Countries That Speak Spanish

We explain which countries speak Spanish and what the characteristics of this language are. In addition, we tell you the history of the Spanish language.

What countries speak Spanish?

Spanish or Castilian It is a Romance language of European origin, considered the second most spoken language on the planet judging by its number of native speakers, estimated at 471 million people (6.3% of the world total). In addition, it is the third language in terms of international importance (after English and French).

The Spanish language It is the official language of 21 countries, the vast majority of which are Hispanic American (given that 90% of the speakers of this language reside in the American continent). The reason for this is the colonial expansion of the Spanish Empire towards the so-called New World starting in the 16th century, which resulted in the conquest of the Native American peoples and the establishment of a new Spanish-speaking society.

There are different academic organizations in charge of documenting and studying the use of the Spanish language, the best known is the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), and whose core entity is the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE) based in Madrid, Spain . Likewise, Spanish is part of the official languages ​​of numerous international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) , among many others.

See also: Countries that speak Portuguese

History of the Spanish language

Like the other Romance languages, Spanish comes from spoken or vulgar Latin, which was the historical derivative of ancient Latin imposed by the Romans between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC. C. to the Celtic, Iberian and Celtiberian peoples who inhabited the Iberian Peninsula.

This process reduced the pre-Roman languages ​​to the rural periphery, installing Latin as the administrative language, in what was thereafter known as the Roman province of Hispania. Those who lived in that province were called in Latin hispaniolus (roughly equivalent to “Hispanic”).

The fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. C., however, did not mean a return to the aboriginal languages, but rather the isolation of the Vulgar Latin spoken in the central regions of Hispania, which later gave birth to the Hispanic Romance languages. But In the 8th century, Muslim invaders from Africa colonized a good part of the Iberian Peninsula and they installed the state of al-Andalus and with it the Arabic and Berber languages, whose sustained influence over time gave rise to Mozarabic: a hybrid form of Hispanic Romance and Arabic language.

At the same time, In the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, new Christian kingdoms were formed and in each one Vulgar Latin took a slightly different direction. Thus new Hispanic proto-languages ​​derived from Latin were born: the Catalan dialect, Navarrese-Aragonese, Castilian, Asturian-Leonese and Galician-Portuguese.

These young languages ​​began a slow process of linguistic assimilation starting in the 11th century, in which The Castilian Romance dialect would, however, have a notable predominance. The latter is due to the role that the kingdom of Castile played in the process of the Reconquista, that is, the expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula.

Already in the 13th century, medieval Castilian had been formed as a standardized language thanks to the efforts of King Alfonso

During his reign, the Toledo School of Translators was institutionalized, the central institution of a true cultural renaissance that incorporated the Jewish and Muslim heritage of the region into Christian culture, and where the orthographic normalization of Spanish began. Consequently, The artistic, scientific and legal works of the kingdom were written directly in Castilian instead of Latin which increased the prestige and importance of what was then called “Alfonsino Castilian”.

By the 15th century, the kingdom of Castile had become the most influential in the Iberian Peninsula after the political union with the kingdom of Aragon and the reconquest of Granada from Muslim hands. This allowed Spanish to become the de facto common language of the region.

In 1492 Antonio de Nebrija published his Spanish grammarthe first grammatical treatise of the Spanish language, the same year that Columbus arrived on the American continent. It is estimated that in the middle of the 16th century, 80% of the inhabitants of the newborn Spanish empire already spoke the Castilian language.

The colonization of America in the coming centuries added a large number of speakers of the language as colonial society was consolidated and Aboriginal languages ​​were displaced. Even so, contact with aboriginal languages ​​and the African contributions of slaves from colonial plantations laid the foundations for the emergence of new forms of American Spanish immensely diverse and, from the 19th century onwards, autonomous in political, aesthetic and social matters.

Characteristics of Spanish

Broadly speaking, Spanish is characterized by the following:

• It is an Indo-European language of the Romance family, related to Italian, French, Portuguese and many others, but also endowed with an important contribution from the medieval Arabic language. In its American variant, in addition, the contribution of indigenous and African languages ​​from the colonial era must be added.
• It has a very different morphology from the original Latin an inflectional grammar and an alphabet with five vowel phonemes (a, e, i, o, u) and 17 consonant phonemes. The letter eñe (ñ) is unique and exclusive to the Spanish language.
• Given its enormous geographical expansion since the 16th century, Spanish is a language of immense diversity and richness, which It has different dialect variants in Europe, America, Africa and Oceania.
• It is considered an expanding language whose total number of speakers is increasing. At the same time, it is a language in disintegration, which possibly in the distant future will give rise to a set of Hispanic languages.

Countries that speak Spanish

Spanish is a language spoken in America, Europe, Africa and Oceania, with a total of speakers close to 580 million people, whether as an official, co-official or minority language.

Variants and dialects of Spanish

The Spanish language is extremely diverse, given its immense geographical diffusion, and can be classified into different dialects or geographical variants, each one endowed with particular features and its own history:

Peninsular Spanish. The Spanish of Spain is noticeably different from the rest of the variants, having a stronger and more consonant pronunciation, which distinguishes between the pronunciation of “z” and “yes“, “b” and “v“, and sometimes “ll” and “and”. In addition, it is a variant of Spanish that uses the personal pronoun youomitted entirely in the American variant. This variant also covers different dialects, such as:

• Northern dialects such as Aragonese, Churro, Leonese, Riojan, Cantabrian or the dialect of Valencia and the dialect of Catalonia.
• Southern dialects such as Andalusian, Llanito, Extremadura, Madrid, La Mancha or Murcia.

African Spanish. Spanish in Africa is a minority language, more common as a second language, and is generally governed by peninsular standards, although it presents minor variations due to contact with Arabic, Berber and other local languages. The great exception is the Canarian dialect, intermediate between the American variant and the peninsular one. The following are part of these variants:

• The Canarian dialect typical of the Canary Islands off the African coast, is governed by peninsular standards but presents notable similarities with the American variant.
• The Sahrawi dialect typical of Western Sahara, is strongly influenced by Arabic dialects, especially Hassania. Much of its vocabulary is considered archaic in the peninsular variant.
• The Equatorial Guinean dialect located on the west-central coast of Africa, presents autonomous properties such as the absence of multiple vibrants (the “rr“, for example), a marked separation of one word from another and the guttural pronunciation of the “r”.

American Spanish. The Spanish of America is the richest variant of Spanish that exists, given that the colonial states founded by Spain in the region starred in their own separate stories, in strong conditions of isolation for centuries. In general, the American variants are softer, vocalic and faster. In none of them is the pronoun used younor is there a distinction between the elaboration of the “b” and the “v”, or the “z” and the “s”, and it also presents a marked yeism (predominance of the “y” over the “ll”). The main dialects of the region are:

• The Mexican dialect typical of the Mexican territory, covers a group of quite differentiated national dialects, such as the Spanish of the Yucatan Peninsula, influenced by the Mayan language and with a Caribbean sound; northern Spanish, strongly influenced by English; and Altiplano Spanish, the Mexican variant that constitutes the cultured standard issued from the capital. The latter is often associated internationally with “neutral” Spanish, given its lighter intonation, full pronunciation of consonants, and emphatic pronunciation of certain consonants, such as “x” (pronounced as “ks”: “ksenophobia“).
• The Caribbean dialect which brings together the dialects of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Panama and the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, is a variant strongly influenced by Andalusian Spanish and that of the Canary Islands, given that the sailors of the colonial era usually came from these regions. It also has a notable African influence and, to a lesser extent, that of the native peoples, especially the Tainos, as well as an important cultural penetration of the English language in recent times. These are very open dialects, very fast and have little emphasis on the pronunciation of consonants, especially the “j” and the “yes” endings. The latter are in many cases completely omitted.
• The Central American dialect which includes the different variants of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize and the Mexican State of Chiapas. These are generally variants with voseo (substitution of “tú” for “vos”) and similarities with Caribbean Spanish in terms of the aspiration of the “yes” endings, as well as a marked pronunciation of the simple vibrants “r“and multiple”rr”.
• The Amazonian dialect also called jungle Spanish, is typical of the regions of the Amazon, in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. They are variants strongly influenced by local indigenous languages, and which result in a closed pronunciation, tending towards the low, with the elimination of some intermediate vowels and pronunciation of the “j“inside sucked like a”F”: Saint Fan rather Saint JuanFor example.
• The Andean dialect also called mountain either pastusois typical of the central Andes region, in regions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. It is a very faithful variant of classic Spanish, despite the strong influences of Quechua, Aymara and other local native languages. His pronunciation of “yes” is strong, unlike most American dialects, and presents in some regions important phonetic changes, such as the fricative pronunciation of “rr” (similar to “and“).
• The southern dialect typical of the south of the continent, that is, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, is a macrodialect that shows influences from Guaraní and other aboriginal languages, but also a strong Italian imprint in the Río de la Plata region. The latter allows the existence of a River Plate subvariant, typical of the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, for example. It is a voseante variant (“tú” is replaced by “vos”), yeísta (with tense pronunciation) and with a tendency to lengthen stressed vowels. In the case of the River Plate native, his pronunciation of “and” as “sh”.
• The Chilean dialect, rare bird On the continent, it is typical of Chile only. It is a variant of very own features, such as the continuous reiteration of personal and clitic pronouns (“I'm going to leave”, for example), with a dominant and socially accepted queism, and a different conjugation of the imperative (“anda” instead of “see”, or “do” instead of “do”). There is also voseo in some specific regions, accompanied by a very different conjugation of the verb: “caminabai” instead of “caminabas”, for example, or “comíai” instead of “comías”.
• The American dialect that is, the Spanish spoken in the United States, tends to be a mixture of Mexican, Caribbean, Central American and South American variants, due to the multiple origins of Latin American migrants in the country. However, it is a Spanish that is highly hybridized with English, prone to “Spanglish”, barbarisms and Anglo-Saxon syntactic constructions.

Filipino Spanish. The only Asian variant of the Spanish language that exists, it is spoken in the Philippines and is characterized by its Visayan linguistic roots, Tagalog and other Filipino dialects.

Spanish or Castilian?

Currently, The terms “Spanish” and “Castilian” to refer to the language are accepted as synonyms. There is no arguable linguistic difference between one and the other, nor motivations to choose between the two, other than political or historical. Thus, in different countries they speak either “Castilian” or “Spanish”, without there really being a practical difference.

The term “Castilian”, however, allows a greater margin of ambiguity and uncertainty, which is why the Academies of the Spanish Language recommend the use of “Spanish” instead. The medieval Castilian that gave rise to Spanish is, ultimately, different from the Castilian dialect spoken today in the Spanish region of Castile, and in international terms “Spanish” is much more understandable, since in this way it is calls the language in other languages: spanish, spanish, english.

Continue with: Countries that speak French

References

• “History of the Spanish language” on Wikipedia.
• “Controversy over the name of the Spanish language” on Wikipedia.
• “Spanish” in the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts of the Royal Spanish Academy.
• “The History and Origin of Spanish Language” at Homeschool Spanish Academy.
• “Spanish Language (Español)” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.