced [θiˈɣeɲa]).

Interrogative and exclamatory clauses are introduced with inverted question and exclamation marks (⟨¿⟩ and ⟨¡⟩, respectively).

Organizations

Royal Spanish Academy

The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), founded in 1713,^[192] together with the 21 other national ones (see Association of Spanish Language Academies), exercises a standardizing influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar and style guides. Because of influence and for other sociohistorical reasons, a standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.

Association of Spanish Language Academies

The Association of Spanish Language Academies (Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, or ASALE) is the entity which regulates the Spanish language. It comprises the academies of 22 countries, ordered by date of Academy foundation: Spain (1713),^[194] Colombia (1871),^[195] Ecuador (1874),^[196] Mexico (1875),^[197] El Salvador (1876),^[198] Venezuela (1883),^[199] Chile (1885),^[200] Peru (1887),^[201] Guatemala (1887),^[202] Costa Rica (1923),^[203] Philippines (1924),^[204] Panama (1926),^[205] Cuba (1926),^[206] Paraguay (1927),^[207] Dominican Republic (1927),^[208] Bolivia (1927),^[209] Nicaragua (1928),^[210] Argentina (1931),^[211] Uruguay (1943),^[212] Honduras (1949),^[213] Puerto Rico (1955),^[214] and United States (1973).^[215]

Instituto Cervantes

The Instituto Cervantes (Cervantes Institute) is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. This organization has branched out in over 20 different countries with 54 centres devoted to the Spanish and Hispanic American culture and Spanish Language. The ultimate goals of the Institute are to promote the education, the study and the use of Spanish universally as a second language, to support the methods and activities that would help the process of Spanish language education, and to contribute to the advancement of the Spanish and Hispanic American cultures throughout non-Spanish-speaking countries.

Official use by international organizations

Spanish is recognised as one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the African Union, the Union of South American Nations, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, the Latin Union, the Caricom and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

See also

Names given to the Spanish language Spanish language poets Spanish profanity Spanish proverbs Spanish language institutions Association of Spanish Language Academies Real Academia Española Instituto Cervantes Certificate of Use of Language in Spanish Fundéu BBVA (formerly The Foundation of Urgent Spanish) Spanish-speaking world Countries where Spanish is an official language Hispanic culture Hispanophone Panhispanism Romance languages Differences between Spanish and Portuguese Romance languages Latin Union

Influences on the Spanish language Arabic influence on the Spanish language List of Spanish words of Germanic origin List of Spanish words of Nahuatl origin List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin List of Spanish words of Philippine origin Dialects and languages influenced by Spanish Chavacano language Frespañol Llanito Palenquero Papiamento Philippine languages Portuñol Spanglish Spanish-based creole languages List of English words of Spanish origin

Spanish dialects and varieties European Spanish Andalusian Spanish Canarian Spanish Castilian Spanish Castrapo (Galician Spanish) Murcian Spanish Spanish in the Americas North American Spanish Central American Spanish Caribbean Spanish South American Spanish Spanish in the United States Spanish in Africa Equatoguinean Spanish Spanish in Asia Spanish in the Philippines[216]

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References

Bibliography

• Abercrombie, David (1967). Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 
• Cressey, William Whitney (1978). Spanish Phonology and Morphology: A Generative View. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0878400451 
• Eddington, David (2000). "Spanish Stress Assignment within the Analogical Modeling of Language". Language (Language, Vol. 76, No. 1) 76 (1): 92–109. doi:10.2307/417394. JSTOR 417394. http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/eddingtond/STRESS.pdf 
• Harris, James (1967). "Sound Change in Spanish and the Theory of Markedness". Language (Language, Vol. 45, No. 3) 45 (3): 538–552. doi:10.2307/411438. JSTOR 411438 
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003). "Castilian Spanish". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259. doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 

External links

• (Spanish) Dictionary of the RAE Real Academia Española's official Spanish language dictionary
• Spanish – Learning Free resources
• Spanish – BBC Languages
• USA Foreign Service Institute Spanish basic course
• Basic Spanish Grammar
• Spanish evolution from Latin
• Spanish phrasebook on WikiTravel

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Romance languages   Western and Italo-Dalmatian   Western Gallo-Italic Ligurian Brigasc · Genoese · Intemelio · Monégasque Lombard Eastern · Gallo-Italic of Sicily · Western Others Emiliano-Romagnolo · Piedmontese · Judaeo-Piedmontese · Venetian Gallo-Rhaetian Langues d'oïl Burgundian · Champenois · Franc-Comtois · French (Standard · African · Canadian · Old French · Middle French · Judaeo-French · French-based creoles) · Gallo · Lorrain · Norman · Picard · Poitevin · Saintongeais · Walloon Rhaeto-Romance Friulian · Ladin · Romansh Others Franco-Provençal Occitano- Romance Catalan Eastern Catalan (Alguerese · Balearic · Central · Northern) · Western Catalan (North-Western · Valencian) · Judaeo-Catalan · Catalan Caló Occitan Auvergnat · Gascon (Aranese) · Languedocien · Limousin · Provençal (Niçard · Mentonasc) · Vivaro-Alpine · Old Provençal · Judaeo-Provençal Ibero-Romance Astur-Leonese Asturian · Cantabrian · Extremaduran · Leonese · Mirandese Galician-Portuguese Portuguese (European · Brazilian · African · Asian & Oceanian) · Galician (Eonavian) · Fala · Judaeo-Portuguese · Portuguese Calão · Portuguese-based creoles Spanish (Castilian) African (Equatoguinean) · American · Asian · Peninsular · Old Spanish · Judaeo-Spanish · Spanish Caló · Spanish-based creoles Pyrenean Navarro-Aragonese (Aragonese · Judaeo-Aragonese) · Mozarabic Italo-Dalmatian Italian Central · Corsican (Gallurese) · Sassarese · Tuscan · Judaeo-Italian Southern Italian Abruzzese · Apulian · Campanian (Neapolitan) · Lucanian (Northern Calabrese) · Molisan Others Dalmatian · Istriot · Sicilian (Southern Calabrese)   Eastern and Sardinian Eastern Romanian Moldovan · Vlach Others Aromanian · Istro-Romanian · Megleno-Romanian Sardinian — Campidanese · Logudorese Italics indicate extinct languages; bold indicates languages with more than 5 million speakers; languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left.

Languages of Europe Sovereign states Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Kazakhstan Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Malta Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Vatican City States with limited recognition Abkhazia Kosovo Nagorno-Karabakh Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Transnistria Dependencies and other territories Åland Faroe Islands Gibraltar Guernsey Jersey Isle of Man Svalbard Other entities European Union

Languages of South America Sovereign states Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Guyana Panama Paraguay Peru Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay Venezuela Dependencies and other territories Aruba Bonaire Curaçao Falkland Islands French Guiana South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

Dialects and accents of Spanish (Castilian) by continent Africa Canarian* · Equatoguinean Americas (American) Caribbean Cuban · Dominican · Puerto Rican Central American Costa Rican · Salvadoran · Guatemalan · Honduran · Nicaraguan · Panamanian North American Mexican · United States (New Mexican) South American Amazonic · Andean · Rioplatense · Cuyano · Bolivian · Chilean · Chilote · Colombian · Ecuadorian · Paraguayan · Peruvian Coastal · Venezuelan Asia Philippine Europe (European) Andalusian · Canarian* · Castilian · Murcian Other / Neutral Standard Canarian Spanish can be considered both African and European Spanish citing respectively geographical or cultural arguments.

Latin Union Member nations Andorra Angola Bolivia Brazil Cape Verde Chile Colombia Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Cuba Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador El Salvador France Guatemala Guinea-Bissau Haiti Honduras Italy Mexico Moldova Monaco Mozambique Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Portugal Romania San Marino São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Spain Uruguay Venezuela Permanent observers Argentina Holy See Sovereign Military Order of Malta Official languages Catalan French Italian Portuguese Romanian Spanish