What do we mean by Spanish?

Today, Spanish is an official language of Spain, most Latin American countries, and Equatorial Guinea; 21 nations speak it as their primary language. Spanish is also one of six official languages of the United Nations. Mexico (103 million speakers) has the world’s largest Spanishspeaking population. Spanish is the second most-widely spoken language in the United States and the most popular studied foreign language in U.S. schools and universities. Global internet usage statistics for 2007 show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the internet, after English and Chinese. Spanish has been described as the third most influential language in the world (after English and French)

Naming, origin

Spaniards tend to call this language español (Spanish) when contrasting it with languages of other states, such as French and English, but call it castellano (Castilian), that is, the language of the Castile region, when contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician (gallego; native name: galego), Basque (euskara) and Catalan (catalán; native name: català) (known as Valencian in the Valencian Community). This reasoning also holds true for the language’s preferred name in some Hispanic American countries. 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 other 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 other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities…”

The name castellano is, however, widely used for the language as a whole in Latin America.

Some Spanish speakers consider castellano a generic term with no political or ideological links, much as “Spanish” is in English. Often Latin Americans use it to differentiate their own variety of Spanish as opposed to the variety of Spanish spoken in Spain, or variety of Spanish which is considered as standard in the region.

Classification and related languages

Spanish is closely related to the other West Iberian Romance languages: Asturian (asturianu), Galician (galego), Ladino (dzhudezmo/spanyol/kasteyano), and Portuguese (português). Catalan, an East Iberian language which exhibits many Gallo-Romance traits, is more similar to the neighbouring Occitan language (occitan) than to Spanish, or indeed than Spanish and Portuguese are to each other. Spanish and Portuguese share similar grammars and a majority of vocabulary 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%.See Differences between Spanish and Portuguese for further information.

Vocabulary comparison

Spanish and Italian share a very similar phonological system and do not differ very much in grammar. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%. As a result, Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to various degrees. The lexical similarity with Portuguese is even greater, 89%, but the vagaries of Portuguese pronunciation make it less easily understood by Hispanophones than Italian. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or Romanian is even lower (lexical similarity being respectively 75% and 71%): comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is as low as an estimated 45% – the same as of 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.

• Spanish Executive Summary
• What do we mean by Spanish?
• Spanish Language History
• Spanish Language Geographic distribution
• Spanish Language Variations
• Spanish Language Writing system
• Spanish Sounds
• Spanish Grammar
• Spanish Samples Phrases
• Spanish Language Discipline and Institutions
• Why learn Spanish ?
• How difficult is Spanish to Learn?