Spanish language

Spanish
Castilian
español, castellano
Pronunciation	[espaˈɲol], [kasteˈʎano]
Region	Spain, Hispanic America, Equatorial Guinea (see below)
Native speakers	410 million (2010) L2 speakers: 90 million (no date)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Ibero-Romance West-Iberian Castilian languages Spanish
Early forms	Old Spanish Spanish
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet) Spanish Braille
Signed forms	Signed Spanish (Mexico, Spain, & presumably elsewhere)
Official status
Official language in	20 countries Argentina Bolivia Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Chile Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Spain Uruguay Venezuela 1 dependent entity Puerto Rico Significant minority Andorra Belize Gibraltar United States International Organisations: United Nations African Union 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
Glottolog	stan1288
Linguasphere	51-AAA-b
Spanish is sole official language at the national level   Spanish is a co-official language

Spanish (ⁱ/ˈspænɪʃ/, español), also called Castilian (ⁱ/kæˈstɪliən/, <phonos file="es_castellano_001.ogg">castellano</phonos>), is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native-speakers across the world.

Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of common Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. It was first documented in central-northern Iberia in the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania and the Philippines.

From its beginnings, Spanish vocabulary was influenced by its contact with Basque, as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages, and later it absorbed many Arabic words during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. It also adopted words from non-Iberian languages, particularly the Romance languages Occitan, French, Italian and Sardinian, as well as from Nahuatl and other Indigenous languages of the Americas.

Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and it is used as an official language by the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Union of South American Nations, among many other international organizations.

Estimated number of speakers

It is estimated that more than 400 million people speak Spanish as a native language, which qualifies it as second on the lists of languages by number of native speakers. There are an estimated 470 million Spanish speakers with native competence and 559 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language, including speakers with limited competence and more than 21 million students of Spanish as a foreign language. It is the third language by total speakers behind Mandarin and English.

Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, and 19 countries in the Americas. Speakers in the Western Hemisphere total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the mother tongue of 8% of the population, with an additional 7% speaking it as a second language. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States. In 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over, 38 million speak Spanish at home.

Names of the language

Main article: Names given to the Spanish language

Geographical distribution of the preferential use of the terms castellano (Castilian), in red, vs. español (Spanish), in blue.

In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called castellano (Castilian) as well as español (Spanish), the language of the region of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque and Catalan.

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 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 as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...

The Spanish Royal Academy, on the other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications but from 1713 to 1923 called the language castellano.

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.

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'. Other authorities attribute it to a supposed mediaeval Latin *hispaniōne, with the same meaning.

History

Main article: History of the Spanish language

A page of Cantar de Mio Cid, the oldest preserved Spanish epic poem, in medieval Spanish.

The Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin (colloquial Latin), which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 210 BC. Previously, several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages)—unrelated to Latin, and some of them unrelated even to Indo-European—were spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Basque (still spoken today), Iberian, Celtiberian and Celtic. Traces of Basque especially can be found in the Spanish vocabulary today, mainly in place names.

The first documents to record what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century (see Glosas Emilianenses). Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages—Navarro-Aragonese, Leonese, Aragonese, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, Mirandese, Occitan, Gascon, and later, French and Italian. Spanish also borrowed a considerable number of words from Basque and Arabic, as well as from Germanic languages through the migration of tribes and a period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church.

Local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish in the north of Iberia, in an area defined by Álava, Cantabria, Burgos, Soria and La Rioja. The dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo, where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century. In this formative stage, Spanish (Castilian) developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese, and, according to some authors, 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 the Arabic of Al-Andalus, much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic-derived words, make up around 8% of the language today). The written standard for this new language began to be developed in the cities of Toledo, in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid, from the 1570s.

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	Ladino	Aragonese	Asturian	Galician	Portuguese	Catalan	Gascon / Occitan	French	Sardinian	Italian	Romanian	English
petra	piedra	piedra (or pyedra)	piedra	piedra	pedra	pedra	pedra	pedra/pèira	pierre	perda	pietra	piatrǎ	'stone'
terra	tierra	tierra (or tyerra)	tierra	tierra	terra	terra	terra	tèrra	terre	terra	terra	țară	'land'
moritur	muere	muere	muere	muerre	morre	morre	mor	morís	meurt	mòrit	muore	moare	'dies (v.)'
mortem	muerte	muerte	muerte	muerte	morte	morte	mort	mòrt	mort	mòrti	morte	moarte	'death'

Chronological map showing linguistic evolution in southwest Europe

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, with some exceptions in Caribbean Spanish.

Peculiar to Spanish (as well as to the neighboring Gascon dialect of Occitan, and attributed 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. Because of borrowings from Latin and from neighboring Romance languages, there are many f-/h-doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both Spanish for "deep", but fondo means "bottom" while hondo means "deep"); hacer (Spanish for "to make") is the root word of satisfacer (Spanish for "to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is the root word of satisfecho (Spanish for "satisfied").

Compare the examples in the following table:

Latin	Spanish	Ladino	Aragonese	Asturian	Galician	Portuguese	Catalan	Gascon / Occitan	French	Sardinian	Italian	Romanian	English
filium	hijo	fijo (or ijo)	fillo	fíu	fillo	filho	fill	filh/hilh	fils	fillu	figlio	fiu	'son'
facere	hacer	fazer	fer	facer	facer	fazer	fer	far/faire/har (or hèr)	faire	fairi	fare	a face	'to do'
febrem	fiebre	fiebre	fiebre	fiebre	febre	febre	febre	fèbre/frèbe/hrèbe (or herèbe)	fièvre	(calentura)	febbre	febră	'fever'
focum	fuego	fuego	fuego	fueu	fogo	fogo	foc	fuòc/fòc/huèc	feu	fogu	fuoco	foc	'fire'

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

Latin	Spanish	Ladino	Aragonese	Asturian	Galician	Portuguese	Catalan	Gascon / Occitan	French	Sardinian	Italian	Romanian	English
clāvem	llave/clave	clave	clau	llave	chave	chave/clave	clau	clau	clé	crai	chiave	cheie	'key'
flamma	llama/flama	flama	flama	flama	chama	chama/flama	flama	flama	flamme	framma	fiamma	flamă	'flame'
plēnum	lleno/pleno	pleno	plen	llenu	cheo	cheio/pleno	ple	plen	plein	prenu	pieno	plin	'plenty,full'
octō	ocho	ocho	güeito	ocho/oito	oito	oito	vuit/huit	uèch/uòch/uèit	huit	otu	otto	opt	'eight'
multum	mucho muy	muncho muy	muito mui	munchu mui	moito moi	muito mui (arch.)	molt	molt (arch.)	moult (arch.)	(meda)	molto	mult	'much, very, many'

Antonio de Nebrija, author of Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar of modern European languages.

In the 15th and 16th 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 (Modern development of the Old Spanish sibilants) 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. 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. In his introduction to the grammar, dated August 18, 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."

From the sixteenth century onwards, the language was taken to America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America. 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").

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.

Grammar

Main article: Spanish grammar

Miguel de Cervantes author of Don Quixote, considered the first modern European novel.

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).

Subject/verb inversion is not required in questions, and thus the recognition of declarative or interrogative may depend entirely on intonation.

Phonology

Main article: Spanish phonology

Segmental phonology

Spanish vowel chart, from Ladefoged & Johnson (2010:227)

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, and one or two (depending on the dialect) lateral phoneme(s), 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/, /ɡ/, and sometimes /ʝ/—which alternate between approximant and plosive allophones depending on the environment; and (5) a phonemic distinction between the "tapped" and "trilled" r-sounds (single ⟨r⟩ and double ⟨rr⟩ 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 /ɡ/ 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 approximant pronunciations.

Consonant phonemes

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

Prosody

Spanish is classified by its rhythm as a syllable-timed language: each syllable has approximately the same duration regardless of stress.

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. There are no syntactic markers to distinguish between questions and statements and thus, the recognition of declarative or interrogative depends 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:

• In words that end with a vowel, stress most often falls on the penultimate syllable.
• In words that end with a consonant, stress most often falls on the last syllable, with the following exceptions: The grammatical endings -n (for third-person-plural of verbs) and -s (whether for plural of nouns and adjectives or for second-person-singular of verbs) do not change the location of stress. Thus, regular verbs ending with -n and the great majority of words ending with -s are stressed on the penult. Although a significant number of nouns and adjectives ending with -n are also stressed on the penult (joven, virgen, mitin), the great majority of nouns and adjectives ending with -n are stressed on their last syllable (capitán, almacén, jardín, corazón).
• Preantepenultimate stress (stress on the fourth-to-last syllable) occurs rarely, only on verbs with clitic pronouns attached (guardándoselos 'saving them for him/her/them').

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

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. Exceptions to those rules cause an acute accent mark to appear over the stressed syllable.

Geographical distribution

See also: Hispanophone

Official or co-official language

1,000,000+

100,000+

20,000+

Active learning of Spanish.

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.

Spanish is the third most spoken language by total number of speakers (after Mandarin and English). Internet usage statistics for 2007 show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the Internet, after English and Mandarin.

Europe

Percentage of people who self reportedly know enough Spanish to hold a conversation, in the EU, 2005

  Native country

  More than 8.99%

  Between 4% and 8.99%

  Between 1% and 3.99%

  Less than 1%

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, international language. It is also commonly spoken in Andorra, although Catalan is the official language.

Spanish is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland which had a massive influx of Spanish migrants in the 20th century, Spanish is the native language of 2.2% of the population.

The Americas

Hispanic America

Main article: Spanish language in the Americas

Most Spanish speakers are in Hispanic America; of all countries with a majority of Spanish speakers, only Spain and Equatorial Guinea are outside the Americas. Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure—of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official with Quechua, Aymara, Guarani, and 34 other languages), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní), Peru (co-official with Quechua, Aymara, and "the other indigenous languages"), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is co-official with English in Puerto Rico.

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. 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.

Due to their proximity to Spanish-speaking countries, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil have implemented Spanish language teaching into their education systems. The Trinidad government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.

United States

Main article: Spanish language in the United States

See also: New Mexican Spanish

Spanish spoken in the United States. Darker shades of green indicate higher percentages of Spanish speakers.

According to 2006 census data, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin; 38.3 million people, 13 percent, of the population over five years old speak Spanish at home. The Spanish language has a long history and presence in the United States due to historic Spanish and later, Mexican administration over territories now forming the southwestern states as well as Florida, which was Spanish territory until 1821.

Spanish is by far the most common second language spoken and taught in the country, and with over 50 million total speakers, the United States is now the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world after Mexico. While English is the de facto official language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico. The language also has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, and Phoenix; as well as more recently, Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th and 21st century immigration.

Africa

Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, writer and journalist.

In Africa, Spanish is official (along with Portuguese and French) in Equatorial Guinea, 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.

Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in North Africa, which include the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the Plazas de soberanía, and the Canary Islands archipelago (population 2,000,000), located some 100 km off the northwest coast of mainland Africa.

Within Northern Morocco, a former Spanish protectorate that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish as a second language, while Arabic is the de jure official language. A small number of Moroccan Jews also speak the Sephardic Spanish dialect Haketia (related to the Ladino dialect spoken in Israel). Spanish is spoken by some small communities in 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.

In Western Sahara, formerly Spanish Sahara, Spanish was officially spoken during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today, Spanish in this disputed territory is maintained by populations of Sahrawi nomads numbering about 500,000 people, and is de facto official alongside Arabic in the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, although this entity receives limited international recognition.

Asia-Pacific

See also: Romance-speaking Asia and Spanish language in the Philippines

Juan Luna, José Rizal and La solidaridad newspaper (Ilustrados)

Spanish is present on Easter Island, as it was annexed as a Chilean province in 1888.

Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish rule in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization (1565–1898), 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 education system with Spanish as the medium of instruction. This increased use of Spanish throughout the islands led to the formation of a class of Spanish-speaking intellectuals called the Ilustrados. However, Spanish was never spoken by the majority of the population.

Despite American administration after the defeat of Spain in the Spanish–American War in 1898, the usage of Spanish continued in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American rule. Gradually, however, the American government began increasingly promoting the use of English, and it characterized Spanish as a negative influence of the past. Eventually, by the 1920s, English became the primary language of administration and education. But despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines when it became independent in 1946, alongside English and Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog.

Early flag of the Filipino revolutionaries ("Long live the Philippine Republic!"). The first two constitutions were written in Spanish.

Spanish was removed from official status in 1973 under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, but regained its status as an official language two months later under Presidential Decree No. 155, dated 15 March 1973. It remained an official language until 1987, with the ratification of the present constitution, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language. In 2010, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo encouraged the reintroduction of Spanish-language teaching in the Philippine education system. But by 2012, the number of secondary schools at which the language was either a compulsory subject or an elective had become very limited. Today, despite government promotions of Spanish, less than 0.5% of the population report being able to speak the language proficiently. Estimates indicate that while around 3 million people can speak Spanish with varying degrees of competency, only around 439 thousand people can speak the language at a native level. Aside from standard Spanish, a Spanish-based creole language—Chavacano—developed in the southern Philippines. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish. Speakers of the Zamboangueño variety of Chavacano were numbered about 360,000 in the 2000 census. The local languages of the Philippines also retain some Spanish influence, with many words being derived from Mexican Spanish, owing to the control of the islands by Spain through Mexico City until 1821, and then directly from Madrid until 1898.

Spanish was also used by the colonial governments and educated classes in the former Spanish East Indies, consisting of modern-day Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and Micronesia, in addition to the Philippines. Spanish loan words are present in the local languages of these territories as a legacy of colonial rule. Today, Spanish is not spoken officially in any of these former Spanish territories.

Spanish speakers by country

The following table shows the number of Spanish speakers in some 79 countries.

Country	Population	Spanish as a native language speakers	Native speakers or very good speakers as a second language	Total number of Spanish speakers (including second language speakers)
Mexico	122,273,473	113,347,509 (92.7%)	120,439,371 (98.5%)
United States	321,442,019	39,254,342 (13.1%)	41,343,921 (82% of the 54.1 mill. Hispanics + 2.8 mill. non Hispanics)	52,000,000 (including 7.8 million students and some of the 9 million undocumented Hispanics not accounted by the Census)
Colombia	48,484,000	47,634,000 (850,000 with other mother tongue)	48,096,128 (99.2%)
Spain	46,600,949	38,212,778 (82%)	46,041,738 (98.8%)
Argentina	43,590,368	39,944,098 (3,646,270 with other mother tongue)	43,328,826 (99.4%)
Venezuela	31,028,637	29,930,393 (1,098,244 with other mother tongue)	30,656,293 (98.8%)
Peru	31,488,625	26,481,934 (84.1%)	27,269,149 (86.6%)
Chile	18,191,884	17,910,284 (281,600 with other mother tongue)	18,064,541 (99.3%)
Ecuador	16,158,000	13,500,000	15,850,998 (98.1%)
Guatemala	16,176,133	9,705,680 (60%)	13,976,179 (86.4%)
Brazil	205,325,000	460,018	460,018	12,460,018
Cuba	11,390,000	11,390,000	11,321,660 (99.4%)
Dominican Republic	10,528,000	9,300,000	10,485,888 (99.6%)
Bolivia	10,958,089	6,355,692 (58%)	9,632,160 (87.9%)
Honduras	8,721,014	8,513,264 (207,750 with other mother tongue)	8,633,804 (99.0%)
France	65,635,000	477,564 (1% of 47,756,439)	1,910,258 (4% of 47,756,439)	6,685,901 (14% of 47,756,439)
El Salvador	6,520,675	6,090,000	6,501,113 (99.7%)
Nicaragua	6,042,000	5,551,876 (490,124 with other mother tongue)	5,860,740 (97.0%)
Italy	60,795,612		1,037,248 (2% of 51,862,391)	5,704,863 (11% of 51,862,391)
Costa Rica	4,890,379	4,806,069 (84,310 with other mother tongue)	4,851,256 (99.2%)
Paraguay	6,854,536	3,907,086 (57%)	4,763,903 (69.5%)
Uruguay	3,480,222	3,330,022 (150,200 with other mother tongue)	3,441,940 (98.9%)
Panama	3,764,166	3,263,123 (501,043 with other mother tongue)	3,504,439 (93.1%)
Puerto Rico	3,474,182	3,303,947 (95.1%)	3,432,492 (98.8%)
Morocco	34,378,000	6,586	6,586	3,415,000 (10%)
United Kingdom	63,181,775	120,000	518,480 (1% of 51,848,010)	3,110,880 (6% of 51,848,010)
Philippines	101,562,305	3,325	438,882	3,016,773
Germany	81,292,400		644,091 (1% of 64,409,146)	2,576,366 (4% of 64,409,146)
Equatorial Guinea	1,622,000	1,683	918,000 (90.5%)
Canada	34,605,346	439,000	909,000	1,001,853
Romania	21,355,849		182,467 (1% of 18,246,731)	912,337 (5% of 18,246,731)
Portugal	10,636,888		323,237 (4% of 8,080,915)	808,091 (10% of 8,080,915)
Netherlands	16,665,900		133,719 (1% of 13,371,980)	668,599 (5% of 13,371,980 )
Sweden	9,555,893	77,912 (1% of 7,791,240)	77,912 (1% of 7,791,240)	467,474 (6% of 7,791,240)
Australia	21,507,717	111,400	111,400	447,175
Belgium	10,918,405		89,395 (1% of 8,939,546)	446,977 (5% of 8,939,546)
Poland	38,092,000		324,137 (1% of 32,413,735)	324,137 (1% of 32,413,735)
Austria	8,205,533		70,098 (1% of 7,009,827)	280,393 (4% of 7,009,827)
Ivory Coast	20,179,602			235,806 (students)
Algeria	33,769,669			223,422
Belize	333,200	173,597	173,597	195,597 (62.8%)
Denmark	5,484,723		45,613 (1% of 4,561,264)	182,450 (4% of 4,561,264)
Israel	7,112,359		130,000	175,231
Japan	127,288,419			167,514
Ireland	4,581,269		35,220 (1% of 3,522,000)	140,880 (4% of 3,522,000)
Switzerland	7,581,520	86,000 (1.7%)	111,000	111,000
Finland	5,244,749			133,200 (3% of 4,440,004)
Bulgaria	7,262,675		130,750 (2% of 6,537,510)	130,750 (2% of 6,537,510)
Netherlands Antilles	223,652	10,699	10,699	125,534
Senegal	12,853,259			101,455
Czech Republic	10,513,209			90,124 (1% of 9,012,443)
Hungary	9,957,731			83,206 (1% of 8,320,614)
Aruba	101,484	6,800	6,800	75,402
Trinidad and Tobago	1,317,714	4,100	4,100	65,886 (5%)
Cameroon	21,599,100			63,560 (students)
Andorra	84,484	33,305	33,305	54,909
Slovenia			35,194 (2% of 1,759,701)	52,791 (3% of 1,759,701)
New Zealand		21,645	21,645	47,322 (25,677 students)
Slovakia	5,455,407			45,500 (1% of 4,549,955)
Norway	4,644,457	12,573		36,250
China	1,339,724,852			30,000 (students)
Gibraltar	29,441	22,758 (77.3%)
Lithuania	2,972,949			28,297 (1% of 2,829,740)
Luxembourg	524,853	4,049 (1% of 404,907)	8,098 (2% of 404,907)	24,294 (6% of 404,907)
Russia	143,400,000	3,320	3,320	23,320
Western Sahara	513,000	n.a.		22,000
Guam				19,092
US Virgin Islands		16,788	16,788	16,788
Latvia	2,209,000			13,943 (1% of 1,447,866)
Turkey	73,722,988	1,134	1,134	13,480
Cyprus				2% of 660,400
India	1,210,193,422			9,750 (students)
Estonia				9,457 (1% of 945,733)
Jamaica	2,711,476	8,000	8,000	8,000
Namibia		3,870
Egypt				3,500
Malta				3,354 (1% of 335,476)
European Union (excluded Spain)	460,624,488	2,397,000 (559,525 already counted)
Total	7,297,000,000 (Total World Population)	444,878,377 (6.1 %)	486,265,415 (6.66 % )	535,036,654 (7.33 %)

Dialectal variation

A world map attempting to identify the main dialects of Spanish.

Main article: Spanish dialects and varieties

There are important variations (phonological, grammatical, and lexical) in the spoken Spanish of the various regions of Spain and throughout the Spanish-speaking areas of the Americas.

The variety with the most speakers is Mexican Spanish. It is spoken by more than twenty percent of the world's Spanish speakers (more than 112 million of the total of more than 500 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/.

In Spain, northern dialects are popularly thought of as closer to the standard, although positive attitudes toward southern dialects have increased significantly in the last 50 years. Even so, the speech of Madrid, which has typically southern features such as yeísmo and s-aspiration, is the standard variety for use on radio and television. The educated Madrid variety has most influenced the written standard for Spanish.

Phonology

The four main phonological divisions are based respectively on (1) the sound of the spelled ⟨s⟩, (2) the debuccalization of syllable-final /s/, (3) the phoneme /θ/ ("theta"), (4) and the phoneme /ʎ/ ("turned y"),

• The sound of the spelled ⟨s⟩ is pronounced in northern Spain as a Voiceless "apico-alveolar" "grave" sibilant [s̺], with a weak "hushing" sound reminiscent of retroflex fricatives. In most of Hispanic America (except in Paisa Region, Colombia) it is pronounced, as in English, a Voiceless alveolar "hissing" sibilant [s]. The difference, because the sounds of the spelled ⟨s⟩ is one of the most common in Spanish, is usually the first to be noted by a Spanish-speaking person to differentiate Spaniards and Hispanic Americans.
• The debuccalization (pronunciation as [h], or loss) of syllable-final /s/ is associated with southern Spain and lowland Americas: Central America (except central Costa Rica and Guatemala), the Caribbean, coastal areas of southern Mexico, and South America except Andean highlands. Debuccalization is frequently called "aspiration" in English, and aspiración in Spanish. When there is no debuccalization, the syllable-final /s/ is pronounced as Voiceless "apico-alveolar" "grave" sibilant or as a Voiceless alveolar "hissing" sibilant in the same fashion as in the last paragraph.
• The phoneme /θ/ (spelled c before e or i and spelled ⟨z⟩ elsewhere), a voiceless dental fricative as in English thing, is maintained by a majority of Spain's population, especially in the northern and central parts of the country. The maintenance of phonemic contrast is called distinción in Spanish. In other areas (southern Spain, the Canary Islands, and the Americas), /θ/ is merged with /s/. In Spanish, it is generally called seseo (in reference to the usual realization of the merged phoneme as [s]) or, occasionally, ceceo (referring to its interdental realization, [θ], in some parts of southern Spain). In most of Hispanic America, the spelled ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and spelled ⟨z⟩ is always pronounced as a Voiceless alveolar "hissing" sibilant.
• The phoneme /ʎ/ spelled ⟨ll⟩, palatal lateral consonant sometimes compared in sound to the sound of the ⟨lli⟩ of English million, tends to be maintained in less-urbanized areas of northern Spain and in highland areas of South America. Meanwhile, 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, sometimes compared to English /j/ (yod) as in yacht and spelled ⟨y⟩ in Spanish. As with other forms of allophony across world languages, the small difference of the spelled ⟨ll⟩ and the spelled ⟨y⟩ is usually not perceived (the difference is not heard) by people who do not produce them as different phonemes. Such a phonemic merger is called yeísmo in Spanish. In Rioplatense Spanish, the merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, either voiced [ʒ] (as in English measure or the French ⟨j⟩) in the central and western parts of the dialectal region (zheísmo), or voiceless [ʃ] (as in the French ⟨ch⟩ or Portuguese ⟨x⟩) in and around Buenos Aires (sheísmo).

Grammar

The main grammatical variations between dialects of Spanish involve differing uses of pronouns, especially those of the second person and, to a lesser extent, the object pronouns of the third person.

Voseo

Main article: Voseo

An examination of the dominance and stress of the voseo dialect in Hispanic America. Data generated as illustrated by the Association of Spanish Language Academies. The darker the area, the stronger its dominance.

Virtually all dialects of Spanish make the distinction between a formal and a familiar register in the second-person singular and thus have two different pronouns meaning "you": usted in the formal and either tú or vos in the familiar (and each of these three pronouns has its associated verb forms), with the choice of tú or vos varying from one dialect to another. The use of vos (and/or its verb forms) is called voseo. In a few dialects, all three pronouns are used, with usted, tú, and vos denote respectively formality, familiarity, and intimacy.

In voseo, vos is the subject form (vos decís, "you say") and the form for the object of a preposition (voy con vos, "I am going with you"), while the direct and indirect object forms, and the possessives, are the same as those associated with tú: Vos sabés que tus amigos te respetan ("You know your friends respect you").

The verb forms of general voseo are the same as those used with tú except in the present tense (indicative and imperative) verbs. The forms for vos generally can be derived from those of vosotros (the traditional second-person familiar plural) by deleting the glide [i̯], or /d/, where it appears in the ending: vosotros pensáis > vos pensás; vosotros volvéis > vos volvés, pensad! (vosotros) > pensá! (vos), volved! (vosotros) > volvé! (vos) .

General voseo (River Plate Spanish)

Indicative			Subjunctive		Imperative
Present	Past	Conditional	Present	Past
pensás	pensabas	pensarías	pienses	pensaras	pensá
volvés	volvías	volverías	vuelvas	volvieras	volvé
dormís	dormías	dormirías	duermas	durmieras	dormí
The forms in bold coincide with standard tú-conjugation.

In Chilean voseo on the other hand, almost all verb forms are distinct from their standard tú-forms.

Chilean voseo

Indicative			Subjunctive		Imperative
Present	Past	Conditional	Present	Past
pensái	pensabai	pensaríai	pensís	pensarai	piensa
volvís	volvíai	volveríai	volvái	volvierai	vuelve
dormís	dormíai	dormiríai	durmái	durmierai	duerme
The forms in bold coincide with standard tú-conjugation.

The use of the pronoun vos with the verb forms of tú (vos piensas) is called "pronominal voseo". Conversely, the use of the verb forms of vos with the pronoun tú (tú pensás or tú pensái) is called "verbal voseo".
In Chile, for example, verbal voseo is much more common than the actual use of the pronoun vos, which is often reserved for deeply informal situations.

Distribution in Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas

Although vos is not used in Spain, it occurs in many Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular familiar pronoun, 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 Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and coastal Ecuador.

Tuteo (the use of tú) as a cultured form alternates with voseo as a popular or rural form in Bolivia, in the north and south of Peru, in Andean Ecuador, in small zones of the Venezuelan Andes (and most notably in the Venezuelan state of Zulia), and in a large part of Colombia. Some researchers maintain that voseo can be heard in some parts of eastern Cuba, and others assert that it is absent from the island.

Tuteo exists as the second-person usage with an intermediate degree of formality alongside the more familiar voseo in Chile, in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, in the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, and in parts of Guatemala.

Areas of generalized voseo include Argentina, Nicaragua, eastern Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Colombian departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda, Quindio and Valle del Cauca.

Ustedes

Ustedes functions as formal and informal second person plural in over 90% of the Spanish-speaking world, including all of Hispanic America, the Canary Islands, and some regions of Andalusia. In Seville, Huelva, Cadiz, and other parts of western Andalusia, the familiar form is constructed as ustedes vais, using the traditional second-person plural form of the verb. Most of Spain maintains the formal/familiar distinction with ustedes and vosotros respectively.

Usted

Usted is the usual second-person singular pronoun in a formal context, but it is used joint with the third-person singular voice of the verb. It is used to convey respect toward someone who is a generation older or is of higher authority ("you, sir"/"you, ma'am"). It is also used in a familiar context by many speakers in Colombia and Costa Rica and in parts of Ecuador and Panama, to the exclusion of tú or vos. This usage is sometimes called ustedeo in Spanish.

In Central America, especially in Honduras, usted is often used as a formal pronoun to convey respect between the members of a romantic couple. Usted is also used that way as well as between parents and children in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

Third-person object pronouns

Most speakers use (and the Real Academia Española prefers) the pronouns lo and la for direct objects (masculine and feminine respectively, regardless of animacy, meaning "him", "her", or "it"), and le for indirect objects (regardless of gender or animacy, meaning "to him", "to her", or "to it"). The usage is sometimes called "etymological", as these direct and indirect object pronouns are a continuation, respectively, of the accusative and dative pronouns of Latin, the ancestor language of Spanish.

Deviations from this norm (more common in Spain than in the Americas) are called "leísmo", "loísmo", or "laísmo", according to which respective pronoun, le, lo, or la, has expanded beyond the etymological usage (le as a direct object, or lo or la as an indirect object).

Vocabulary

Museum of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army.

Some words can be significantly different 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 Hispanic America, where the meaning of coger and pisar is also "to have sex" and concha means "vagina". The Puerto Rican word for "bobby pin" (pinche) is an obscenity in Mexico, but in Nicaragua, it simply means "stingy", and in Spain, it refers to a chef's helper. Other examples include taco, which means "swearword" (among other meanings) in Spain, "traffic jam" in Chile and "heels" (shoe) in Argentina, Peru, and Colombia, but it is known to the rest of the world as a Mexican dish.

Pija in many countries of Hispanic 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 Hispanic American countries and "cart" in others, as well as in Spain. Papaya is the slang term for "vagina" in parts of Cuba and Venezuela, where the fruit is instead called fruta bomba and lechosa, respectively. Also, in Argentina and Spain, one would say piña when talking about punching someone else (as an alternate, slang usage) whereas in other countries, piña refers only to a pineapple.

Relation to other languages

Further information: Comparison of Portuguese and Spanish

Spanish is closely related to the other West Iberian Romance languages, including Asturian, Aragonese, Galician, Ladino, Leonese, Mirandese and Portuguese.

It is generally acknowledged that Portuguese- and Spanish-speakers can communicate, although with varying degrees of difficulty. Meanwhile, mutual intelligibility of the written Spanish and Portuguese languages is very high, given that the difficulties of the spoken forms are based more on phonology than on grammatical and lexical dissimilarities. Ethnologue gives estimates of the lexical similarity between related languages in terms of precise percentages. For Spanish and Portuguese, that figure is 89%. Italian, on the other hand—although its phonology is more similar to that of Spanish—is said to have a lexical similarity of 82%. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or between Spanish and Romanian is lower still, given lexical similarity ratings of 75% and 71% respectively. And comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is much lower, at an estimated 45%. In general, thanks to the common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages, interlingual comprehension of the written word is greater than that of oral communication.

The following table compares the forms of some common words in several Romance languages:

Latin	Spanish	Galician	Portuguese	Astur-Leonese	Aragonese	Catalan	French	Italian	Romanian	English
nos	nosotros	nós1	nós1	nós, nosotros	nusatros	nosaltres (arch. nós)	nous2	noi/noialtri3	noi	'we'
frater germanum (lit. "true brother")	hermano	irmán	irmão	hermanu	chirmán	germà (arch. frare)4	frère	fratello	frate	'brother'
dies martis (Classical) feria tertia (Ecclesiastical)	martes	martes/terza feira	terça-feira	martes	martes	dimarts	mardi	martedì	marți	'Tuesday'
cantiō(nem) canticum	canción cántico	canción/cançom5 cántico	canção cântico	canción (or canciu)	canta	cançó	chanson	canzone	cântec	'song'
magis plus	más (arch. plus)	máis	mais (arch. chus or plus)	más	más (or més)	més (arch. pus or plus)	plus	più	mai/plus	'more'
manum sinistram	mano izquierda6 (arch. mano siniestra)	man esquerda6	mão esquerda6 (arch. mão sẽestra)	manu izquierda6 (or esquierda; also manzorga)	man cucha	mà esquerra6 (arch. mà sinistra)	main gauche	mano sinistra	mâna stângă	'left hand'
nihil nullam rem natam (lit. "no thing born")	nada	nada (also ren and res)	nada (neca and nula rés in some expressions; arch. rem)	nada (also un res)	cosa	res	rien/nul	niente/nulla	nimic/nul	'nothing'
cāseus formaticus	queso	queixo	queijo	quesu	queso	formatge	fromage	formaggio/cacio	caș7	'cheese'

1. Also nós outros in early modern Portuguese (e.g. The Lusiads), and nosoutros in Galician.
2. Alternatively nous autres in French.
3. Also noialtri in Southern Italian dialects and languages.
4. Medieval Catalan (e.g. Llibre dels fets).
5. Depending on the written norm used (see Reintegracionism).
6. From Basque esku, "hand" + erdi, "half, incomplete". Notice that this negative meaning also applies for Latin sinistra(m) ("dark, unfortunate").
7. Note that Romanian caș (from Latin cāsevs) means a type of cheese. The universal term for cheese in Romanian is brânză (from unknown etymology).

Judaeo-Spanish

Further information: Judaeo-Spanish

Inscription in standard Spanish and Judaeo-Spanish in Jaén.

Judaeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino, is a variety of Spanish which preserves many features of medieval Spanish and Portuguese is spoken by descendants of the Sephardi Jews who were expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century. Conversely, in Portugal the vast majority of the Portuguese Jews converted and became 'New Christians'. Therefore, its relationship to Spanish is comparable with that of the Yiddish language to German. Ladino speakers today are almost exclusively Sephardi Jews, with family roots in Turkey, Greece, or the Balkans, and living mostly in Israel, Turkey, and the United States, with a few communities in Hispanic America. Judaeo-Spanish lacks the Native American vocabulary which was acquired by standard Spanish 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

Main article: Spanish orthography

Spanish is written in the Latin script, 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⟩.

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.

Ch, Ll.

The letters k and w are used only in words and names coming from foreign languages (kilo, folklore, whisky, kiwi, 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) with té ('tea'), de (preposition 'of') versus dé ('give' [formal imperative/third-person present subjunctive]), and se (reflexive pronoun) versus 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. Accent marks used to be 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 and the orthographic conventions taught at schools enforce the use of the accent.

When u is written between g and a front vowel e or 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).

Sample texts

Short History

Continuidad de los parques

Había empezado a leer la novela unos días antes. La abandonó por negocios urgentes, volvió a abrirla cuando regresaba en tren a la finca; se dejaba interesar lentamente por la trama, por el dibujo de los personajes. Esa tarde, después de escribir una carta a su apoderado y discutir con el mayordomo una cuestión de aparcerías, volvió al libro en la tranquilidad del estudio que miraba hacia el parque de los robles. Arrellanado en su sillón favorito, de espaldas a la puerta que lo hubiera molestado como una irritante posibilidad de intrusiones, dejó que su mano izquierda acariciara una y otra vez el terciopelo verde y se puso a leer los últimos capítulos. Su memoria retenía sin esfuerzo los nombres y las imágenes de los protagonistas; la ilusión novelesca lo ganó casi en seguida. Gozaba del placer casi perverso de irse desgajando línea a línea de lo que lo rodeaba, y sentir a la vez que su cabeza descansaba cómodamente en el terciopelo del alto respaldo, que los cigarrillos seguían al alcance de la mano, que más allá de los ventanales danzaba el aire del atardecer bajo los robles. Palabra a palabra, absorbido por la sórdida disyuntiva de los héroes, dejándose ir hacia las imágenes que se concertaban y adquirían color y movimiento, fue testigo del último encuentro en la cabaña del monte. Primero entraba la mujer, recelosa; ahora llegaba el amante, lastimada la cara por el chicotazo de una rama. Admirablemente restañaba ella la sangre con sus besos, pero él rechazaba las caricias, no había venido para repetir las ceremonias de una pasión secreta, protegida por un mundo de hojas secas y senderos furtivos. El puñal se entibiaba contra su pecho, y debajo latía la libertad agazapada. Un diálogo anhelante corría por las páginas como un arroyo de serpientes, y se sentía que todo estaba decidido desde siempre. Hasta esas caricias que enredaban el cuerpo del amante como queriendo retenerlo y disuadirlo, dibujaban abominablemente la figura de otro cuerpo que era necesario destruir. Nada había sido olvidado: coartadas, azares, posibles errores. A partir de esa hora cada instante tenía su empleo minuciosamente atribuido. El doble repaso despiadado se interrumpía apenas para que una mano acariciara una mejilla. Empezaba a anochecer. Sin mirarse ya, atados rígidamente a la tarea que los esperaba, se separaron en la puerta de la cabaña. Ella debía seguir por la senda que iba al norte. Desde la senda opuesta él se volvió un instante para verla correr con el pelo suelto. Corrió a su vez, parapetándose en los árboles y los setos, hasta distinguir en la bruma malva del crepúsculo la alameda que llevaba a la casa. Los perros no debían ladrar, y no ladraron. El mayordomo no estaría a esa hora, y no estaba. Subió los tres peldaños del porche y entró. Desde la sangre galopando en sus oídos le llegaban las palabras de la mujer: primero una sala azul, después una galería, una escalera alfombrada. En lo alto, dos puertas. Nadie en la primera habitación, nadie en la segunda. La puerta del salón, y entonces el puñal en la mano, la luz de los ventanales, el alto respaldo de un sillón de terciopelo verde, la cabeza del hombre en el sillón leyendo una novela.

Translated to English:

Continuity of the parks

He had begun to read the novel a few days before. He had put it aside because of some urgent business, opened it again on his way back to the farm by train; he allowed himself a slowly growing interest in the plot, by drawing the characters. That afternoon, after writing a letter to his attorney and discussing with the steward a matter of sharecropping, he returned to the book in the tranquility of his study which looked out upon the oaks park. Sprawled in his favorite armchair, its back toward the door that would have bothered him as an irritating possibility of intrusions, let his left hand caress over and over the green velvet and set to reading the final chapters.His memory retained without effort the names and images of the protagonists; the novel spread its glamour over him almost at once. He tasted the almost perverse pleasure of disengaging himself line by line from the things around him, and at the same time feeling his head rest comfortably on the green velvet of the chair with its high back, sensing that the cigarettes rested within reach of his hand, that beyond the great windows the air of afternoon danced under the oak trees. Word by word, absorbed by the sordid dilemma of the heroes, letting himself go into the images arranged and acquired color and movement, he was witness of the last meeting in the mountain cabin. First comes the woman, suspicious; now comes the lover, his face cut by the backlash of a branch. Admirably she stanched the blood with her kisses, but he rebuffed her caresses, had not come to repeat the ceremonies of a secret passion, protected by a world of dry leaves and furtive paths. The dagger warmed itself against his chest, and underneath liberty pounded, hidden close. A yearning dialogue raced down the pages like a rivulet of snakes, and one felt it had all been decided from eternity. Even those caresses which writhed about the lover’s body, as though wishing to keep him there, to dissuade him from it; they sketched abominably the figure of that other body it was necessary to destroy. Nothing had been forgotten: alibis, unforeseen hazards, possible mistakes. Since that time, each instant had its use minutely assigned. The double review ruthless was interrupted only for that a hand caressing a cheek. It was beginning to get dark. Without looking at each other now, rigidly attached to the task that awaited them, they separated at the cabin door. She was to follow the trail that led north. From the opposite trail, he instantly turned to see her running, with her hair flying. He ran in turn, crouching among the trees and hedges until to distinguish in the mallow haze of the twilight, the mall leading to the house. The dogs were not supposed to bark, and they did not barked. The steward would not be there at this hour, and he was not there. He went up the three porch steps and entered. From the blood galloping in his ears came the woman's words: first a blue room, then a gallery, then a carpeted stairway. At the top, two doors. No one in the first room, no one in the second. The door of the salon, and then the dagger in his hand, the light from the great windows, the high back of an green velvet armchair, the head of the man in the chair reading a novel.

Organizations

The Royal Spanish Academy Headquarters in Madrid, Spain.

Royal Spanish Academy

Main article: Real Academia Española

Arms of the Royal Spanish Academy

The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), founded in 1713, 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

Main article: Association of Spanish Language Academies

Countries members of the ASALE.

The Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, or ASALE) is the entity which regulates the Spanish language. It was created in Mexico in 1951 and represents the union of all the separate academies in the Spanish-speaking world. It comprises the academies of 22 countries, ordered by date of Academy foundation: Spain (1713), Colombia (1871), Ecuador (1874), Mexico (1875), El Salvador (1876), Venezuela (1883), Chile (1885), Peru (1887), Guatemala (1887), Costa Rica (1923), Philippines (1924), Panama (1926), Cuba (1926), Paraguay (1927), Dominican Republic (1927), Bolivia (1927), Nicaragua (1928), Argentina (1931), Uruguay (1943), Honduras (1949), Puerto Rico (1955), and United States (1973).

Cervantes Institute

Main article: Instituto Cervantes

Cervantes Institute headquarters, Madrid

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 centers 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 World Trade Organization, 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

• List of Spanish-language poets
• Spanish profanity
• Spanish proverbs
• Certificate of Use of Language in Spanish
• Fundéu BBVA (formerly The Foundation of Urgent Spanish)

Spanish-speaking world (Hispanosphere)

• Countries where Spanish is an official language
• Hispanic culture
• Hispanidad
• Hispanism
• Panhispanism

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

• Caló
• Chavacano
• Frespañol
• Ladino
• Llanito
• Palenquero
• Papiamento
• Chamorro
• Philippine languages
• Portuñol
• Spanglish
• Spanish-based creole languages
• List of English words of Spanish origin

Spanish dialects and varieties

• European Spanish
  • Peninsular Spanish
    • Andalusian Spanish
    • Castilian Spanish
    • Castrapo (Galician Spanish)
    • Castúo (Extremaduran Spanish)
    • Murcian Spanish
  • Insular Spanish
    • Canarian 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

Further reading

• "The Rise of Spanish: Hats Off". The Economist. June 1, 2013.

External links

• Spanish language at DMOZ
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• Spanish to English translation
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