Spanish Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Spanish Language, official language of Spain and the native language of 322 million to 358 million people in the world. Many of those people live in the other countries where Spanish is the official language: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and is widely spoken in several other nations, including Canada, Morocco, the Philippines, and the United States.


The Spanish language boasts a literary history that includes authors such as Miguel de Cervantes of Spain, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda of Chile, and Octavio Paz of Mexico. See Spanish Literature; Latin American Literature.

Spanish is a member of the Romance language group in the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European language family (see Language). Spanish has two major dialects: Andalusian and Castilian. These dialects generally differ in pronunciation of the letter combinations ce, ze, and za. Speakers of the Andalusian dialect pronounce these combinations with an s sound, while Castilian speakers pronounce them with a th sound.

II  GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

Speakers of Spanish share a common linguistic system and a common grammar. Although inhabitants of the various provinces of Spain and the various countries have slightly differing vocabularies and pronunciation, and use different expressions, these variations do not hamper communication.

A  Phonetics 

The Spanish alphabet consists of 27 letters: 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, and z. The vowels of this alphabet (a, e, i, o, u) sound roughly like the English words ha, hay, he, ho, and who. The Spanish language also contains 14 diphthongs (speech sounds) that combine the strong vowels (a, e, o) with the weak ones (i, u) to create distinct sounds. Examples of these are ue, as in bueno (good), and io, as in dios (god). The letter y serves as both a consonant, as in yodo (iodine), and a semivowel, as in bueyes (oxen).

Unlike vowels, the consonants of the Spanish alphabet cannot be combined to create new sounds. However, there are some notable issues with consonants. The consonants b and v are pronounced very similarly to each other, as are ll and y. Spanish speakers also drop h sounds at the beginning of words, so that horario (schedule) and historia (history) are pronounced as if they were spelled orario and istoria. These three elements of the language account for the most common mistakes made by people learning Spanish as a second language: confusing a b with a v, mistaking an ll for a y, and adding the h sounds to the beginning of words with a silent h.

Most Spanish words are pronounced with the stress on the second-to-last syllable. Words ending in consonants other than n or s, however, are stressed on the last syllable. Words whose pronunciation requires the stress to fall on a syllable other than the second-to-last or last syllable, or that require the breakup of a diphthong, carry an accent mark on the vowel of the stressed syllable. Examples of these situations are pájaro (bird), with the accent on the first a, and día (day), with the i and a sounds pronounced distinctly. In rare words, a dieresis over the u (ü) indicates that a u should not form part of a diphthong. One important punctuation note is that questions and exclamations in written forms are indicated by an inverted question mark (¿) or exclamation point (¡) at the beginning of the sentence and then a standard one at the end of the sentence.

B  Vocabulary 

Most Spanish words come from the Latin language (the language of the Roman Empire). But because so many people speak Spanish in so many places, the language quickly adopts new words and borrows words from other languages, particularly Arabic, English, and continental European languages such as French and Italian. In the Caribbean region and in Central and South America, indigenous languages have heavily influenced Spanish. An organization called the Royal Spanish Academy of Language has branches in countries where Spanish is spoken and establishes norms of spelling and grammatical forms.

C  Grammar 

Word order in Spanish generally follows the pattern of subject-verb-object, as in Las gallinas comen semillas (the chickens eat seeds).

As is the case with verbs in many languages, verbs in Spanish are conjugated, or changed to indicate tense and person. In their infinitive form, Spanish verbs end in -ar, -er, or -ir. For example, the Spanish verb to walk is andar, to eat is comer, and to sleep is dormir. Users indicate the tense (present, past, future, conditional, or one of the various compound forms) by adding endings to the main stem of the infinitive. These endings also indicate the subject of the verb (first person singular and plural, second person singular and plural, third person singular and plural). For example, andar is conjugated in the present tense as yo ando (I walk), tú andas (you walk), and so on. When indicating the future tense, these endings change: yo andaré (I will walk), tú andarás (you will walk), and so on. When using the second person singular or plural (the you form in English), Spanish speakers can choose between a familiar form and a formal one, depending on the relationship between the speakers. In the familiar form, you is translated as tú in the singular and vosotros in the plural. In the formal form, it is translated as usted in the singular and ustedes in the plural.

Two verbs in Spanish express “to be”: ser (conjugated in the present tense as soy, eres, es, somos, sois, and son), and estar (conjugated in the present tense as estoy, estás, está, estamos, estáis, and están). In general, ser expresses permanent states, such as Soy alto (I am tall) or Somos de Perú (We are from Peru). Estar expresses temporary conditions, such as Estoy cansado (I am tired) or La calle está mojada (The street is wet).

Spanish has two past tenses: the preterit and the imperfect. In general, the preterit refers to completed past actions, such as Amelia terminó su tarea (Amelia finished her homework). The imperfect expresses continuing actions in the past, such as Durante todo el día Miguel pensaba en sus padres (Throughout the day Miguel thought of his parents).

Spanish speakers also use two modes of speech, called the indicative and the subjunctive. These modes differ in the verb forms they take. Speakers use the indicative to convey existing information or certainty, as in Ella vive en una casa roja (She lives in a red house). They use the subjunctive to express doubt, the influence of one subject over another, indirect commands, pending or nonfactual information, or actions, as in Yo dudo que ella viva en una casa roja (I doubt that she lives in a red house).

All nouns in Spanish have gender—either masculine or feminine. In general, a noun’s ending indicates its gender. Most masculine nouns end in o, as in caballo (horse). Most feminine nouns end in a, as in vaca (cow). The gender endings on some nouns depend on the subject. These nouns include hermano/hermana (brother/sister) and niño/niña (boy/girl). Articles and adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in gender and number. For example, the black horse is written el caballo negro, while the black cows is written las vacas negras.

III  THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPANISH 

Spanish is a dynamic, ever-developing language. Over the centuries it has adopted and borrowed words and grammatical structures from other language groups. Spanish is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages and is the official language of Spain and almost every country in Central and South America. Many people in North America speak it as a first or second language.

A  Origins and Early Development 

The Spanish language originated in the southwest region of Europe known as the Iberian Peninsula. Sometime before the end of the 6th century bc, the region’s first inhabitants, the Iberians, began to mingle with the Celts, a nomadic people from central Europe. The two groups formed a people called the Celtiberians, speaking a form of Celtic. The Carthaginians, who spoke the Punic dialect of the Phoenician language, invaded the peninsula around 237 bc, bringing new words to the peninsula. The cities of Carthage and Rome were bitter enemies, and the strong Carthaginian presence on the Iberian Peninsula helped spark the Second Punic War (218-201 bc) between the two powers. In 206 bc the Romans captured the Carthaginian capital of Gadir (present-day Cádiz). Having driven out the Carthaginians, the Romans began to subdue native groups of the region, and by 19 bc they had completed their conquest of the entire peninsula.

Under Roman rule the region became known as Hispania, and its inhabitants learned Latin from Roman traders, settlers, administrators, and soldiers. When the classical Latin of the educated Roman classes mixed with the pre-Roman languages of the Iberians, Celts, and Carthaginians, a language called Vulgar Latin appeared. It followed the basic models of Latin but borrowed and added words from the other languages.

The Visigoths, Germanic tribes of eastern Europe, invaded Hispania in the ad 400s, but Latin remained the official language of government and culture until about ad 719, when Arabic-speaking Islamic groups from Northern Africa called Moors completed their conquest of the region. Arabic and a related dialect called Mozarabic came to be widely spoken in Islamic Spain except in a few remote Christian kingdoms in the north such as Asturias, where Vulgar Latin survived.

The Christian kingdoms gradually reconquered Spain over the centuries, and the retaking of the country proved to be linguistic as well as political, military, and religious. As the Christians moved south, starting in the 11th century, their Vulgar Latin dialects became dominant. In particular, Castilian, a dialect that originated on the northern central plains, was carried into southern and eastern regions.

Castilian borrowed many words from Mozarabic, and modern Spanish has an estimated 4,000 words with Arabic roots. These words include military and naval terms, such as arsenal (arsenal) and almirante (admiral); words having to do with sociopolitical administration, such as alcalde (mayor) and alguacil (constable); and commercial words, such as almacén (warehouse) and almoneda (auction). Other borrowed vocabulary includes terminology for professions or skills, such as alfarero (potter); words for domestic furnishings, such as alfombra (carpet); and vocabulary for science and drugs, such as álgebra (algebra) and alcohol (alcohol).

B  A National Language 

The creation of a standardized Spanish language based on the Castilian dialect began in the 1200s with King Alfonso X, who was called the Learned–King of Castile and Leon. He and his court of scholars adopted the city of Toledo, a cultural center in the central highlands, as the base of their activities. There, scholars wrote original works in Castilian and translated histories, chronicles, and scientific, legal, and literary works from other languages (principally Latin, Greek, and Arabic). Alfonso X also adopted Castilian for administrative work and all official documents and decrees.

The Castilian dialect of Spanish gained wider acceptance during the reign of the Catholic monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón, who completed the reconquest of Spain in 1492 by pushing the Moors from their last stronghold in the southern city of Granada. Isabella and Ferdinand made Castilian the official dialect in their kingdom. In the same year the Moors were defeated, an important book appeared: Antonio de Nebrija’s Arte de la lengua castellana (The Art of the Castilian Language). It was the first book to study and attempt to define the grammar of a European language.

C  The Expanding Spanish World 

Although the Castilian dialect of Toledo became the written and educational standard in Spain, several spoken dialects remained. The most noteworthy was Andalusian, a dialect spoken in the southern city of Seville in the Andalucía region.

Beginning in the 1400s, Spanish explorers, conquistadors, and colonizers carried their language to the Americas and the Philippines. Both the Castilian and Andalusian dialects made the trip. Castilian was used in administrative and cultural centers such as Mexico City, Mexico; Potosí, Bolivia; and Lima, Peru. These cities retained close links to the Spanish capital of Madrid, which was in the Castile region. But because many of the people involved in expeditions were from Andalucía, the Andalusian dialect also traveled to the Spanish colonies. It became dominant in Argentina and Central America, which were regions remote from the influence of the Spanish government’s administrative centers. Spain lost control of its American colonies in the 1800s, but the Spanish language remained and is now the official language of almost every Latin American nation.

In the Americas, Spanish borrowed many words from the languages of the indigenous peoples. Most of these words reflect features unique to the new territories, such as proper names, plants and animals, and geographic features. Examples include piraña (piranha), taken from the Guaraní word pira-aña, meaning “devil fish,” and choclo (ear of corn), taken from the Quechua word choccllo, which also means “ear of corn.”

In the Philippines, which were incorporated into the Spanish Empire in the mid-16th century, Spanish served as the language of the ruling class, of civil and judicial administration, and of culture. Because Mexico often mediated communication between the Philippines and Spain, Philippine Spanish in general is similar to the Castilian dialect used in Mexico. Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States in 1898. For many years Spanish was one of the official languages of the Philippines, along with English and Tagalog. It no longer is an official language, and its use has gradually declined.

D  Spanish in the United States 

In 1565 Spanish conquerors and explorers established the settlement of Saint Augustine in what is now Florida. It was the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. In the 1600s and 1700s Spanish explorations and settlements extended the Spanish language north from Mexico into present-day Arizona, California, southern Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. When the United States annexed these areas following the Mexican War (1846-1848), many of the region’s Spanish-speaking inhabitants remained, creating a distinct linguistic and cultural population in the southwestern United States.

After the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States gained control over Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. Many Spanish speakers from these countries moved to the United States. The immigrants primarily settled in neighborhoods in California, Florida, New York, and New Jersey, where they continued to use Spanish.

Immigration to the United States by Spanish speakers greatly increased during the 20th century. Many legal and illegal immigrants crossed the border between Mexico and the United States to work in agriculture and industry, and other immigrants fled political instability in Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Also, many Latin American students came to North America to study at colleges and universities.

The presence of Spanish in American culture grew throughout the late 20th century. As more native Spanish speakers sent their children to school, elementary and high schools established bilingual classes. Television executives recognized the Spanish-speaking market and created television networks and shows in Spanish. The government printed forms and tests in Spanish. At the beginning of the 21st century more than 28 million people in the United States spoke Spanish as their primary language at home.


Contributed By:
Celia E. Richmond Weller
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