About Spanish | Learning Page

Spanish is one of the major languages in the world. It is also known as Castillan, after the dialect that gave birth to modern Spanish.

Spanish is spoken by more than 400 million native speakers, and 100 million second language speakers. Spanish can well be the third most spoken language in the world by the number of people. It is the official language of Spain and most of the Latin American countries.

Spanish is an official language in Spain, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, and Puerto Rico. The largest country in terms of Spanish speakers is Mexico (with more than 100 million people), followed by Colombia, Spain, and Argentina. The United States represents the fifth largest country by number of Spanish speakers (more than 40 million Hispanics). Spanish is also an official language in many international organizations, such as the European Union and the United Nations.

In the Americas, Spanish is also spoken in Belize and Brazil. In Asia, Spanish used to be spoken in Philippines, but today it is no longer used. In Africa, Spanish is spoken in the Canary Islands and in the Equatorial Guinea. Spanish is also spoken in Oceania (Easter Island and Australia).

History of the Spanish Language

Spanish belongs to the Romance group in the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European language family. As any other Romance language, Spanish has its origins in Vulgar Latin, a group of dialecs spoken by traders and farmers during the Roman Enpire. The Spanish language is estimated to have emerged in the 12th century, even though Spanish had been spoken before that.

Spanish is derived from the rustic Latin of Southern Cantabria (Castile Kingdom in northern Spain) ) as a provincial dialect, and by the 14th century, Spanish progressed to Portugal, Navarre, and Aragon. The modern Spanish nation-state was born in 1479 with the unificationof Castile and Aragon. Starting with the 16th century, Spanish began to spread in the Spanish colonies as well and was a major diplomatic language until the 18th century. Spanish spread not only to the Latin American continent but also to Philippines and the coast of North America.

The first Spanish dictionary was published in 1611, by Sebastian de Covarrubias. In 1713, the Spanish Academy was founded with the objective of designing criteria for the acceptance of neologisms and international words. By that time, however, Spanish had already started borrowing words from other languages, such as Italian (e.g. "piano" and "medalla"), Gallic, Quechua, Guarani, and Nahuatl. In the following years, the Spanish grammar was formalized and Hispanic literature blossomed.

The history of the Spanish language is divided in five main periods: the Hispano-Romance Period (5th to 10th century), the old Spanish Period (10th to mid-13th century), the Middle Spanish Period (mid-13th to 15th century), the Classical Spanish Period (1500-1650) and the Modern Spanish Period (1650 to present).

Spanish has also borrowed words from pre-Latin languages, such as Greek, Basque, and Celtic, from Germanic languages (with the invasion of Visigoths in the 5th century), the Arabic language (during the Muslim conquest), the French language (with the French ecclesiastics nd pilgrims beginning with the 11th century), and from the Italian langauge (with the Aragonese influence in Italy and the spread of Italian poetry in Spain).

The Spanish Language in Latin America

Spanish arrived in Latin America in late 1400s, with the arrival of the explorer Cristobal Colon and other colonizers. At that time, the Latin American continent had hundreds of languages and dialects. The two most important languages were the Mexican Nahuatl (spoken by the Aztecs) and the Peruvian Quechua (spoken by the Incas). In the Iberian Peninsula, Spanish was already established.

In Latin America, Spanish underwent a process of hispanization, where there was a mutual exchange of culture and linguistics between the colonized and the colonizes. The Catholic Church played a key role in the spread of Spanish; Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries founded schools where they taught children and teenagers. There was also a slow but strict administrative imposition of the Spanish language.

American Spanish pronunciation is most similar to Andalusian Spanish, as most Spanish explorers started from Seville in Andalucia.

Spanish Language Websites

BePolyglot is an online comparative Language Tool for the Romance Languages, including grammar, vocabulary, and conversation.

Spanish Language at About.com offers a variety of resources and tools for learning Spanish. It includes such useful links as:

(a) How to Expand Your Vocabulary: Spanish word similiarities, false friends in Spanish, how to expand your vocabulary in Spanish, and a series of Spanish word categories. The site also provides various fun tools, such as Christmas vocabulary quiz for Spanish students, crossword puzzles in Spanish, Hangman for Spanish students, and Spanish palindromes.

(b) Let's Get Impersonal: explanation about the impersonal verb in Spanish

(c) Words that Get Off to a Bad Start: examples of Spanish words that start with "mal."

(d) Spanish Around the House: common Spanish words for places and items in the house

(e) Turning Adjectives into Adverbs: explains how to turn Spanish adjectives by adding the Spanish adverb termination "mente."

Spanish Language at Wikipedia is a comprehensive presentation of the Spanish language, including the classification and related languages to Spanish, the history of Spanish, the geographic distribution of Spanish across the world, the number of Spanish speakers by country, the variations of the Spanish language, the Spanish writing system, and the Spanish grammar.

BBC Languages - Learn Spanish includes a series of helpful resources for learning Spanish. The website includes printable Spanish holiday phrases with audio in Spanish, a self-contained online course, and other Spanish language resources for intermediate speakers of Spanish, such as Spanish crosswords, an audio guide to Spanish slang, and Soanish audio-based activities.

Spanish Language Exercises is a Spanish language website hosted by Ursinus College. It includes self-check exercises of Spanish grammar and vocabulary, as well as some videos with Spanish conversations.

Don Quijote - Spanish Language is a rich resource for learning Spanish, including Spanish words, Spanish phrases, Spanish Verb Conjugator, Spanish games, jokes in Spanish, Spanish lyrics, Spanish sayings, Spanish literature, Spanish news, the Spanish alphabet, numbers in Spanish, and common errors in Spanish.

Learn Spanish is an Online Free Tutorial for learning how to speak Spanish. It includes online Spanish lessons, Spanish quizzes and tests, and audio drills with Spanish native speakers. It also includes premium Spanish resources for $9.95/month, which gives access to additional Spanish grammar tests and exercises and Spanish vocabulary.

Spanish Language Drills, a Spanish website hosted by Columbia University, includes 20 Spanish grammar tests.

Spanish Words includes a list of Spanish Words with Pronunciation, dictionaries, and Spanish translation.

Cactus Language offers Spanish courses for learning Spanish in various locations of the Latin America and Europe.

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