"Castilian language" redirects here. For the specific variety of the language, seeCastilian Spanish. For the broader branch of Ibero-Romance, seeWest Iberian languages.
Spanish is part of theIbero-Romance language group, in which the language is also known asCastilian (castellano). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after thecollapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century,[9] and the first systematic written use of the language happened inToledo, a prominent city of theKingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in theearly modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas.[10]
As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek.[11][12] Alongside English andFrench, it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world.[13] Spanish is well represented in thehumanities andsocial sciences.[14] Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese[15] and the second most used language by number of websites after English.[16]
El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. ... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas... Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...
TheRoyal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española), on the other hand, currently uses the termespañol in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the languagecastellano.[17]
TheDiccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the termespañol in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms—español andcastellano—are regarded as synonymous and equally valid.[18]
The termcastellano is related toCastile (Castilla or archaicallyCastiella), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The nameCastile, in turn, is usually assumed to be derived fromcastillo ('castle').
In theMiddle Ages, the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to asRomance and later also asLengua vulgar.[19] Later in the period, it gained geographical specification asRomance castellano (romanz castellano,romanz de Castiella),lenguaje de Castiella, and ultimately simply ascastellano (noun).[19]
Different etymologies have been suggested for the termespañol (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy,español derives from theOccitan wordespaignol and that, in turn, derives from theVulgar Latin *hispaniolus ('of Hispania').[20]Hispania was the Roman name for the entireIberian Peninsula.
There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologistRamón Menéndez Pidal suggested that the classichispanus orhispanicus took the suffix-one fromVulgar Latin, as happened with other words such asbretón (Breton) orsajón (Saxon).
The VisigothicCartularies of Valpuesta, written in a late form of Latin, were declared in 2010 by the Royal Spanish Academy as the record of the earliest words written in Castilian, predating those of theGlosas Emilianenses.[21]
According to the theories ofRamón Menéndez Pidal, localsociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city ofBurgos, and this dialect was later brought to the city ofToledo, where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century.[22] In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin,Leonese, and, according to some authors, was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (seeIberian Romance languages). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of theReconquista, and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from theArabic ofAl-Andalus, much of it indirectly, through the RomanceMozarabic dialects (some 4,000Arabic-derived words, make up around 8% of the language today).[23] The written standard for this new language was developed in the cities ofToledo, in the 13th to 16th centuries, andMadrid, from the 1570s.[22]
The development of theSpanish sound system from that ofVulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical ofWestern Romance languages, includinglenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latinvīta > Spanishvida). Thediphthongization of Latin stressed shorte ando—which occurred inopen 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
pedra
pedra,pèira
pierre
pedra,perda
pietra
piatră
'stone'
terra
tierra
terra
tèrra
terre
terra
țară
'land'
moritur
muere
muerre
morre
mor
morís
meurt
mòrit
muore
moare
'dies (v.)'
mortem
muerte
morte
mort
mòrt
mort
morte, morti
morte
moarte
'death'
Chronological map showing linguistic evolution in southwest Europe
Spanish is marked bypalatalization of the Latin double consonants (geminates)nn andll (thus Latinannum > Spanishaño, and Latinanellum > Spanishanillo).
The consonant writtenu orv 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 writtenb (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there isno difference between the pronunciation of orthographicb andv.
Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboringGascon extending as far north as theGironde estuary, and found in a small area ofCalabria), attributed by some scholars to a Basquesubstratum was the mutation of Latin initialf intoh- whenever it was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. Theh-, 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 neighboring Romance languages, there are manyf-/h-doublets in modern Spanish:Fernando andHernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"),ferrero andherrero (both Spanish for "smith"),fierro andhierro (both Spanish for "iron"), andfondo andhondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, thoughfondo means "bottom", whilehondo means "deep"); additionally,hacer ("to make") iscognate to the root word ofsatisfacer ("to satisfy"), andhecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word ofsatisfecho ("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 (orhijo)
fillo
fíu
fillo
filho
fill
filh,hilh
fils
fizu, fìgiu, fillu
figlio
fiu
'son'
facere
hacer
fazer
fer
facer
fazer
fer
far,faire,har (orhèr)
faire
fàghere, fàere,fàiri
fare
a face
'to do'
febrem
fiebre(calentura)
febre
fèbre,frèbe,hrèbe (or herèbe)
fièvre
calentura
febbre
febră
'fever'
focum
fuego
fueu
fogo
foc
fuòc,fòc,huèc
feu
fogu
fuoco
foc
'fire'
Someconsonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table:
TheGramática de la lengua castellana, written inSalamanca in 1492 byElio Antonio de Nebrija, was the first grammar written for a modern European language.[25] According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it toQueen Isabella I, she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire.[26] In his introduction to the grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."[27]
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%
Spanish is the official language ofSpain. Upon the emergence of theCastilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred.[32] Hard policies imposing the language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward.[33]
Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken includeGibraltar andAndorra.[34]
Percentage of the U.S. population aged 5 and over who speaks Spanish at home in 2019, by states
Spanish language has a long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century.[39] In the wake of the1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States.[39] The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce.[40]
According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of the U.S. population were ofHispanic orHispanic American by origin.[41] In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population.[42] Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory ofPuerto Rico, where it is also an official language along with English.
Although Spanish has no official recognition in the formerBritish colony ofBelize (known until 1973 asBritish Honduras) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2022 census, 54% of the total population are able to speak the language.[45]
Due to its proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existingnative Spanish speaking minority,Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government launched theSpanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005.[46]
Spanish has historically had a significant presence on theDutch Caribbean islands ofAruba,Bonaire andCuraçao (ABC Islands) throughout the centuries and in present times. The majority of the populations of each island (especially Aruba) speaking Spanish at varying although often high degrees of fluency.[47] The local languagePapiamentu (Papiamento on Aruba) is heavily influenced by Venezuelan Spanish.
In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation ofMercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching inBrazil.[48][49] In 2005, theNational Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by thePresident, making it mandatory forschools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil.[50] In September 2016 this law was revoked byMichel Temer after theimpeachment of Dilma Rousseff.[51] In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, amixed language known asPortuñol is spoken.[52]
Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during theSpanish colonial period.[53] Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in the Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business.[54] Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish.[55] TheInstituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish.[56] The proportion of proficient Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the proportion of proficient speakers in other West and Central African nations of their respective colonial languages.[57]
Spanish is spoken by very small communities inAngola due to Cuban influence from theCold War and inSouth Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence.[58]
Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities ofCeuta andMelilla and theCanary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off the northwest of the African mainland. TheSpanish spoken in the Canary Islands traces its origins back to theCastilian conquest in the 15th century, and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas,[59] which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish.[60] The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as a second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system.[61]
While far from its heyday during theSpanish protectorate in Morocco, the Spanish language has some presence in northernMorocco, stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media.[62] According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches 4.6% of the population.[63] Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish,[62] with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla.[64] Spanish also has a presence in the education system of the country (through either selected education centers implementing Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, or the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education).[62]
Spanish was an official language of thePhilippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. DuringSpanish colonization, it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as a first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos (Ilustrados). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing.[72]
Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years ofAmerican administration after theSpanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s.[73] Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English andFilipino, a standardized version ofTagalog.
Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under the administration ofFerdinand Marcos two months later.[74] It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language.[75] Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates thatthe government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of the country's constitution.[76] In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language,[77][78] and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system,[79] with over 7,000 students studying the language in the 2021–2022 school year alone.[80] Thelocal business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects.[81] Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population,[82] a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely.[83]
Aside from standard Spanish, a Spanish-based creole language calledChavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish.[84] The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996.[85] The locallanguages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived fromMexican Spanish, owing to the administration of the islands by Spain throughNew Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898.[86][87]
In addition, in Australia and New Zealand, there are native Spanish communities, resulting from emigration from Spanish-speaking countries (mainly from theSouthern Cone).[90]
20 countries and one United States territory speak Spanish officially, and the language has a significant unofficial presence in the rest of the United States along with Andorra, Belize and the territory of Gibraltar.
Worldwide Spanish fluency (grey and * signifies official language)
Miguel de Cervantes, considered by many the greatest author of Spanish literature, and author ofDon Quixote, widely considered the first modern European novel
Most of the grammatical andtypological features of Spanish are shared with the otherRomance languages. Spanish is afusional language. Thenoun andadjective systems exhibit twogenders and twonumbers. In addition, articles and somepronouns anddeterminers have a neuter gender in their singular form. There are about fiftyconjugated forms perverb, with 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2aspects for past:perfective,imperfective; 4moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; 3 persons: first, second, third; 2 numbers: singular, plural; 3verboid forms: infinitive, gerund, and past participle. The indicative mood is theunmarked one, while the subjunctive moodexpresses uncertainty or indetermination, and is commonly paired with the conditional, which is a mood used to express "would" (as in, "I would eat if I had food"); the imperative is a mood to express a command, commonly a one word phrase – "¡Di!" ("Talk!").
Spanishsyntax is consideredright-branching, meaning that subordinate ormodifyingconstituents tend to be placed after head words. The language usesprepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns forcase), and usually—though not always—placesadjectives afternouns, as do most other Romance languages.
Spanish is classified as asubject–verb–object language; however, as in most Romance languages, constituent order is highly variable and governed mainly bytopicalization andfocus. It is a "pro-drop", or "null-subject" language—that is, it allows the deletion of subject pronouns when they arepragmatically unnecessary. Spanish is described as a "verb-framed" language, meaning that thedirection of motion is expressed in the verb while themode of locomotion is expressed adverbially (e.g.subir corriendo orsalir 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).
The Spanish phonological system evolved from that ofVulgar Latin. Its development exhibits some traits in common with otherWestern Romance languages, others with the neighboring Hispanic varieties—especiallyLeonese andAragonese—as well as other features unique to Spanish. Spanish is alone among its immediate neighbors in having undergone frequent aspiration and eventual loss of the Latin initial/f/ sound (e.g. Cast.harina vs. Leon. and Arag.farina).[221] The Latin initial consonant sequencespl-,cl-, andfl- in Spanish typically merge asll- (originally pronounced[ʎ]), while in Aragonese they are preserved in most dialects, and in Leonese they present a variety of outcomes, including[tʃ],[ʃ], and[ʎ]. Where Latin had-li- before a vowel (e.g.filius) or the ending-iculus,-icula (e.g.auricula), Old Spanish produced[ʒ], that in Modern Spanish became the velar fricative[x] (hijo,oreja), whereas neighboring languages have the palatal lateral[ʎ] (e.g. Portuguesefilho,orelha; Catalanfill,orella).
The Spanishphonemic inventory consists of five vowel phonemes (/a/,/e/,/i/,/o/,/u/) and 17 to 19 consonant phonemes (the exact number depending on the dialect[222]). The mainallophonic 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 asmorphophonemic rather than phonological, as it is not predictable from phonology alone.
The Spanish consonant system is characterized by (1) threenasal phonemes, and one or two (depending on the dialect)lateral phoneme(s), which in syllable-final positionlose their contrast and are subject toassimilation to a following consonant; (2) threevoicelessstops and theaffricate/tʃ/; (3) three or four (depending on the dialect)voicelessfricatives; (4) a set of voicedobstruents—/b/,/d/,/ɡ/, and sometimes/ʝ/—which alternate betweenapproximant andplosive 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,/ʎ/ is marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate that it is preserved only in some dialects. In most dialects it has been merged with/ʝ/ in the merger calledyeísmo. Similarly,/θ/ is also marked with an asterisk to indicate that most dialects do not distinguish it from/s/ (seeseseo), although this is not a true merger but an outcome of different evolution of sibilants in southern Spain.
The phoneme/ʃ/ is in parentheses () to indicate that it appears only inloanwords. Each of the voiced obstruent phonemes/b/,/d/,/ʝ/, and/ɡ/ appears to the right of apair of voiceless phonemes, to indicate that, while thevoiceless phonemes maintain a phonemic contrast between plosive (or affricate) and fricative, thevoiced ones alternateallophonically (i.e. without phonemic contrast) between plosive and approximant pronunciations.
Spanishintonation 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 foryes/no questions.[226][227] 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-to-last or earlier syllables. Stress tends to occur as follows:[228][better source needed]
in words that end with amonophthong, on the penultimate syllable
when the word ends in adiphthong, on the final syllable.
in words that end with a consonant, on the last syllable, with the exception of two grammatical endings:-n, for third-person-plural of verbs, and-s, for plural of nouns and adjectives or for second-person-singular of verbs. However, even though 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 withclitic pronouns attached (e.g.guardándoselos 'saving them for him/her/them/you').
In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerousminimal pairs that contrast solely on stress such assábana ('sheet') andsabana ('savannah');límite ('boundary'),limite ('he/she limits') andlimité ('I limited');líquido ('liquid'),liquido ('I sell off') andliquidó ('he/she sold off').
The orthographic 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 (penultimate) syllable. Exceptions to those rules are indicated by an acute accent mark over the vowel of the stressed syllable. (SeeSpanish orthography.)
Spanish is the official, or national language in18 countries and one territory in the Americas,Spain, andEquatorial Guinea. With a population of over 410 million,Hispanophone America accounts for the vast majority of Spanish speakers, of whichMexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country. In theEuropean Union, Spanish is themother tongue of 8% of the population, with an additional 7% speaking it as a second language.[229] Additionally, Spanish is the second most spoken language in theUnited States and is by far the most popular foreign language among students.[230] In 2015, it was estimated that over 50 million Americans spoke Spanish, about 41 million of whom were native speakers.[231] With continued immigration and increased use of the language domestically in public spheres and media, the number of Spanish speakers in the United States is expected to continue growing over the forthcoming decades.[232]
While being mutually intelligible, there are important variations (phonological,grammatical, andlexical) in the spoken Spanish of the various regions of Spain and throughout the Spanish-speaking areas of the Americas.
The national variety with the most speakers isMexican 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 thereduction or loss ofunstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/.[233][234]
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. The speech from the educated classes of Madrid is the standard variety for use on radio and television in Spain and it is indicated by many as the one that has most influenced the written standard for Spanish.[235] Central (European) Spanish speech patterns have been noted to be in the process of merging with more innovative southern varieties (including Eastern Andalusian and Murcian), as an emerging interdialectal levelledkoine buffered between the Madrid's traditional national standard and the Seville speech trends.[236]
The four main phonological divisions are based respectively on (1) the phoneme/θ/, (2) thedebuccalization of syllable-final/s/, (3) the sound of the spelled⟨s⟩, (4) and the phoneme/ʎ/.
The phoneme/θ/ (spelledc beforee ori and spelled⟨z⟩ elsewhere), avoiceless dental fricative as in Englishthing, is maintained by a majority of Spain's population, especially in the northern and central parts of the country. In other areas (some parts of southern Spain, theCanary Islands, and the Americas),/θ/ does not exist and/s/ occurs instead. The maintenance of phonemic contrast is calleddistinción in Spanish, while the merger is generally calledseseo (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 avoiceless dental sibilant.
The debuccalization (pronunciation as[h], or loss) of syllable-final/s/ is associated with the southern half of 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, andaspiración in Spanish. When there is no debuccalization, the syllable-final/s/ is pronounced asvoiceless "apico-alveolar" sibilant or as avoiceless dental sibilant in the same fashion as in the next paragraph.
The sound that corresponds to the letter⟨s⟩ is pronounced in northern and central Spain as avoiceless "apico-alveolar" sibilant[s̺] (also described acoustically as "grave" and articulatorily as "retracted"), with a weak "hushing" sound reminiscent ofretroflex fricatives. InAndalusia,Canary Islands and most of Hispanic America (except in thePaisa region of Colombia) it is pronounced as avoiceless dental sibilant[s], much like the most frequent pronunciation of the /s/ of English.
The phoneme/ʎ/, spelled⟨ll⟩, apalatal lateral consonant that can be approximated by the sound of the⟨lli⟩ of Englishmillion, tends to be maintained in less-urbanized areas of northern Spain and in thehighland areas of South America, as well as inParaguay andlowland Bolivia. Meanwhile, in the speech of most other Spanish speakers, it is merged with/ʝ/ ("curly-tailj"), a non-lateral, usually voiced, usually fricative, palatal consonant, sometimes compared to English/j/ (yod) as inyacht 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 calledyeísmo in Spanish. InRioplatense Spanish, the merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, either voiced[ʒ] (as in Englishmeasure 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 and Montevideo (sheísmo).[237]
The mainmorphological variations between dialects of Spanish involve differing uses of pronouns, especially those of the secondperson and, to a lesser extent, theobject pronouns of the thirdperson.
An examination of the dominance and stress of thevoseo feature in Hispanic America. Data generated as illustrated by theAssociation of Spanish Language Academies. The darker the area, the stronger its dominance.
Virtually all dialects of Spanish make thedistinction between a formal and a familiarregister in thesecond-personsingular and thus have two differentpronouns meaning "you":usted in the formal and eithertú orvos in the familiar (and each of these three pronouns has its associated verb forms), with the choice oftú orvos varying from one dialect to another. The use ofvos and its verb forms is calledvoseo. In a few dialects, all three pronouns are used, withusted,tú, andvos denoting respectively formality, familiarity, and intimacy.[238]
Invoseo,vos is thesubject form (vos decís, "you say") and the form for the object of apreposition (voy con vos, "I am going with you"), while the direct and indirectobject forms, and thepossessives, are the same as those associated withtú:Vos sabés que tus amigos te respetan ("You know your friends respect you").
The verb forms of the generalvoseo are the same as those used withtú except in the presenttense (indicative andimperative) verbs. The forms forvos generally can be derived from those ofvosotros (the traditional second-person familiarplural) by deleting theglide[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).[239]
The forms inbold coincide with standardtú-conjugation.
The use of the pronounvos with the verb forms oftú (vos piensas) is called "pronominalvoseo". Conversely, the use of the verb forms ofvos with the pronountú (tú pensás ortú pensái) is called "verbalvoseo". In Chile, for example, verbalvoseo is much more common than the actual use of the pronounvos, which is usually reserved for highly informal situations.
Distribution in Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas
Althoughvos 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.[241][better source needed] Generally, it can be said that there are zones of exclusive use oftuteo (the use oftú) in the following areas: almost all ofMexico, theWest Indies,Panama, most ofColombia,Peru,Venezuela and coastalEcuador.
Tuteo as a cultured form alternates withvoseo as a popular or rural form inBolivia, in the north and south of Peru, in Andean Ecuador, in small zones of the Venezuelan Andes (and most notably in the Venezuelan state ofZulia), and in a large part of Colombia. Some researchers maintain thatvoseo can be heard in some parts of eastern Cuba, and others assert that it is absent from the island.[242]
Tuteo exists as the second-person usage with an intermediate degree of formality alongside the more familiarvoseo inChile, in the Venezuelan state ofZulia, on the Caribbean coast ofColombia, in theAzuero Peninsula in Panama, in the Mexican state ofChiapas, and in parts of Guatemala.
Ustedes functions as formal and informal second-person plural in all of Hispanic America, theCanary Islands, and parts ofAndalusia. It agrees with verbs in the 3rd person plural. Most of Spain maintains theformal/familiar distinction withustedes andvosotros respectively. The use ofustedes with the second person plural is sometimes heard in Andalusia, but it is non-standard.
Usted is the usual second-person singular pronoun in a formal context, but it is used jointly 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 afamiliar context by many speakers in Colombia and Costa Rica and in parts of Ecuador and Panama, to the exclusion oftú orvos. This usage is sometimes calledustedeo 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 between parents and children in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.
Most speakers use (and theReal Academia Española prefers) the pronounslo andla fordirect objects (masculine and feminine respectively, regardless ofanimacy, meaning "him", "her", or "it"), andle forindirect objects (regardless ofgender oranimacy, 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 theaccusative anddative pronouns of Latin, the ancestor language of Spanish.
A number of dialects (more common in Spain than in the Americas) use additional rules for the pronouns, such as animacy, orcount noun vs.mass noun, rather than just direct vs. indirect object. The ways of using the pronouns in such varieties are called "leísmo", "loísmo", or "laísmo", according to which respective pronoun,le,lo, orla, covers more than just the etymological usage (le as a direct object, orlo orla as an indirect object).
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, Spanishmantequilla,aguacate andalbaricoque (respectively, 'butter', 'avocado', 'apricot') correspond tomanteca (word used forlard inPeninsular Spanish),palta, anddamasco, respectively, in Argentina, Chile (exceptmanteca), Paraguay, Peru (exceptmanteca anddamasco), and Uruguay. In the healthcare context, an assessment of the Spanish translation of theQWB-SA identified some regional vocabulary choices and US-specific concepts, which cannot be successfully implemented in Spain without adaptation.[243]
Around 85% of everyday Spanish vocabulary is ofLatin origin. Most of the core vocabulary and the most common words in Spanish comes from Latin. The Spanish words first learned by children as they learn to speak are mainly words of Latin origin. These words of Latin origin can be classified as heritage words, cultisms (learned borrowings) and semi-cultisms.
Most of the Spanish lexicon is made up of heritage lexicon. Heritage or directly inherited words are those whose presence in the spoken language has been continued since before the differentiation of theRomance languages. Heritage words are characterized by having undergone all the phonetic changes experienced by the language. This differentiates it from the cultisms and semi-cultisms that were no longer used in the spoken language and were later reintroduced for restricted uses. Because of this, cultisms generally have not experienced some of the phonetic changes and present a different form than they would have if they had been transmitted with heritage words.
In the philological tradition of Spanish, cultism is called a word whose morphology very strictly follows its Greek or Latin etymological origin, without undergoing the changes that the evolution of the Spanish language followed from its origin inVulgar Latin. The same concept also exists in other Romance languages. Reintroduced into the language for cultural, literary or scientific considerations, cultism only adapts its form to the orthographic and phonological conventions derived from linguistic evolution, but ignores the transformations that the roots and morphemes underwent in the development of the Romance language.
In some cases, cultisms are used to introduce technical or specialized terminology that, present in the classical language, did not appear in the Romance language due to lack of use; This is the case of many of the literary, legal and philosophical terms of classical culture, such asataraxia (from the Greek ἀταραξία, "dispassion") orlegislar (built from the Latinlegislator). In other cases, they construct neologisms, such as the name of most scientific disciplines.
A semi-cultism is a word that did not evolve in the expected way, in the vernacular language (Romance language), unlike heritage words; its evolution is incomplete. Many times interrupted by cultural influences (ecclesiastical, legal, administrative, etc.). For the same reason, they maintain some features of the language of origin.Dios is a clear example of semi-cultism, where it came from the LatinDeus. It is a semi-cultism, because it maintains (without fully adapting to Castilianization, in this case) some characteristics of the Latin language—the ending in -s—, but, at the same time, it undergoes slight phonetic modifications (change of eu for io).Deus >Dios (instead of remaining cultist:Deus >*Deus, or becoming a heritage word:Deus >*Dío). TheCatholic Church influenced by stopping the natural evolution of this word, and, in this way, converted this word into a semi-cultism and unconsciously prevented it from becoming a heritage word.
Spanish vocabulary has been influenced by several languages. As in other European languages,Classical Greek words (Hellenisms) are abundant in the terminologies of several fields, includingart,science,politics,nature, etc.[244] Its vocabulary has also beeninfluenced by Arabic, having developed during theAl-Andalus era in theIberian Peninsula, with around 8% of its vocabulary havingArabic lexical roots.[245][246][247][248] It has also been influenced byBasque,Iberian,Celtiberian,Visigothic, and other neighboring Ibero-Romance languages.[249][248] Additionally, it has absorbed vocabulary from other languages, particularly other Romance languages such asFrench,Mozarabic,Portuguese,Galician,Catalan,Occitan, andSardinian, as well as fromQuechua,Nahuatl, andother indigenous languages of the Americas.[250] In the 18th century, words taken from French referring above all to fashion, cooking and bureaucracy were added to the Spanish lexicon. In the 19th century, new loanwords were incorporated, especially from English and German, but also from Italian in areas related to music, particularly opera and cooking. In the 20th century, the pressure of English in the fields of technology, computing, science and sports was greatly accentuated.
In general,Latin America is more susceptible to loanwords from English or Anglicisms. For example:mouse (computer mouse) is used in Latin America, inSpainratón is used. This happens largely due to closer contact with theUnited States. For its part, Spain is known by the use of Gallicisms or words taken from neighboringFrance (such as the Gallicismordenador in European Spanish, in contrast to the Anglicismcomputador orcomputadora in American Spanish).
It is generally acknowledged that Portuguese and Spanish speakers can communicate in written form, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility.[251][252][253][254]Mutual intelligibility of thewritten Spanish and Portuguese languages is high, lexically and grammatically.Ethnologue gives estimates of thelexical similarity between related languages in terms of precise percentages. For Spanish and Portuguese, that figure is 89%, although phonologically the two languages are quite dissimilar. Italian on the other hand, is phonologically similar to Spanish, while sharing lower lexical and grammatical similarity of 82%. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish andFrench or between Spanish andRomanian is lower still, given lexical similarity ratings of 75% and 71% respectively.[255][256] 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:
rēs, rĕm "thing" nūlla(m) rem nāta(m) "no born thing" mīca(m) "crumb"
nada
nada (alsoren andres)
nada (arch. rés)
nada (alsoun res)
cosa
res
rien, nul
niente, nulla mica (negative particle)
nimic, nul
'nothing'
cāseu(m) fōrmāticu(m) "form-cheese"
queso
queixo
queijo
quesu
queso
formatge
fromage
formaggio/cacio
caș10
'cheese'
1. In Romance etymology, Latin terms are given in the Accusative since most forms derive from this case. 2. As in "us very selves", an emphatic expression. 3. Alsonós outros in early modern Portuguese (e.g.The Lusiads), andnosoutros in Galician. 4. Alternativelynous autres inFrench. 5.noialtri in many SouthernItalian dialects and languages. 6. Medieval Catalan (e.g.Llibre dels fets). 7. Modified with the learned suffix-ción. 8. Depending on the written norm used (seeReintegrationism). 9. FromBasqueesku, "hand" +erdi, "half, incomplete". This negative meaning also applies for Latinsinistra(m) ("dark, unfortunate"). 10. Romaniancaș (from Latincāsevs) means a type of cheese. The universal term for cheese in Romanian isbrânză (from unknown etymology).[257]
TheRashi script, originally used to print Judaeo-SpanishAn original letter in Haketia, written in 1832
Judaeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino,[258] is a variety of Spanish which preserves many features of medieval Spanish and some old Portuguese and is spoken by descendants of theSephardi Jews who wereexpelled from Spain in the 15th century.[258] While in Portugal the conversion of Jews occurred earlier and the assimilation ofNew Christians was overwhelming, in Spain the Jews kept their language and identity. The relationship of Ladino and Spanish is therefore comparable with that of theYiddish language toGerman. Ladino speakers today are almost exclusivelySephardi 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.[258] Judaeo-Spanish lacks theNative American vocabulary which was acquired by standard Spanish during theSpanish 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 fromHebrew, French, Greek andTurkish, 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 elderlyolim (immigrants toIsrael) 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 Latin American communities, the danger of extinction is also due to assimilation by modern Spanish.
A related dialect isHaketia, the Judaeo-Spanish of northernMorocco. This too, tended to assimilate with modern Spanish, during the Spanish occupation of the region.
Spanish is written in theLatin 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 atilde). Formerly thedigraphs⟨ch⟩ (che, representing the phoneme/t͡ʃ/) and⟨ll⟩ (elle, representing the phoneme/ʎ/ or/ʝ/), were also considered single letters. However, the digraph⟨rr⟩ (erre fuerte, 'strong r',erre doble, 'double r', or simplyerre), which also represents a distinct phoneme/r/, was not similarly regarded as a single letter. Since 1994⟨ch⟩ and⟨ll⟩ have been treated as letter pairs forcollation purposes, though they remained a part of the alphabet until 2010. 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⟩.[259][260]
Thus, the Spanish alphabet has the following 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, Z.
Since 2010, none of the digraphs (ch, ll, rr, gu, qu) are considered letters by the Royal Spanish Academy.[261]
The lettersk andw 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 asMéxico (seeToponymy of Mexico), pronunciation can be entirely determined from spelling. Under the orthographic conventions, a typical Spanish word is stressed on thesyllable 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 anacute accent on thestressed vowel.
The acute accent is used, in addition, to distinguish between certainhomophones, especially when one of them is a stressed word and the other one is aclitic: compareel ('the', masculine singular definite article) withél ('he' or 'it'), orte ('you', object pronoun) withté ('tea'),de (preposition 'of') versusdé ('give' [formal imperative/third-person present subjunctive]), andse (reflexive pronoun) versussé ('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 on capital letters (a widespread practice in the days oftypewriters and the early days of computers when only lowercase vowels were available with accents), although theReal Academia Española advises against this and the orthographic conventions taught at schools enforce the use of the accent.
Whenu is written betweeng and a front vowele ori, it indicates a "hard g" pronunciation. Adiaeresisü 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 withinverted question and exclamation marks (¿ and¡, respectively) and closed by the usual question and exclamation marks.
The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española), founded in 1713,[262] together with the 21 other national ones (seeAssociation of Spanish Language Academies), exercises a standardizing influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar and style guides.[263]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.
TheInstituto Cervantes ('Cervantes Institute') is a worldwide nonprofit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. This organization has branches in 45 countries, with 88 centers devoted to the Spanish and Hispanic American cultures and Spanish language.[288] The goals of the Institute are to promote universally the education, the study, and the use of Spanish as a second language, to support methods and activities that help the process of Spanish-language education, and to contribute to the advancement of the Spanish and Hispanic American cultures in non-Spanish-speaking countries. The institute's 2015 report "El español, una lengua viva" (Spanish, a living language) estimated that there were 559 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Its latest annual report "El español en el mundo 2018" (Spanish in the world 2018) counts 577 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Among the sources cited in the report is theU.S. Census Bureau, which estimates that the U.S. will have 138 million Spanish speakers by 2050, making it the biggest Spanish-speaking nation on earth, with Spanish the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens.[289]
Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros.[290]
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[291]
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2022)."Castilic".Glottolog 4.6. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved19 June 2022.
^Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2022)."Summary by language size".Ethnologue. SIL International.Archived from the original on 18 June 2023. Retrieved2 December 2023.
^Heriberto Robles; Camacho Becerra; Juan José Comparán Rizo; Felipe Castillo (1998).Manual de etimologías grecolatinas (3rd ed.). Mexico: Limusa. p. 19.ISBN968-18-5542-6.Archived from the original on 24 January 2023. Retrieved9 January 2023.
^"La lengua de Cervantes"(PDF) (in Spanish). Ministerio de la Presidencia de España. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 3 October 2008. Retrieved24 August 2008.
^"Anuario instituto Cervantes 2023".Centro Virtual Cervantes (in Spanish).Archived from the original on 22 February 2023. Retrieved6 November 2023. Estimate. Corrected as Equatorial Guinea is mistakenly included (no native speakers there)
^"Background Note: Andorra". U.S. Department of State: Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. January 2007.Archived from the original on 22 January 2017. Retrieved20 August 2007.
^Lamboy, Edwin M.; Salgado-Robles, Francisco (2020). "Introduction: Spanish in the United States and across Domains". In Salgado-Robles, Francisco; Lamboy, Edwin M. (eds.).Spanish across Domains in the United States. Education, Public Space, and Social Media. Leiden:Brill. p. 1.ISBN978-90-04-43322-9.
^"FAQ".The Secretariat for The Implementation of Spanish. Trinidad and Tobago: Government of the Republic. Archived fromthe original on 3 November 2010. Retrieved10 January 2012.
^Lipski, John M (2006). Face, Timothy L; Klee, Carol A (eds.)."Too close for comfort? the genesis of "portuñol/portunhol""(PDF).Selected Proceedings of the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project:1–22.Archived(PDF) from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved29 December 2008.
^Lipski, John (1994).Latin American Spanish (1st ed.). Longman. p. 55:An indisputable influence in the formation of Latin American Spanish, often overshadowed by discussion of the 'Andalusian' contribution, is the Canary Islands.
^Ocampo, Ambeth (4 December 2007)."The loss of Spanish".Philippine Daily Inquirer (INQUIRER.net). Makati City, Philippines. Opinion. Archived fromthe original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved26 July 2010.
^Article XIV, Sec 7: "For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English. The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis."
^Article XIV, Sec 8: "This Constitution shall be promulgated in Filipino and English and shall be translated into major regional languages, Arabic, andSpanish."
^Spanish creole:Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga (January 2003).Pero ¿cuántos hablan español en Filipinas?(PDF). Cervantes virtual. pp. 54, 55.Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 August 2009. Retrieved1 December 2009.
^abcdefghijklm"Europeans and their Languages". European Union (eurobarometer). 2023. pp. 11, 58. Reports and documents - Data annex - Europeans and their languages - page 58. The source offers percentages of people over 12 years old in each EU country, who speak Spanish at a very good level (page 58). Of the total EU population over 12 years old, 9% are native Spanish speakers, another 3% have a very good level of Spanish, and a total of 17% can hold a conversation in Spanish (page 54). Therefore, native and very good Spanish speakers account for 12% (9%+3%).
^abcd"Demografía de la lengua española"(PDF) (in Spanish). p. 10.Archived(PDF) from the original on 23 September 2010. Retrieved23 February 2010., to countries with official Spanish status.
^abcINE (2021)Archived 2 November 2023 at theWayback Machine: In Spain, 85.6% speak Spanish always or frequently in family (77.1% always and 8.5% frequently), 96% speak Spanish well, and 99.5% understand and speak, albeit with difficulty .
^"Peru".The World factbook. CIA. 2007.Archived from the original on 19 November 2021. Retrieved4 October 2011.Spanish (official) 84.1%, Quechua (official) 13%, Aymara 1.7%, Ashaninka 0.3%, other native languages (includes a large number of minor Amazonian languages) 0.7%, other 0.2%
^"Peru". Ethnologue.Archived from the original on 2 December 2011. Retrieved21 September 2011.There are 5,782,260 people who speak other language as mother tongue (main languages: Quechua (among 32 Quechua's varieties) 4,773,900, Aymara (2 varieties) 661,000, Chinese 100,000).
^"Venezuela". Ethnologue. Archived fromthe original on 10 March 2013. Retrieved30 May 2013.There are 1,098,244 people who speak other language as their mother tongue (main languages: Chinese 400,000, Portuguese 254,000, Wayuu 199,000, Arabic 110,000)
^"Chile". Ethnologue.Archived from the original on 3 February 2013. Retrieved12 October 2011.There are 281,600 people who speak another language, mainly Mapudungun (250.000)
^"Guatemala".The World Factbook. CIA.Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved27 January 2021.Spanish (official) 69.9%, Amerindian languages 40%
^There are more than 433,000 emigrants from predominantly Spanish-speaking countries in France, of which 93.6% speak native Spanish (Inst. Cerv. Anuario 2024): 310,072 Spaniards (INE, 2025) + 31,151 Colombians + 16,473 Chileans + 14,807 Argentines + 13,390 Mexicans + 13,361 Peruvians + 7,249 Venezuelans + 5,466 Cubans + 4,730 Ecuatorians + 3,992 Dominicans + 3,598 Bolivians + 3,423 Guatemalans + 2,784 Uruguayans + 1,178 Paraguayans (datosmacro 2020). On the other hand, we should consider Spanish emigrants who have become French citizens and still speak Spanish, or the descendants of Spanish emigrants born in France who speak Spanish at home.
^There are 14,100 people who speak other language as their mother tongue (main language, Kekchí with 12,300 speakers):EthnologueArchived 7 February 2016 at theWayback Machine.
^"IBGE population estimations" [The IBGE publishes the population estimates for 1 July 2024] (in Brazilian Portuguese). 2024.
^There are 1,318,554 emigrants from predominantly Spanish-speaking countries in Brazil, of which 93.6% speak native Spanish (Inst. Cerv. Anuario 2024): 626,900 Venezuelans (r4v, nov 2024) + 140,319 Spaniards (INE, 2025) + 140,544 Bolivians + 81,036 Colombians + 79,744 Argentines + 50,512 Uruguayans + 49,412 Peruvians + 48,501 Paraguayans + 35,602 Cubans + 22,656 Mexicans + 20,650 Chileans + 10,669 Ecuatorians + 3,370 Dominicans + 2,592 Hondurans + 1,929 Costa Ricans + 1,676 Guatemalans (nepo.unicamp.br 2020-22).
^Native command group (GDL): 266,955 non-nationalized Spanish-speaking immigrants, 63,752 nationalized Spanish-speaking immigrants, 44,500 Spanish speakers of children of immigrants (second generation). 375,207 total native speakers, but there are another 37,047 non-mother-tongue speakers with native-level skills.Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2020 (page 325). "Germany and their Spanish speakers"Archived 18 February 2020 at theWayback Machine
^There are 501,043 people who speak another language as mother tongue:"PA". Ethnologue.Archived from the original on 21 October 2011. Retrieved17 October 2011.
^There are 150,200 people who speak another language as mother tongue,"UY". Ethnologue.Archived from the original on 16 November 2011. Retrieved17 October 2011.
^cvc.cervantes.es.Archived 27 December 2021 at theWayback Machine. 13.7% of the country's Spanish speakers are proficient; the remaining 74% are limited-competence speakers.
^"cvc.cervantes.es".Archived from the original on 16 August 2023. Retrieved25 October 2023. There are 4,803 native Spanish speakers + 461,689 Spanish speakers with limited competence + 33,600 Spanish students.
^"2024 Census". Australian census data. 30 September 2024.
^The 1970 Spanish census claims there were 16,648 Spanish speakers in Western Sahara at the time ([1].Archived 17 September 2009 at theWayback Machine), but most of them were probably people born in Spain who left after the Moroccan annexation.
^www.um.esArchived 26 June 2014 at theWayback Machine (5.2. Datos descriptivos de los usos de español e inglés, Gráfico 2). 77.3% of the Gibraltar population speak Spanish with their mother more, or equal than English.
^"(2013)". db1.stat.gov.lt. Archived fromthe original on 19 August 2010. Retrieved24 March 2014.
^"El Español en Cifras"(PDF).cvc.cervantes.es (in Spanish). pp. 25–32.Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 July 2016. Retrieved3 February 2022.
^Lope Blanch, Juan M. (1972). "En torno a las vocales caedizas del español mexicano".Estudios sobre el español de México(PDF) (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. pp. 53–73. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 5 February 2011.
^Penny (2000:199): "whatever might be claimed by other centres, such as Valladolid, it was educated varieties of Madrid Spanish that were mostly regularly reflected in the written standard."
^ab"Diccionario panhispánico de dudas" [Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts] (in Spanish). Real Academia Española y Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española [Royal Spanish Academy and Association of Academies of the Spanish Language]. 11 June 2023 [October 2005].Archived from the original on 5 March 2011. Retrieved6 November 2023.
^"Voseo según DPD" (in Spanish).Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved27 January 2022.
^Bergua Cavero, J.,Los helenismos del español : historia y sistema, Madrid (Gredos) 2004,ISBN9788424927103
^Versteegh, Kees (2003).The Arabic language (Repr. ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 228.ISBN0-7486-1436-2.Archived from the original on 26 June 2014. Retrieved23 October 2016.
^Quintana, Lucía; Mora, Juan Pablo (2002)."Enseñanza del acervo léxico árabe de la lengua española"(PDF).ASELE. Actas XIII: 705.Archived(PDF) from the original on 28 May 2016. Retrieved23 October 2016.: "El léxico español de procedencia árabe es muy abundante: se ha señalado que constituye, aproximadamente, un 8% del vocabulario total"
^Often considered to be a substratum word. Other theories suggest, on the basis of what is used to make cheese, a derivation from Latinbrandeum (originally meaning a linen covering, later a thin cloth for relic storage) through an intermediate root *brandea. For the development of the meaning, cf. Spanishmanteca, Portuguesemanteiga, probably from Latinmantica ('sack'), Italianformaggio and Frenchfromage fromformaticus.Romanian Explanatory DictionaryArchived 18 February 2020 at theWayback Machine
^abcAlfassa, Shelomo (December 1999)."Ladinokomunita". Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture.Archived from the original on 2 April 2010. Retrieved4 February 2010.
^"Informacion institucional" (in Spanish). El Salvador: Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua. Archived fromthe original on 4 September 2011. Retrieved5 February 2011.
Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2020).Ethnologue: Languages of the World (23rd ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.Archived from the original on 6 April 2006. Retrieved22 June 2002.
Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003). "Castilian Spanish".Journal of the International Phonetic Association.33 (2):255–59.doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 (inactive 1 November 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
^82% of U.S. Hispanics speak Spanish very well (according to a 2011 survey).[102] There are 65.1 million Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2023[103] + 2.8 mill. non Hispanic Spanish speakers[104])
^43.4 million as a first language + 15.5 million as a second language. To avoid double counting, the number does not include 8 million Spanish students and some of the 7.7 million undocumented Hispanics not accounted by the Census.
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 148,392 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 335,576 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 219,534 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 85,869 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^People with Spanish limited competence in Ecuador: 537,552. Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 451,533 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 1,638,867 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 267,729 (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^3% of people in France older than 12, speak Spanish very well, and 1% speak Spanish as a native language.
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 69,667. (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 19,253. Indigenous population that have limited competence: 2,456,048 (page 45, 34 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^522,443 immigrants native speakers + 170,444 descendants of Spanish immigrants + 5,500,000 can hold a conversation (pages 52 and 54 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024"). To avoid double counting, the number does not include 4,048,338 Spanish students in Brazil (page 59).
^2% of people in Germany older than 12, speak Spanish very well, and 1% speak Spanish as a native language.
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 897. (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^Indigenous population that does not speak Spanish: 69,667. (page 44 of "Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2024").
^2% of people in Italy older than 12, speak Spanish very well, and 1% speak Spanish as a native language.
^1% of people in Belgium older than 12, speak Spanish very well, and 1% speak Spanish as a native language.
^There are 1,149 native Spanish speakers + 173,600 Spanish speakers with limited competence + 88,679 Spanish students.
^There are 13,000 native Spanish speakers + 24,000 Spanish speakers with limited competence + 95,888 Spanish students.
^4% of people in Italy older than 12, speak Spanish very well, and 3% speak Spanish as a native language.
Real Academia Española (RAE), Royal Spanish Academy. Spain's official institution, with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language
Instituto Cervantes, Cervantes Institute. A Spanish government agency, responsible for promoting the study and the teaching of the Spanish language and culture.
FundéuRAE, Foundation of Emerging Spanish. A non-profit organization with collaboration of the RAE which mission is to clarify doubts and ambiguities of Spanish.
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