Countries where Spanish has official status. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10-20% of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5-9.9% of the population.

Spanish or Castilian (español or castellano in Spanish) is a Romance language extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, in the Ibero-Romance group This article is about a subdivision of the Romance language family. For the broader group of languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, see Iberian languages that evolved from several dialects and languages in the northern fringes of the Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day states Portugal, Spain, Andorra, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar and a very small area of France. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas—the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas. It is bordered on the during the 10th century and gradually spread through the Kingdom of Castile Kingdom of Castile was one of the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It emerged as a political autonomous entity in the 9th century. It was called County of Castile and was held in vassalage from the Kingdom of León. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region. It was one of the kingdoms that founded the Crown of, becoming the foremost language for government and trade in the Spanish Empire Territories of the Portuguese empire during the Iberian Union . Territories lost before or due to the Treaties of Utrecht-Baden (1713–1714). Territories lost before or during the Spanish American wars of independence (1811–1828). Territories lost following the Spanish-American War (1898–1899). Territories granted independence during the.

Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many, the basis of all Romance languages including Spanish, was introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus during the Second Punic War The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on Carthage's side. The two states had three major around 210 BC. During the 5th century, Hispania was invaded by Germanic Vandals The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century, perhaps best known for their sack of Rome in 455. Although they were not notably more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, Renaissance and Early Modern writers who idealized Rome tended to blame the Vandals for its destruction. This led, Suevi The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c. 58 BC; Ariovistus was defeated by Caesar and Visigoths The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe; the Ostrogoths being the other. Together these tribes were among the barbarians who disturbed the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period. The romanized Visigoths first emerged as a distinct people during the fourth century, initially in the Balkans, where they, and other eastern peoples (Alans The Alans or Alani were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian), resulting in numerous dialects of Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard form of the Latin language; because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography, and only Classical Latin was used in writing. It is sometimes called colloquial Latin. After the Moorish Conquest The Umayyad conquest of Hispania began as an Umayyad Caliphate army consisting largely of Berber Northwest Africans recently converted to Islam invaded the Christian Visigothic Kingdom located on the Iberian peninsula (Hispania). Under the authority of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I of Damascus, and commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad, they disembarked in in the 8th century, Arabic Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabīyah, ( Arabic pronunciation ) or عربي ʿarabī) is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. Arabic has more speakers than any other language in the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million became an influence in the evolution of Iberian languages Albania · Andorra · Armenia1 · Austria · Azerbaijan1 · Belarus · Belgium · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus1 · Czech Republic · Denmark · Estonia · Finland · France · Georgia1 · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Ireland · Italy · Kazakhstan2 · Latvia · Liechtenstein · Lithuania · Luxembourg · including Castilian.

Modern Spanish developed with the Readjustment of the Consonants (Reajuste de las sibilantes) that began in 15th century. The language continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of other languages, as well as developing new words. Castilian was taken most notably to the Americas Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus, over nearly four centuries the Spanish Empire would expand across: most of present day Central America, the Caribbean islands, and Mexico; much of the rest of North America including the Southwestern, Southern coastal, and California Pacific Coast regions of the United States; and though as well as to Africa Territories of the Portuguese empire during the Iberian Union . Territories lost before or due to the Treaties of Utrecht-Baden (1713–1714). Territories lost before or during the Spanish American wars of independence (1811–1828). Territories lost following the Spanish-American War (1898–1899). Territories granted independence during the and Asia Pacific Spanish East Indies was a term used to describe Spanish territories in Asia-Pacific which lasted for three centuries (1565 to 1898). It encompassed the Philippine Islands, and its dependencies including the Mariana Islands and the Caroline Islands, and for a period of time, parts of Formosa (Taiwan), Sabah, and parts of the Moluccas. From 1565 to 1 with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

As of 2010^[update], 329 to 358 million people speak Spanish as a native language A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. The term is also used for the language that the speaker speaks best. In either case, a person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity and a total of 417 million people^[7] speak it worldwide. It is the second most natively-spoken Since the definition of a single language is to some extent arbitrary, some mutually intelligible idioms with separate national standards or self-identification have been listed separately, depending on conventional use, including Scandinavian, Hindi/Urdu, Dutch and Afrikaans, Indonesian and Malay language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese The latter grouping is defined and used mainly by linguists, and is not commonly used outside of academic circles as a self-description. Instead, when asked to describe the spoken form they are using, Chinese speaking a form of non-Standard Mandarin will describe the variant that they are speaking, for example Southwestern Mandarin or Northeastern.^[5] Mexico In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory, which was administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain which would eventually become Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations The United Nations Organization or simply United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of.

History

Spanish evolved from Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard form of the Latin language; because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography, and only Classical Latin was used in writing. It is sometimes called colloquial Latin introduced to the Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day states Portugal, Spain, Andorra, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar and a very small area of France. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas—the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas. It is bordered on the by Romans during the Second Punic War The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on Carthage's side. The two states had three major around 210 BC, with some loan words By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort, while calque is a loanword from French from Arabic Arabic influence on the Spanish language has been significant, due to the Islamic presence in the Iberian peninsula between 711 and 1492 A.D. during the Andalusian Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation in the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Berbers and African Muslims (given the generic name of Moors), at various times in the period between 711 and 1492 period^[8] and other surviving influences from Basque Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories (665,800 out of 2,589,600). Of these, 614,000 live in the Spanish part of the Basque country and the remaining 51,800 live in the French and Celtiberian Celtiberian is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula lying between the headwaters of the Duero, Tajo, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebro river. This language is directly attested in nearly two hundred inscriptions dated in the 2nd century BC and the 1st century BC,, as well as Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a via the Visigoths The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe; the Ostrogoths being the other. Together these tribes were among the barbarians who disturbed the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period. The romanized Visigoths first emerged as a distinct people during the fourth century, initially in the Balkans, where they.

Castilian is thought to have evolved in the northern fringes of the Iberian Peninsula during the 10th century along the remote crossroad strips among the Alava Álava is a province of northern Spain in the southern part of the Basque Autonomous Community. It is bordered by the provinces of Burgos (W), La Rioja (S), Navarre (E), Gipuzkoa (NE) and Biscay (NW). The County of Treviño is an exclave of the province of Burgos (Castile and León) surrounded by Alavese land, although there is strong local, Cantabria Cantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community (province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (provinces of León, Palencia and Burgos), on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea, Burgos Burgos is a city of northern Spain, at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,000 inhabitants in the city proper and another 15,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The Burgos Laws or Leyes de Burgos first governing the behaviour of Spaniards towards natives of, Soria Soria is a city in north-central Spain, the capital of the province of Soria in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The municipality had a population of c. 39,500 inhabitants, nearly 40% of the population of the province. Situated on the Rio Duero in the east of the autonomous community, the city is noted for its walls and a number of and La Rioja La Rioja is a province and autonomous community of northern Spain. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, and Nájera provinces of Northern Spain (see Glosas Emilianenses The Glosas Emilianenses are glosses written in a Latin codex. The anonymous author is assumed to have been a monk at the monastery of Suso (the upper one) in San Millán de la Cogolla (now in La Rioja, then in the Kingdom of Navarre). He wrote about a thousand years ago in three languages:), as a strongly innovative and differing variant from its nearest cousin, Leonese The Leonese language developed from Vulgar Latin with contributions from the pre-Roman languages which were spoken in the territory of the Spanish provinces of León, Zamora, and Salamanca and in some villages in the District of Bragança, Portugal. Close to Mirandese and Asturian, it belongs to Astur-Leonese subgroup of Iberian languages. Most, with a higher degree of Basque influence in these regions (see Iberian Romance languages This article is about a subdivision of the Romance language family. For the broader group of languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, see Iberian languages). Modern Spanish developed in Castile with the Readjustment of the Consonants (Reajuste de las sibilantes) during the 15th century. Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the include lenition In linguistics, lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change of languages (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization The second may be the result of the first, but they often differ. A vowel may "palatalize" a consonant , but the result might not be a palatalized consonant in the phonetic sense (sense 2), or the phonetically palatalized (sense 2) consonant may occur irrespective of front vowels (Latin annum, Spanish año, and Latin anellum, Spanish anillo) and diphthongation In phonology, a diphthong, pronounced /ˈdɪf.θɒŋ/ or /ˈdɪp.θɒŋ/, (from Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally "two sounds" or "two tones") refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. In most dialects of English, the words eye, boy, and cow contain examples of diphthongs (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo). Similar phenomena can be found in other Romance languages as well.

This northern dialect from Cantabria was carried south during the Reconquista.

The first Latin-to-Spanish grammar (Gramática de la lengua castellana) was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492, by Elio Antonio de Nebrija. When it was presented to Isabel de Castilla, she asked, "¿Para qué querría yo un trabajo como éste, si ya conozco la lengua?" ("What would I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?"), to which he replied, "Su alteza, la lengua es el instrumento del Imperio" ("Your highness, the language is the instrument of the Empire.")^[9] In his introduction to the first Spanish grammar, dated August 18, 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."^[10]

From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Americas and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonisation. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's influence on the Spanish language from the 17th century has been so great that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes (the language of Cervantes).^[11]

In the 20th 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.

Geographic distribution

Spanish is recognized 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 Latin Union, and the Caricom and has legal status in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Hispanosphere

It is estimated that the combined total number of Spanish speakers is between 470 and 500 million, making it the third most spoken language by total number of speakers (after Chinese, and English). Spanish is the second most-widely spoken language in terms of native speakers.^[72][73] Global internet usage statistics for 2007 show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the Internet, after English and Chinese. ^[74]

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, though English is the official language.^[75] It is the most spoken language in Andorra, though Catalan is the official language.^[76][77] It is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.^[78] Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland, Spanish is the mother tongue of 1.7% of the population, representing the largest minority after the 4 official languages of the country.^[79]

Spain

In Spain and in some parts of the Spanish speaking world, but not all, it is rare to use the term español (Spanish) to refer to this language, even when contrasting it with languages such as French and English. Rather, people call it castellano (Castilian), that is, the language of the Castile region, when contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan. In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, as opposed 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…

Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (…) The rest of the Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities…

However, to some in other linguistic regions, this is considered as demeaning to them and they will therefore use the term castellano exclusively.

The name castellano (Castilian), which refers directly to the origins of the language and the sociopolitical context in which it was introduced in the Americas, is preferred particularly in the Spanish regions where other languages are spoken (Catalonia, Basque Country, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands and Galicia) as well as in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, instead of español, which is more commonly used to refer to the language as a whole in the rest of Latin America and Spain.

There is some controversy in Spain about the name of the language, which is a part of a greater controversy about Catalan, Basque and Galician nationalisms.

Americas

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, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico , Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní^[80]), Peru (co-official with Quechua and, in some regions, Aymara), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language (co-official with English) in the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico.^[81]

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.^[82][83] Mainly, it is spoken by the descendants of Hispanics who have been in the region since the 17th century; however, English is the official language.^[84]

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.^[85] In 2004, the government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005.^[86] 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.^[85]

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.^[87] 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.^[88] In many border towns and villages (especially in the Uruguayan-Brazilian and Paraguayan-Brazilian border areas), a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.^[89]

United States

According to 2006 census data, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Latino by origin;^[90] 34 million people, 12.2 percent, of the population more than five years old speak Spanish at home.^[91] Spanish has a long history in the United States because many south-western states were part of Mexico and Spain, and Florida was also part of Spain, and it recently has been revitalized by 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 besides English; in the U.S. state of New Mexico for instance, 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, and in the last decade, the language has rapidly expanded in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, Richmond, Washington, DC, and other major Sun-Belt cities. Spanish is the dominant spoken language in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. With a total of 33,701,181 Spanish (Castilian) speakers, according to US Census Bureau,^[92] the U.S. has the world's second-largest Spanish-speaking population.^[93] Spanish ranks second, behind English, as the language spoken most widely at home.^[94]

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. Today, in Western Sahara, 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). 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.^[95][96] It 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.^[97] It is spoken by some communities of Angola, because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War, and in Nigeria by the descendants of Afro-Cuban ex-slaves.^{[citation needed]}

Asia

Spanish was used by the colonial governments, at different times, of countries such as the Philippines, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands. During Spanish control, it was an official language of the Philippines, although not spoken by the majority of Filipinos. It continued as an official language until the change of Constitution in 1973. During most of the colonial period it was the language of government, trade and education, and spoken mainly by Spaniards as a first language and less significantly as a second language by other populations. However, by the mid 19th century a free public school system in Spanish was established throughout the islands, which increased the numbers of Spanish speakers. Following the U.S. occupation and administration of the islands, the strong Spanish influence amongst the Philippine population proved to be a major foe against the imposition of English by the American government, especially after the 1920s. The US authorities' conducted a campaign of solidifying English as the medium of instruction in schools, universities, and public spaces and prohibited the use of Spanish in media and educational institutions which gradually reduced the importance of the language generation after generation. 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 Ferdinand Marcos administration.

The local languages of the Philippines retain some Spanish influence, with many words coming from or being derived from European Spanish and Mexican Spanish, due to the control of the islands by Madrid through Mexico City.^[98]

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 Spanish speakers, since the Marianas and the Caroline Islands were Spanish colonial possessions until the late 19th century (see Spanish-American War), but Spanish has since been forgotten. It now only exists as an influence on the local native languages and is spoken by Hispanic American resident populations.

Accent variation

There are important variations spoken among the regions of Spain and throughout Spanish-speaking America. One major phonological difference between Castilian, broadly speaking, the accents spoken in most of Spain, and the accent of some parts of southern Spain and all the Latin American accents of Spanish, is the absence of a voiceless dental fricative (/θ/ as in English thing) in the latter.^[99] In Spain, the Castilian accent is commonly regarded as the standard variety used on radio and television,^{[100][101][102][103]} although attitudes towards southern accents have changed 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 the twenty percent of the 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 the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/.^[104][105] It can be the case that the words: pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same ['pesə̥s].

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 (all)] and indirect object without express preposition (os digo) [I say to you (all)].^[106]

Since vose 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.^[106]

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.^[106] 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. ^[106]

• 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 Alvaro Arzú ?» (Prensa [Guat.] 3.4.97) instead of «¿Por qué tú la tienes contra Alvaro 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» ^[106]

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.^[106]

The verbal voseo consists of the use of the second person plural, more or less modified, 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.^[106]

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, the majority of Peru and Venezuela, Coastal Ecuador and the Atlantic 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, 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 state of Zulia, the Pacific coast of Colombia, and the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas.

Areas of generalized voseo include Argentina, Costa Rica, Bolivia (east), El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Colombian region of Antioquia.^[106]

Ustedes

Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. "Usted" (Ud.) was initially the written abbreviation of "vuestra merced" (your grace). The Spanish accents 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 cities such as 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 Cádiz or Seville 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.

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", 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 Cuba and Cubans call the fruit fruta bomba instead.^[107][108]

Royal Spanish Academy

The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

Classification and related languages

Spanish is closely related to the other West Iberian Romance languages: Asturian, Galician, Ladino, Leonese and Portuguese. Catalan, an East Iberian language which exhibits many Gallo-Romance traits, is more similar to Occitan to the east than to Spanish or Portuguese.

Spanish and Portuguese have similar grammars and vocabularies as well as a common history of Arabic influence while a great part of the peninsula was under Islamic rule (both languages expanded over Islamic territories). Their lexical similarity has been estimated as 89%.^[109] See Differences between Spanish and Portuguese for further information.

Judaeo-Spanish

Judaeo-Spanish (also known as Ladino),^[110] 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 15th century.^[110] Therefore, it has somewhat the same relationship to Spanish as Yiddish does 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.^[110] 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 Castilian, 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.

Vocabulary comparison

Spanish and Italian share a similar phonological system. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%.^[109] 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%^[109]): 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.

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

Characterization

A defining feature of Spanish was the diphthongization of the Latin short vowels e and o into ie and ue, respectively, when they were stressed. Similar sound changes are found in other Romance languages, but in Spanish, they were significant. Some examples:

• Lat. petram > Sp. piedra, It. pietra, Fr. pierre, Rom. piatrǎ, Port./Gal. pedra, Ast. piedra, Cat. pedra "stone".
• Lat. moritur > Sp. muere, It. muore, Fr. meurt / muert, Rom. moare, Port./Gal. morre, Ast. muerre, Cat. mor "die".

Peculiar to early Spanish (as in the Gascon dialect of Occitan, and possibly due to a Basque substratum) was the mutation of Latin initial f- into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongate. Compare for instance:

• Lat. filium > It. figlio, Port. filho, Gal. fillo, Ast. fíu, Fr. fils, Cat. fill, Occitan filh (but Gascon hilh) Sp. hijo (but Ladino fijo);
• Lat. fabulari > Lad. favlar, Port./Gal. falar, Ast. falar, Sp. hablar;
• but Lat. focum > It. fuoco, Port./Gal. fogo, Ast. fueu Cat. foc, Sp./Lad. fuego.

Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, for example:

• Lat. clamare, acc. flammam, plenum > Lad. lyamar, flama, pleno; Sp. llamar, llama, lleno. However, in Spanish there are also the forms clamar, flama, pleno; Port. chamar, chama, cheio; Gal. chamar, chama, cheo; Ast. llamar, llama, llenu.
• Lat. acc. octo, noctem, multum > Lad. ocho, noche, muncho; Sp. ocho, noche, mucho; Port. oito, noite, muito; Gal. oito, noite, moito; Ast. ocho, nueche, munchu.

By the 16th century, the consonant system of Spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from neighboring Romance languages such as Portuguese and Catalan:

• Initial /f/, when it had evolved into a vacillating /h/, was lost in most words (although this etymological h- is preserved in spelling and in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects it is still aspirated in some words).
• The consonant written ‹u› or ‹v› (in Latin, this was [w], at the time of the merger it may have been a bilabial fricative /β/) merged with the consonant written ‹b› (a voiced bilabial plosive, /b/). In contemporary Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic ‹b› and ‹v›, excepting emphatic pronunciations that cannot be considered standard or natural.
• The voiced alveolar fricative /z/ which existed as a separate phoneme in medieval Spanish merged with its voiceless counterpart /s/. The phoneme which resulted from this merger is currently spelled s.
• The voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ merged with its voiceless counterpart /ʃ/, which evolved into the modern velar sound /x/ by the 17th century, now written with j, or g before e, i. Nevertheless, in most parts of Argentina and in Uruguay, y and ll have both evolved to /ʒ/ or /ʃ/.
• The voiced alveolar affricate /d͡z/ merged with its voiceless counterpart /t͡s/, which then developed into the interdental /θ/, now written z, or c before e, i. But in Andalusia, the Canary Islands and the Americas this sound merged with /s/ as well. See Ceceo, for further information.

The consonant system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Ladino and in Portuguese, neither of which underwent these shifts

Writing system

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 ‹ce› and ‹ci› , instead of following ‹cz› as they used to. The situation is similar for ‹ll›.^[111][112]

Thus, the Spanish alphabet has the following 29 letters:

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z.^[113]

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 ‹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 RAE 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).

Phonology

The phonemic inventory listed in the following table includes phonemes that are preserved only in some accents, other accents having merged them (such as yeísmo); these are marked with an asterisk (*). Sounds in parentheses are allophones. Where symbols appear in pairs, the symbol to the right represents a voiced consonant.

Lexical stress

Spanish is a syllable-timed language, so each syllable has the same duration regardless of stress.^[115][116] 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:^[117]

• 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".

An amusing example of the significance of intonation in Spanish is the phrase ¿Cómo "¿cómo como?"? ¡Como como como! (What do you mean, how do I eat? I eat the way I eat!).

Grammar

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

It is right-branching, uses prepositions, and usually, though not always, places adjectives after nouns - as most other Romance languages. Its syntax is generally Subject Verb Object, though variations are common. It is a pro-drop language (or null subject language), that is, it allows the deletion of pronouns which are pragmatically unnecessary, and is verb-framed.

See also

Local varieties

European Spanish

• Andalusian Spanish
• Canarian Spanish
• Castilian Spanish
• Castrapo (Galician Spanish)
• Murcian Spanish

American Spanish

• North American Spanish
• Central American Spanish
• Caribbean Spanish
• South American Spanish

Spanish in Africa

• Equatoguinean Spanish

Asia

• Spanish in the Philippines^[118]

References

1. ^ Spanish language total. Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 August 2009.
2. ^ Demografía de la lengua española (page 38), elcastellano.org
3. ^ "actaslengua.org". actaslengua.org. http://www.actaslengua.org/acta_conclusiones_lengua_espanola.asp?id=1. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
4. ^ krysstal.com, 5th International Congress on Spanish Language (la-moncloa.es), uis.edu, Antonio Molina, director of the Instituto Cervantes in 2006 (terranoticias.es, elmundo.es, fundeu.es), Luis María Anson of the Real Academia Española (elcultural.es), Mario Melgar of the México University (lllf.uam.es), Feu Rosa - Spanish in Mercosur (congresosdelalengua.es), eumed.net, babel-linguistics.com.
5. ^ ^{a b} ethnologue.org, sil.org, cia.gov (see "World" file), eldia.es (according to Ethnology (journal)), Encarta (Chinese 800 million, Spanish 358 million, English 350 million).
6. ^ krysstal.com/ Ethnologue (Mandarin Chinese: 845 mill. + 145 mill. L2, English: 328 mill. + 167 mill. L2, Spanish 329 mill. + 60 mill. L2, Hindi 182 mill. + 120 mill. L2)/ George Weber (Mandarin 1.12 billion, English 480 million, Spanish 320 million, Russian 285 million)/ IV Congreso Internacional de la Lengua Española (Álvaro Marchesi Secretario General of the OEI)/ cervantes.es (Carmen Caffarel president of Instituto Cervantes)/ elcastellano.org.
7. ^ "(SPANISH: a language of Spain)". ethnologue.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=spn. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
8. ^ "Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language". Oxford University Press. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-SPANISH.html. Retrieved 24 July 2008.
9. ^ Crow, John A. (2005). Spain: the root and the flower. University of California Press. p. 151. ISBN 0520244962. http://books.google.com/books?id=g2NKy8QCxw4C&pg=PA151&dq=Nebrija+first+spanish+grammar+Isabel&cd=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false. "...Which was the first grammar of any modern European tongue."
10. ^ Thomas, Hugh (2005). Rivers of Gold: the rise of the Spanish empire, from Columbus to Magellan. Random House Inc.. p. 78. ISBN 0812970555. http://books.google.com/books?id=b38f7b1WmOwC&pg=PA78&dq=Nebrija+first+spanish+grammar+Isabel&cd=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
11. ^ (in Spanish) (PDF) La lengua de Cervantes. Ministerio de la Presidencia de España. http://www.cepc.es/rap/Publicaciones/Revistas/2/REP_031-032_288.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-24.
12. ^ ^{a b} "UN 2009 estimate" (PDF). http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2008/wpp2008_text_tables.pdf. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
13. ^ Britannica Books of the years 2003 to 2009 es:Anexo:Hablantes de español como lengua materna en el 2003 (según el Britannica Book). Sources used by the Encyclopedia Britannica (Ethnologue -14th edition, Joshua Project 2000 —People’s List, U.S. Census Bureau.)^{[unreliable source?]}
14. ^ eurobarometer (2006), es:Anexo:Hablantes de español en la U.E. según el Eurobarómetro (2006) for Europe countries
15. ^ Spanish students for countries out of Europe according to Instituto Cervantes 06-07 (There aren't concrete sources about Spanish speakers as a second language except to Europe and Latin America countries).
16. ^ Demografía de la lengua española (page 28) to countries with official spanish status.
17. ^ CONAPO (2010).
18. ^ Population figure for 2008 from U.S. Population in 1990, 2000, and 2008, U.S. Census Bureau
19. ^ 34,559,894 legal hispanics older than 5 years old (US Census 2008)+ 8,300,000 illegal immigrants (Pew Hispanic Center 2008, impre.com, ecodiario.eleconomista.es. They aren't new generations of immigrants living in USA as many of the legal immigrants).
20. ^ Significant figure about the legal Hispanic population (46,943,613 from a total US population of 304,059,724) Census Bureau 2008
21. ^ I Acta Internacional de la Lengua Española (2007): noticias en latinoamericaexterior.com, Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española: elcastellano.org, José Ma. Ansón: noticias elcastellano.org, Jorge Ramos Avalos: univision.com, Vázquez Medel: casamerica.es.
22. ^ According to the U.S. census (fundacionsiglo.com fundacionsiglo.com): 3,600,000 in primary school, 3,220,000 in secondary school and 1,000,000 in the University
23. ^ INE, (1/1/2010)
24. ^ 89.0% speak Spanish as a first language (eurobarometer (2006))
25. ^ "DANE". DANE. http://www.dane.gov.co/reloj/reloj_animado.php. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
26. ^ "INDEC (2009)" (PDF). http://www.indec.mecon.ar/nuevaweb/cuadros/2/proyecyestimaciones_1950-2015.pdf. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
27. ^ "(May, 2010)". INE. http://www.ine.gov.ve/. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
28. ^ Ezio Quispe Fernández. "(2010)". INEI. http://www.inei.gob.pe/. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
29. ^ "INE (Chile - 2010)" (PDF). http://www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/demografia_y_vitales/proyecciones/Informes/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20InforP_T.pdf. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
30. ^ "(May, 2010)". INEC. http://www.inec.gov.ec/web/guest/inicio. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
31. ^ 50% of 733,000 foreigners in Brazil are from Mercosur (Page 32 ucm.es) + 78,505 spanish immigrants (INE (1/1/2009)).
32. ^ elcastellano.org, oei.org.co. More than 1 million of spanish students in the private school and almost 11 million estimated for 2010 in the public school (Instituto Cervantes).
33. ^ "(2010)". INE. http://www.ine.gov.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20410.HTM. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
34. ^ "INE". Ine-hn.org. http://www.ine-hn.org/. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
35. ^ According to the Morocco Census of 2004 (hcp.ma)
36. ^ "ethnologue.com". ethnologue.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=MA. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
37. ^ According to a survey made in 2005 by CIDOB (realinstitutoelcano.org, afapredesa.org). Another source says that there are between 4 and 7 million Spanish speakers in Morocco (Ammadi, 2002) educacion.es
38. ^ Census 2010 estimation (page 32)
39. ^ 1% of 44,010,619 (population of France older than 15 years in 2005). Source: Eurobarometer 2006. There are 179,678 immigrants from Spain according to INE (1/1/2009)
40. ^ 95,10% of the population speaks Spanish (U.S. Census Bureau)
41. ^ 59,017 immigrants from Spain (Spanish census 2001) + 48,637 immigrants from Colombia. Open Channels and Colombian consul (1999)
42. ^ Ethnologue. There are 2,532 immigrants from Spain accordind to INE (1/1/2009)
43. ^ 1,816,773 Spanish + 1,200,000 Spanish creole: Antonio Quilis "La lengua española en Filipinas", 1996 pag.234 cervantesvirtual.com, mepsyd.es (page 23), mepsyd.es (page 249), spanish-differences.com, aresprensa.com. The figure 2,900,000 Spanish speakers, we can find in "Pluricentric languages: differing norms in different nations" (page 45 by R.W.Thompson), or in sispain.org./ More than 2 million Spanish speakers and around 3 million with Chavacano speakers according to "Instituto Cervantes de Manila" (elcastellano.org)
44. ^ Britannica Book of the Year 1998 [1]. There are 103,063 immigrants from Spain according to INE (1/1/2009)
45. ^ "14,905 Spanish (Census 2001) + 75,000 from Ecuador". Mmrree.gov.ec. http://www.mmrree.gov.ec/mre/documentos/novedades/boletines/ano2003/julio/bol257.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
46. ^ "Equatorial Guinea census (2009)". Population-statistics.com. http://www.population-statistics.com/wg.php?x=&men=gpro&lng=es&dat=32&srt=pnan&col=dq&geo=-91. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
47. ^ Pages 28 and 23 in Demografía de la lengua española. 13,7% of the population speaks Spanish with native knowladge and other 74% as a second language cvc.cervantes.es.
48. ^ PMB Statistics factorhispano.net. Although Canada Census told about 345,345 people who speaks Spanish in 2006, Hispanic organizations claim about 520,260 Hispanics in 2001, and more than 700,000 in 2006 (hispanosencanada.ca, dialogos.ca), and currently there are near 1 million: (tlntv.com, broadcastdialogue.com).
49. ^ Spanish (census 2001)
50. ^ 1% of 8,598,982 (population of Belgium older than 15 years in 2005). Source: Eurobarometer 2006
51. ^ Sweden Census SCB (2002)
52. ^ Page 32 of the "Demogeafía de la lengua española". 104,000 according to Britannica Book of the Year 2003
53. ^ Page 32 of the "Demografía de la lengua española" + 33,913 students according to Anuario Instituto Cervantes 06-07
54. ^ Page 32 of "Demogeafía de la lengua española"
55. ^ students according to Anuario Instituto Cervantes 06-07
56. ^ Between 150,000 and 200,000 in Tinduf (aprendemas.com) + 48,000 in Wilaya of Oran (page 31 of Demografía de la lengua española)
57. ^ 50,000 sefardíes (Britannica Book of the Year 1998)[2] + 80,000 from Iberoamerica [3]
58. ^ Pages 34, 35 of the "Demografía de la lengua española".
59. ^ Centro Virtual Cervantes. "Britannica Book of the Year 1998". Cvc.cervantes.es. http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/anuario/anuario_99/otero/p03.htm#7. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
60. ^ "all-about-switzerland.info". all-about-switzerland.info. http://www.all-about-switzerland.info/swiss-population-languages.html. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
61. ^ Immigrants from Spanish speaking countries
62. ^ ^{a b} Page 32 of Demografía de la lengua española
63. ^ 35.4% speak Spanish as a first language www.iea.ad
64. ^ "www.iea.ad". www.iea.ad. http://www.iea.ad/cres/observatori/temes/llengua3trimestre2005.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
65. ^ New Zealand census (2006)
66. ^ Spanish residents in China (INE, 2009)
67. ^ Page 37 of the Demografía de la lengua española
68. ^ The Spanish 1970 census claims 16.648 Spanish speakers in Western Sahara ( [4]) but probably most of them were people born in Spain who left after the Moroccan annexation
69. ^ There are 2,397,380 immigrants from Spain and Latin America according to the page 37 of the "Demografía de la lengua española" (997,849 already counted)
70. ^ According to the Instituto Cervantes, there are 14 million of spanish students. But there are already counted sudents from U.S. (6,000,000) because it is considered the current 7,820,000 students, E.U (3,385,000) because they are considered in the eurobarometer figures (demografía del español (page 37), Brazil (1 mill.) with 11 million new students in the public schools, Morocco (58.382) and Philippines (20,492), Canada (92,853), Australia (33,913), Ivory Coast (235,806), Switzerland (14,420), Japan (60,000), Senegal (101.455), Occ. Sáhara (25,800), Norway (23,677), Russia (13,122) and China (12,835).
71. ^ "Instituto Cervantes 06-07" (PDF). http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/anuario/anuario_06-07/pdf/cifras.pdf. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
72. ^ "Most widely spoken Languages in the World". Nations Online. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/most_spoken_languages.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-27.
73. ^ CIA The World Factbook United States
74. ^ "Internet World Users by Language". Miniwatts Marketing Group. 2008. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm.
75. ^ CIA World Factbook — Gibraltar
76. ^ "Andorra — People". Andorra — People. MSN Encarta. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554662/Andorra.html#s3. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
77. ^ "Background Note: Andorra". U.S. Department of State: Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. January 2007. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3164.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
78. ^ BBC Education — Languages, Languages Across Europe — Spanish.
79. ^ "Switzerland's Four National Languages". all-about-switzerland.info. http://www.all-about-switzerland.info/swiss-population-languages.html. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
80. ^ Ethnologue – Paraguay(2000). Guaraní is also the most-spoken language in Paraguay by its native speakers.
81. ^ "Puerto Rico Elevates English". the New York Times. 29 January 1993. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1D8163AF93AA15752C0A965958260&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fE%2fEnglish%20Language. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
82. ^ "Population Census 2000, Major Findings" (PDF). Central Statistical Office, Ministry of Budget Management, Belize. 2000. Archived from the original on 2007-06-21. http://web.archive.org/web/20070621080522/http://www.cso.gov.bz/publications/MF2000.pdf. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
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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 76 (1): 92–109, doi:10.2307/417394, http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/eddingtond/STRESS.pdf
• Harris, James (1967), "Sound Change in Spanish and the Theory of Markedness", Language 45 (3): 538–552
• 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 – BBC Languages
• Spanish evolution from Latin
• Different Spanish Accents Demonstrated Short educational videos.
• Spanish phrasebook on WikiTravel

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