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    1.3 The Spanish Language

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    Ira Rayzel Ji
    Spanish is spoken by over 470 million people worldwide, making it the second most widely spoken language. While Castilian Spanish from Madrid is often considered the standard, Spanish exhibits much regional variation both in Spain and Latin America. In Spain, other languages like Catalan, Galician, and Basque continue to be spoken, while Latin American Spanish incorporates indigenous American influences and varies significantly by country and region. Variations of Spanish also developed in the Philippines and among Sephardic Jewish communities expelled from Spain.

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    1.3 The Spanish Language

    Uploaded by

    Ira Rayzel Ji
    23 views20 pages
    Spanish is spoken by over 470 million people worldwide, making it the second most widely spoken language. While Castilian Spanish from Madrid is often considered the standard, Spanish exhibits much regional variation both in Spain and Latin America. In Spain, other languages like Catalan, Galician, and Basque continue to be spoken, while Latin American Spanish incorporates indigenous American influences and varies significantly by country and region. Variations of Spanish also developed in the Philippines and among Sephardic Jewish communities expelled from Spain.

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    Spanish is spoken by over 470 million people worldwide, making it the second most widely spoken language. While Castilian Spanish from Madrid is often considered the standard, Spanish exhibits much regional variation both in Spain and Latin America. In Spain, other languages like Catalan, Galician, and Basque continue to be spoken, while Latin American Spanish incorporates indigenous American influences and varies significantly by country and region. Variations of Spanish also developed in the Philippines and among Sephardic Jewish communities expelled from Spain.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    23 views20 pages

    1.3 The Spanish Language

    Uploaded by

    Ira Rayzel Ji
    Spanish is spoken by over 470 million people worldwide, making it the second most widely spoken language. While Castilian Spanish from Madrid is often considered the standard, Spanish exhibits much regional variation both in Spain and Latin America. In Spain, other languages like Catalan, Galician, and Basque continue to be spoken, while Latin American Spanish incorporates indigenous American influences and varies significantly by country and region. Variations of Spanish also developed in the Philippines and among Sephardic Jewish communities expelled from Spain.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 20

    LA LENGUA ESPAÑOL


    THE SPANISH LANGUAGE
    The Spanish Language
    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.
    The Spanish Language
    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.
    The Spanish Language
     In the early stages
    of language learning,
    dialectical and regional
    peculiarities are not a
    principal concern, and
    problems of this sort
    are usually explained
    in footnotes when they
    occur in textbooks.
    The Spanish Language
    However, an awareness of
    the types of language
    differences that exists in
    peninsular Spain as well as
    the regional variations that
    occur in the Spanish-speaking
    nations of the Western
    Hemisphere can aid in a more
    sensitive approach to writing
    and speaking Spanish even at
    the elementary level.
    The Spanish of Spain
    The speech of the
    educated residents of
    Madrid, Spain’s capital
    city, has generally been
    considered a model of
    correct usage in
    peninsular Spanish
    (frequently called
    castellano rather than
    español), since it had its
    beginnings in the
    northern central part of
    Spain known as Castilla.
    The Spanish of Spain
    Although Castilian is
    the official language of
    all Spain, many
    thousands of Spanish
    citizens do not speak it
    as a first language, and a
    few do not speak it at all
    – even in this age of
    television, internet and
    rapid travel.
    The Spanish of Spain
    In Barcelona and the
    province of Catalonia, Catalán
    is spoken along with Spanish;
    religious services are
    conducted in the local
    language, and it is heard
    everywhere in conversation
    and in songs. Further
    evidence of the
    presence of a distinctive
    Catalán culture can be found
    in bookstores where original
    works in Catalán and …
    The Spanish of Spain
    …or European novels and
    plays translated into that
    language are sold. It should
    be remembered that Catalán
    is not a dialect of Spanish but
    another related Romance
    language like French,
    Portuguese, Italian and
    Romanian (Latin as their
    mother language). A speaker
    of Spanish cannot
    automatically understand the
    The Spanish of Spain
    language of Catalonia any
    more than a speaker of Italian
    can understand Portuguese.
    In northwestern Spain, the
    regional language is Galician
    (or gallego), which shows a
    kinship with Portuguese.
    Non-Galician writers have on
    occasion cultivated the
    language because of its
    supposed
    The Spanish of Spain
    superiority to Castilian
    for lyric poetry. The
    most notable example of
    literature written in
    Galician in modern times
    is the work of the poetess
    Rosalía de Castro (1837-
    1885), who wrote in both
    her regional language
    and in Spanish.
    The Spanish of Spain
     The oddity of the Iberian
    peninsula is the Basque
    language (called vascuence or
    euscaro by the Spanish).
    Unlike Spanish and other
    southern European languages,
    Basque has no relationship to
    Latin except in certain words
    borrowed from Spanish. It is
    notoriously difficult to learn,
    and the natives of the Basque
    territories in northern Spain
    The Spanish of Spain
    …have long been
    known for their reluctance to
    be completely assimilated into
    the national culture. Yet some
    of Spain’s greatest writers
    (Miguel de Unamuno and Pio
    Baroja) who were masters of
    Castilian, were of Basque
    origin.
    In spite of the continuing
    existence of other languages
    and their dialects in
    The Spanish of Spain
    …Spain, Castilian
    remains the dominant tongue
    - not only in official matters,
    radio, television and literature
    but for everyday conversation
    in all levels.
    As is the case with the
    English spoken in the United
    States, there are regional
    peculiarities of Spanish that
    immediately mark the place of
    origin of the speaker.
    The Spanish of Spain
    Dialectical distinctions for the
    Spanish spoken in León, Aragón,
    Murcia, Andalucía, the Canary
    Islands and other areas have been
    documented. Andalusian Spanish
    is perhaps the most colorful. Just
    as the southern American accent
    is frequently mimicked in motion
    pictures and on television and
    radio for humorous effects, the
    special accent of southern Spain
    is at times a source of humor in
    Spanish dramatic writings.
    The Spanish of the New
    World
    Although Castilian is
    understood by all educated
    people in the Spanish-
    speaking nations of the New
    World, striking regional
    differences in vocabulary and
    usage can be noted. In some
    areas, essentially “pure”
    Spanish is flavored by many
    words drawn from the
    languages spoken by the
    Indian people whose
    civilizations developed before
    the arrival of the
    conquistadores.
    The Spanish of the New
    World
    Some of these Indian
    words have become a
    part of international
    Spanish, and from
    Spanish have passed into
    English and other
    languages for example:
    maíz = corn
    tomate = tomato
    huracán = hurricane
    canoa = canoe
    The Spanish of the New
    World
    In the Caribbean island
    countries, including Puerto
    Rico, and in the countries of
    Central America, Spanish
    shows racial and cultural
    influences that are as
    important as those that can be
    distinguished in the larger
    nations. Probably the most
    striking structural differences
    evident is the Spanish of Río
    de Plata region, which
    includes both Argentina and
    Uruguay.
    The Spanish of the
    Philippines
    The Philippine Islands were
    for a long period a colony of
    Spain, and the ruling class
    spoke Spanish. Philippine
    Spanish has a strong Mexican
    influence because the first
    expeditions to the islands
    departed from Mexico. In
    spite of a strong effect on the
    local speech, Spanish never
    supplanted the native Tagala
    (Tagalog). After the war with
    the United States in 1898
    where Spain lost, Spanish
    influence waned.
    Judeo-Español
    In many parts of the world,
    especially the southern
    Mediterranean area, the
    descendants of the Sephardic
    Jews who were expelled from
    Spain by Ferdinand and
    Isabella in 1492, speak a
    Spanish which has retained
    the flavor of the language of
    the fifteenth century – even
    though these Jewish groups
    are far removed in time and
    space from the adopted
    homeland of their ancestors.

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