The language known today as
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
is derived from a dialect of
spoken Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans after their occupation of the peninsula that started in the late 3rd century BC. Influenced by the peninsular hegemony of
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...
in the early middle ages,
Hispano-Romance varieties borrowed substantial lexicon from
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
. Upon the southward territorial expansion of the
Kingdom of Castile
The Kingdom of Castile (; es, Reino de Castilla, la, Regnum Castellae) was a large and powerful state on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region. It began in the 9th cent ...
, Hispano-Romance norms associated to this polity displaced both Arabic and the
Mozarabic
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
romance varieties in the conquered territories, even though the resulting speech also assimilated features from the latter in the process. The first standard norm of Spanish was brought forward in the 13th century by
Alfonso X the Wise
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germ ...
(who replaced Latin with Castilian as language of the administration), probably drawing from the speech of the upper classes of
Toledo. Features associated with the Castilian patterns of Hispano-Romance also spread west and east to the kingdoms of
León and
Aragón
Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises th ...
for the rest of the middle ages, owing to the political prestige achieved by the Kingdom of Castile in the peninsular context and to the lesser literary development of their vernacular norms. From the 1560s onward the standard written form followed
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
's.
The Spanish language expanded overseas in the
Early Modern period in the wake of the Spanish conquests in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
(as well as the
Canary Islands). Besides the Caribbean, the colonial administration in the new territories had its main centres of power located in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
and
Lima
Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...
, which retained more features from the central peninsular norm than other more peripheral territories of the
Spanish empire
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
, where adoption of patterns from the southern peninsular norm of
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
(the largest city of the Crown in the 16th century and the port linking to the Americas) was more pervasive, even though in other regards the influence from the latter norm (associated to
Andalusian Spanish) came to be preponderant in the entire Americas. Spanish varieties henceforth borrowed influence from
Amerindian languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, primarily coming from the Caribbean, the Central-Andean and Mesoamerican regions. Today it is the
official language of 20 countries, as well as an official language of
numerous international organizations, including the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
.
Main distinguishing features
The development of
Spanish phonology
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system ...
is distinguished from those of other nearby
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
(e.g.
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
) by several features:
*
diphthongization
In historical linguistics, vowel breaking, vowel fracture, or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong.
Types
Vowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned. It may be triggered by the presence of ...
of Latin stressed short E and O in
closed syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
s as well as open (, ''puerta'' vs. Portuguese )
*
devoicing
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commo ...
and further development of the medieval Spanish
sibilants
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
, producing (1) the
velar fricative
A velar fricative is a fricative consonant produced at the velar place of articulation. It is possible to distinguish the following kinds of velar fricatives:
*Voiced velar fricative, a consonant sound written as in the International Phonetic Alph ...
in words such as ''caja'', ''hijo'', ''gente'', and (2)—in many
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
of Spain, including the prestige varieties of Madrid, Toledo, etc.—the
interdental
Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. That differs from dental consonants, which are articulated with the tongue against the ''back'' of the upper incisors. No language is kn ...
in words such as , ''hacer'', and ''lazo''
*
debuccalization
Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (usually , , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspir ...
and eventual loss of Latin initial in most contexts, marked in modern spelling by the silent ⟨h⟩ of words such as ''hablar'', ''hilo'', ''hoja'' (from Latin , , and respectively. Also in
Gascon: , ''huelha'')
* early fricativization of palatal (from
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
-LJ-, -CL-, -GL-), first into palatal and ultimately into velar , e.g., ''filius'' →''hijo'', *''oc'lu'' → ''ojo'', * → ''cuajar''; cf. Portuguese ''filho, olho, coalhar'')
* development of initial PL-, CL-, FL- into palatal in many words, e.g., ''plorare'' → ''llorar'', ''clamare'' → ''llamar'', ''flamma'' → ''llama''; cf. Portuguese ''chorar, chamar, chama'', Catalan )
* Vulgar Latin initial (from J-, DJ-, G(E)-, G(I)-) remains before , and , subsequently disappearing in an unstressed syllable (''iaceō''→''yace, gypsum→yeso, ienuārius→enero, *iectāre→echar, gelāre→helar, *genuclum→hinojo'' vs. Portuguese ''jaz, gesso, janeiro, jeitar, gelar, joelho'')
The following features are characteristic of Spanish phonology and also of some other
Ibero-Romance languages
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languagesIberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...
, but not the Romance languages as a whole:
*
palatalization of Latin -NN- and -LL- into and (''año'', ''caballo'') (also in Catalan: ''any'', ''cavall'').
*the
phonemic merger of and , making, for example, the noun ''tubo'' and the verb ''tuvo'' phonetically equivalent (in all contexts except those of
hypercorrection or
spelling pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounc ...
)
[, §§90-91.] (also in Galician, Northern European Portuguese and some Catalan and Occitan varieties)
*
spirantization
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a ...
of , , and → , and —not only from original Latin B, D, and G (as in Sp. ''probar'', ''sudar'', ''legumbre''), but also from Latin *V, P, T, and C (as in Sp. ''tuvo,'' ''sabe'', ''vida'', ''lago'') (also in Galician, European Portuguese, Catalan and parts of Occitan)
The Latin system of four
verb conjugations (form classes) is reduced to three in Spanish. The Latin infinitives with the endings -ĀRE, -ĒRE, and -ĪRE become Spanish infinitives in ''-ar'', ''-er'', and ''-ir'' respectively. The Latin
third conjugation—infinitives ending in -ĔRE—are redistributed between the Spanish ''-er'' and ''-ir'' classes (e.g. ''facere'' → ''hacer'', ''dicere'' → ''decir'').
Spanish verbal
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
continues the use of some Latin
synthetic forms that were replaced by
analytic ones in spoken French and (partly) Italian (cf. Sp. ''lavó'', Fr. ''il a lavé''), and the Spanish
subjunctive mood maintains separate
present and
past-tense forms.
Spanish
syntax provides overt marking for some
direct objects (the so-called "personal ''a''", see
differential object marking
In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is pr ...
for the general phenomenon), and uses
clitic doubling with indirect objects, in which a "redundant" pronoun (''le'', ''les'') appears even in the presence of an explicit
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
. (Neither feature occurs in other
Western Romance languages
Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included ...
, but both are features of
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
, with ''pe'' < PER corresponding to Spanish ''a''.) With regard to subject pronouns, Spanish is a
pro-drop language
A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...
, meaning that the
verb phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''q ...
can often stand alone without the use of a subject pronoun (or a subject
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
). Compared to other Romance languages, Spanish has a somewhat freer
syntax with relatively fewer restrictions on subject-verb-object
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
.
Due to prolonged
language contact with other languages, the Spanish
lexicon contains
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s from
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, Hispano-Celtic (
Celtiberian and
Gallaecian),
Iberian, Germanic (
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
),
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...
.
Accents—used in Modern Spanish to mark the vowel of the stressed syllable in words where stress is not predictable from rules—came into use sporadically in the 15th century, and massively in the 16th century. Their use began to be standardized with the advent of the
Spanish Royal Academy
The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
in the 18th century. See also
Spanish orthography
Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English, having a relatively consistent mapping ...
.
External history
![Linguistic map Southwestern Europe-en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Linguistic_map_Southwestern_Europe-en.gif)
The standard Spanish language is also called
Castilian in its original variant, and in order to distinguish it from other languages native to parts of Spain, such as Galician, Catalan, Basque, etc. In its earliest documented form, and up through approximately the 15th century, the language is customarily called
Old Spanish. From approximately the 16th century on, it is called Modern Spanish. Spanish of the 16th and 17th centuries is sometimes called "classical" Spanish, referring to the
literary accomplishments of that period. Unlike
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
French, it is not customary to speak of a "middle" stage in the development of Spanish.
Origins
Castilian Spanish originated (after the decline of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
) as a continuation of
spoken Latin in several areas of northern and central Spain. Eventually, the variety spoken in the city of
Toledo around the 13th century became the basis for the written standard. With the ''
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
'', this northern dialect spread to the south, where it almost entirely replaced or absorbed the local Romance dialects, at the same time as it borrowed many words from
Andalusi Arabic
Andalusi Arabic (), also known as Andalusian Arabic, was a variety or varieties of Arabic spoken mainly from the 9th to the 17th century in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) once under Muslim rule. It b ...
and was influenced by
Mozarabic
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
(the Romance speech of Christians living in
Moorish territory) and medieval
Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino). These languages had vanished in the Iberian Peninsula by the late 16th century.
The prestige of Castile and its language was propagated partly by the exploits of Castilian heroes in the battles of the ''Reconquista''—among them
Fernán González Fernan or Fernán is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include:
* Fernán Blázquez de Cáceres, Spanish nobleman
* Fernán Caballero (1796–1877), Spanish novelist
* Fernando Fernán Gómez (1921–2007), Spanish actor ...
and Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (
El Cid)—and by the narrative poems about them that were recited in Castilian even outside the original territory of that dialect.
The "first written Spanish" was traditionally considered to have appeared in the ''
Glosas Emilianenses
The Glosas Emilianenses (Spanish for "glosses of he monastery of SaintMillán/Emilianus") are glosses written in the 10th or 11th century to a 9th-century Latin codex. These marginalia are important as early examples of writing in a form of Ro ...
'' located in
San Millán de la Cogolla,
La Rioja
La Rioja () is an autonomous community and province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, an ...
. These are "glosses" (translations of isolated words and phrases in a form more like Hispanic Romance than Latin) added between the lines of a manuscript that was written earlier in Latin. Nowadays the language of the ''Glosas Emilianenses'' is considered to be closer to the
Navarro-Aragonese language
Navarro-Aragonese is a Romance language once spoken in a large part of the Ebro River basin, south of the middle Pyrenees, although it is only currently spoken in a small portion of its original territory. The areas where it was spoken might have ...
than to Spanish proper. Estimates of their date vary from the late 10th to the early 11th century.
The first steps toward
standardization of written Castilian were taken in the 13th century by King
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Ger ...
, known as Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso the Wise), in his court in
Toledo. He assembled scribes at his court and supervised their writing, in Castilian, of extensive works on history, astronomy, law, and other fields of knowledge.
Antonio de Nebrija
Antonio de Nebrija (14445 July 1522) was the most influential Spanish humanist of his era. He wrote poetry, commented on literary works, and encouraged the study of classical languages and literature, but his most important contributions were i ...
wrote the first grammar of Spanish, ''
Gramática de la lengua castellana
() is a book written by Antonio de Nebrija and published in 1492. It was the first work dedicated to the Spanish language and its rules, and the first grammar of a modern European language to be published. When it was presented to Isabella ...
'', and presented it, in 1492, to
Queen Isabella, who is said to have had an early appreciation of the usefulness of the language as a tool of hegemony, as if anticipating the empire that was about to be founded with the voyages of
Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
.
Because Old Spanish resembles the modern written language to a relatively high degree, a reader of Modern Spanish can learn to read medieval documents without much difficulty.
The
Spanish Royal Academy
The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
was founded in 1713, largely with the purpose of standardizing the language. The Academy published its first
dictionary in six volumes over the period 1726–1739, and its first grammar in 1771, and it continues to produce new editions of both from time to time. (Th
Academy's dictionaryis now accessible on the Internet.) Today, each of the Spanish-speaking countries has an analogous language academy, and an
Association of Spanish Language Academies
The Association of Academies of the Spanish Language ( es, Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, ASALE) is an entity whose end is to work for the unity, integrity, and growth of the Spanish language. It was created in Mexico in 1951 an ...
was created in 1951.
America
Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the discovery and colonization of the Americas by Spanish explorers brought the language across the Atlantic and to Mexico, Central America, and western and southern South America. Under the Spanish Crown, the language was used as a tool for colonization by Spanish soldiers, missionaries, conquistadors, and entrepreneurs. In the coming centuries, their descendants continued to spread the language.
Use of the language in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
was continued by descendants of the Spaniards:
Spanish ''criollos'' and
Mestizos
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...
. After the wars of independence fought by these colonies in the 19th century, the new ruling elites extended their Spanish to the whole population, including the Amerindian majority, to strengthen national unity, and nowadays it is the first and official language of the resulting republics, except in very isolated parts of the former Spanish colonies.
In the late 19th century, the still-Spanish colonies of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
and
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
encouraged more immigrants from Spain, and similarly other Spanish-speaking countries such as
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
,
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
, and to a lesser extent
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
,
Colombia,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
,
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
and
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, attracted waves of
European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
immigration, Spanish and non-Spanish, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There, the countries' large (or sizable minority) population groups of second- and third-generation descendants adopted the Spanish language as part of their governments' official assimilation policies to include Europeans. In some countries, they had to be Catholics and agreed to take an oath of allegiance to their chosen nation's government.
When
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
became a possession of the United States as a consequence of the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (cloc ...
, its population—almost entirely of Spanish and mixed Afro-Caribbean/Spanish (''
mulatto'' and ''
mestizo'') descent—retained its inherited Spanish language as a mother tongue, in co-existence with the American-imposed
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
as co-official. In the 20th century, more than a million
Puerto Ricans migrated to the mainland U.S. (see
Puerto Ricans in the United States
Stateside Puerto Ricans ( es, link=no, Puertorriqueños de Estados Unidos), also ambiguously known as Puerto Rican Americans ( es, link=no, puertorriqueño-americanos,), or Puerto Ricans in the United States, are Puerto Ricans who are in the U ...
).
A similar situation occurred in the American Southwest, including
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
,
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, where Spaniards, then ''criollos'' (
Tejanos
Tejanos (, ; singular: ''Tejano/a''; Spanish for "Texan", originally borrowed from the Caddo ''tayshas'') are the residents of the state of Texas who are culturally descended from the Mexican population of Tejas and Coahuila that lived in th ...
,
Californios
Californio (plural Californios) is a term used to designate a Hispanic Californian, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there sinc ...
, etc.) followed by
Chicano
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
s (
Mexican Americans) and later Mexican immigrants, kept the Spanish language alive before, during and after the American appropriation of those territories following the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
. Spanish continues to be used by millions of citizens and immigrants to the United States from Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas (for example, many
Cubans
Cubans ( es, Cubanos) are people born in Cuba and people with Cuban citizenship. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic, religious and national backgrounds.
Racial and ethnic groups
Census
The population of Cuba wa ...
arrived in
Miami, Florida
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
, beginning with the
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...
in 1959, and followed by other Latin American groups; the local majority is now Spanish-speaking). Spanish is now treated as the country's "second language," and over 5 percent of the U.S. population are Spanish-speaking, but most
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
/
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
Americans are bilingual or also regularly speak English.
Africa
The presence of Spanish in
Equatorial Guinea dates from the late 18th century, and it was adopted as the official language when independence was granted in 1968.
Spanish is widely spoken in
Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the ...
, which was a protectorate/colony of Spain from the 1880s to the 1970s.
Judaeo-Spanish
In 1492 Spain expelled its Jewish population. Their
Judaeo-Spanish language, called Ladino, developed along its own lines and continues to be spoken by a dwindling number of speakers, mainly in Israel, Turkey, and Greece.
In the Pacific
In the Marianas, the Spanish language was retained until the
Pacific War, but is no longer spoken there by any significant number of people. As part of
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
since 1888, Spanish is spoken by most people in
Easter Island
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its ne ...
along with
Rapa Nui language
Rapa Nui or Rapanui (, Rapa Nui: , Spanish: ), also known as Pascuan () or ''Pascuense'', is an Eastern Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family. It is spoken on the island of Rapa Nui, also known as ''Easter Island''.
The isl ...
.
Spain
Language politics in Francoist Spain declared Spanish as the only official language in Spain, and to this day it is the most widely used language in government, business, public education, the workplace, cultural arts, and the media. But in the 1960s and 1970s, the Spanish parliament agreed to allow provinces to use, speak, and print official documents in three other languages:
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
for
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...
,
Balearic Islands and
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
;
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
for the
Basque provinces and
Navarre, and
Galician for
Galicia. Since 1975, following the death of
Franco
Franco may refer to:
Name
* Franco (name)
* Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975
* Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître"
Prefix
* Franco, a prefix used when ref ...
, Spain has become a multi-party democracy and decentralized country, constituted in
autonomous communities
eu, autonomia erkidegoa
ca, comunitat autònoma
gl, comunidade autónoma
oc, comunautat autonòma
an, comunidat autonoma
ast, comunidá autónoma
, alt_name =
, map =
, category = Autonomous administra ...
. Under this system, some
languages of Spain
The languages of Spain ( es, lenguas de España), or Spanish languages ( es, lenguas españolas, link=no), are the languages spoken in Spain.
Most languages spoken in Spain belong to the Romance languages, Romance language family, of which Sp ...
—such as
Aranese
Aranese ( oc, aranés) is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan language spoken in the Val d'Aran, in northwestern Catalonia close to the Spanish border with France, where it is one of the three official languag ...
(an
Occitan language
Occitan (; oc, occitan, link=no ), also known as ''lenga d'òc'' (; french: langue d'oc) by its native speakers, and sometimes also referred to as ''Provençal'', is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Vall ...
of northwestern Catalonia), Basque, Catalan/Valencian, and Galician—have gained co-official status in their respective geographical areas. Others—such as
Aragonese,
Asturian and
Leonese—have been recognized by regional governments.
International projection
When the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
organization was founded in 1945, Spanish was designated one of its five
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
s (along with
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
French, and
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
; a sixth language,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, was added in 1973).
The
list of Nobel laureates in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature ( sv, Nobelpriset i litteratur) is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy to authors for outstanding contributions in the field of literature. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred ...
includes eleven authors who wrote in Spanish (
José Echegaray
José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (19 April 183214 September 1916) was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and one of the leading Spanish dramatists of the last quarter of the 19th century. He was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Li ...
,
Jacinto Benavente
Jacinto Benavente y Martínez (12 August 1866 – 14 July 1954) was one of the foremost Spanish dramatists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1922 "for the happy manner in which he has continued the illustriou ...
,
Gabriela Mistral
Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (; 7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957), known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral (), was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Li ...
,
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (; 23 December 1881 – 29 May 1958) was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high ...
,
Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales (; October 19, 1899 – June 9, 1974) was a Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan poet-diplomat, novelist, playwright and journalist. Asturias helped establish Latin American literature's contribution to mainstream W ...
,
Pablo Neruda,
Vicente Aleixandre
Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo (; 26 April 1898 – 14 December 1984) was a Spanish poet who was born in Seville. Aleixandre received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977 "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates ma ...
,
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one ...
,
Camilo José Cela
Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquess of Iria Flavia (; 11 May 1916 – 17 January 2002) was a Spanish novelist, poet, story writer and essayist associated with the Generation of '36 movement.
He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Litera ...
,
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and ...
, and
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...
).
Influences
The mention of "influences" on the Spanish language refers primarily to
lexical borrowing
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
. Throughout its history, Spanish has accepted
loanwords, first from
pre-Roman languages (including
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
,
Iberian,
Celtiberian and
Gallaecian), and later from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, from
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
, from
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, from neighboring
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
, from
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, and from
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
The most frequently used word that entered Spanish from (or through) Basque is ' "left". Basque is perhaps most evident in some common Spanish surnames, including ''
García'' and ''
Echeverría''. Basque
place names
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
also are prominent throughout Spain, because many Castilians who took part in the
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
and repopulation of Moorish Iberia by Christians were of
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
lineage. Iberian and Celtiberian likewise are thought to have contributed place names to Spain. Words of everyday use that are attributed to
Celtic sources include ''camino'' "road", ''carro'' "cart", ''colmena'' "hive", and ''cerveza'' "beer". Suffixes such as -''iego'': mujeriego "womanizer" and -''ego'': gallego "Galician" are also attributed to Celtic sources.
Influence of Basque phonology is credited by some researchers with softening the Spanish
labiodentals: turning labiodental to bilabial , and ultimately deleting labiodental . Others negate or downplay Basque phonological influence, claiming that these changes occurred in the affected dialects wholly as a result of factors internal to the language, not outside influence. It is also possible that the two forces, internal and external, worked in concert and reinforced each other.
Some words of Greek origin were already present in the spoken Latin that became Spanish. Additionally, many Greek words formed part of the language of the Church. Spanish also borrowed
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
vocabulary in the areas of medical, technical, and scientific language, beginning as early as the 13th century.
The influence of
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
is very little on
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
development, but rather is found mainly in the Spanish
lexicon.
Words of Germanic origin are common in all varieties of Spanish. The modern words for the
cardinal directions
The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are at ...
(''norte, este, sur, oeste''), for example, are all taken from Germanic words (compare
north
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north ...
,
east
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
,
south and
west
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
in
Modern English), after the contact with Atlantic sailors. These words did not exist in Spanish prior to the 15th century. Instead, "north" and "south" were and respectively (both virtually obsolete in Modern Spanish as nouns, unlike their not uncommon adjectival counterparts ''septentrional'' and ''meridional''), while "east" was ''oriente'' (or ''levante''), and "west" was ''occidente'' (or ''poniente''). These older words for "east" and "west" continue to have some use in Modern Spanish.
In 711 the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by
Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
, who brought in the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
. For about eight hundred years, until the fall of the
Emirate of Granada
)
, common_languages = Official language: Classical ArabicOther languages: Andalusi Arabic, Mozarabic, Berber, Ladino
, capital = Granada
, religion = Majority religion: Sunni IslamMinority religions: Ro ...
(1492), Spanish borrowed thousands of words from
Andalusi Arabic
Andalusi Arabic (), also known as Andalusian Arabic, was a variety or varieties of Arabic spoken mainly from the 9th to the 17th century in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) once under Muslim rule. It b ...
, such as alcalde "mayor", álgebra "algebra", aceite "oil", zanahoria "carrot", alquiler "rent", achacar "to blame", adelfa "oleander", barrio "neighbourhood", chaleco "vest", to name just a few; making up 8% of the Spanish dictionary—the second largest lexical influence on Spanish after Latin. It is thought that the bilingualism of the
Mozarabs
The Mozarabs ( es, mozárabes ; pt, moçárabes ; ca, mossàrabs ; from ar, مستعرب, musta‘rab, lit=Arabized) is a modern historical term for the Iberian Christians, including Christianized Iberian Jews, who lived under Muslim rule in A ...
facilitated the large transfer of vocabulary from Arabic to Castilian.
The neighboring Romance languages—such as
Galician/Portuguese,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
French, and
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
—contributed greatly to the Spanish lexicon throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. Borrowing from Italian occurred most frequently in the 16th and 17th centuries, due largely to the influence of the
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
.
The creation of the
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
in the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
led to lexical borrowing from
indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...
, especially vocabulary dealing with flora, fauna, and cultural concepts unique to the Americas.
Borrowing from English has become especially strong, beginning in the 20th century, with words borrowed from many fields of activity, including sports, technology, and commerce.
The incorporation into Spanish of learned, or "bookish" words from its own ancestor language,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, is arguably another form of lexical borrowing through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period, most literate Spanish-speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Spanish. The form of Latin that Spaniards spoke and the loanwords came from was
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...
, but also
Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin used in original works of the time.
Internal history
Spanish shares with other Romance languages most of the phonological and grammatical changes that characterized
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
, such as the abandonment of distinctive
vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
, the loss of the
case system
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nom ...
for nouns, and the loss of
deponent verb
In linguistics, a deponent verb is a verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle or passive. A deponent verb has no active forms.
Languages with deponent verbs
''This list may not be exha ...
s.
Syncope
Syncope in the history of Spanish refers to the loss of an unstressed vowel from the syllable immediately preceding or following the stressed syllable. Early in its history, Spanish lost such vowels where they preceded or followed R or L, and between S and T.
*''Solitario'', which is derived from ''sōlitārium'', is a learned word; cf. the alternate form ''soltero''. As also "fábula" from "fabulam", although this last one has a different meaning in Spanish.
Later, after the time of intervocalic voicing, unstressed vowels were lost between other combinations of consonants:
Words ''capital, computar, hospital, recitar'' and ''vindicar'' are learned words; cf. ''capitālem, computāre, hospitālem, recitāre,'' and ''vindicāre'' and alternate forms ''caudal, contar, hostal, rezar,'' and ''vengar''.
Elision
While
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
intervocalic consonants regularly became voiced, many voiced intervocalic stops (''d'', ''g'', and occasionally ''b'') were dropped from words altogether through a process called
elision. Latin between vowels usually changed to in Old Spanish (e.g. ''habēre'' > ''aver''), while Latin became (''sapere'' > ''saber''). In modern times the two phonemes merged into (''haber'', ''saber''), realized as between vowels (see
Betacism
In historical linguistics, betacism (, ) is a sound change in which (the voiced bilabial plosive, as in ''bane'') and (the voiced labiodental fricative , as in ''vane'') are confused. The final result of the process can be either /b/ → or ...
). Latin voiced stops—, , and , which are represented
orthographically as B, D, and G respectively—and also occurred in intervocalic positions also underwent
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
: , , and , but appeared in Spanish also through learned words from Classical Latin.
Many forms with ''d'' and ''g'' preserved, e.g. ''ligar, legal, ''dígito'', crudo'', are learned words (
Latinisms); cf. the alternate forms ''liar, leal, dedo'' and
Old Spanish ''cruo'' and its Latin origin ''crūdus''.
An exemption to the rule: The retention of the ''d'' and ''g'' is due to the invalidity of the ''-ao'', ''-aa'', ''-oo,'' and ''-oa'' hiatuses in Old Spanish that would result from dropping it.
Voicing and spirantization
In virtually all the
Western Romance languages
Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included ...
, the Latin
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
stops—, , and , which are represented
orthographically as P, T, and C (including Q) respectively—where they occurred in an "intervocalic" environment (qualified below), underwent one, two, or three successive stages of
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
, from
voicing to
spirantization
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a ...
to, in some cases,
elision (deletion). In Spanish these three consonants generally undergo both
voicing and
spirantization
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a ...
, resulting in
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
: , , and , respectively. Although it was once speculated that this change came about as a transfer of phonological features from
substrate Celtic and
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
languages, which were in geographical proximity to Iberian Vulgar Latin (see ''
Sprachbund''), it is now widely recognized that such change is a natural internal development. Intervocalic , , and reappeared in Spanish through learned words from Classical Latin and also appeared in Spanish through consonant cluster simplification from Vulgar Latin (see below), and Latin voiced stops—, , and , which are represented
orthographically as B, D, and G respectively—and also occurred in intervocalic positions also underwent
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
: , , and , but appeared in Spanish also through learned words from Classical Latin and also appeared in Spanish through consonant cluster simplification from Vulgar Latin.
The phonological environment of these changes is not only between vowels but also after a vowel and before a
sonorant consonant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...
such as (Latin ''patrem'' > Spanish ''padre'')—but not the reverse (Latin ''partem'' > Spanish ''parte'', not *''parde'').
1Latin ''superāre'' produced both ''sobrar'' and its learned
doublet ''superar''.
2Latin ''lucrum'' produced both ''logro'' and its learned doublet ''lucro''.
The verb ''decir'', in its various conjugated forms, exemplifies different phonetic changes, depending on whether the letter
(Latin ) was followed by a front vowel or not. The Latin changes ultimately to Spanish when followed by the front vowels ( or —thus ''dice'', ''decimos'', etc.), but in other forms, before a back vowel, is voiced to and, in the modern language, realized as a spirant (as in ''digo'', ''diga''). This also is the pattern of a few other Spanish verbs ending in ''-cer'' or ''-cir'', as in the table below:
Diphthongization in open and closed syllables
It is commonly thought that the reflexes of stressed short E and O of Latin were realised, after the loss of phonemic quantity, as the low-mid vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ respectively in the Western Romance languages, contrasting with close-mid /e/ and /o/, which would have originated from the mergers between long E and short I and between long O and short U, respectively; this change would explain the similarity of the vowel systems in modern Romance languages such as Portuguese, Catalan and Italian. These low-mid vowels subsequently would have undergone diphthongization
In historical linguistics, vowel breaking, vowel fracture, or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong.
Types
Vowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned. It may be triggered by the presence of ...
in many of the Western Romance languages. In Spanish this change occurs regardless of syllable shape (open or closed), in contrast to French and Italian, where it takes place only in open syllables, and in greater contrast to Portuguese where this diphthongization
In historical linguistics, vowel breaking, vowel fracture, or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong.
Types
Vowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned. It may be triggered by the presence of ...
does not occur at all. As a result, Spanish phonology exhibits a five-vowel system, not the seven-vowel system that is typical of many other Western Romance languages. The stressed short and reappeared in Spanish through learned words from Classical Latin and also evolved from short vowels and from Vulgar Latin, and was retained from long vowels and from Vulgar Latin.
Learned words and consonant cluster simplification
Learned words—that is, "bookish" words transmitted partly through writing and thus affected by their Latin form—became increasingly frequent with the works of Alfonso X
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germ ...
in the mid-to-late 13th century. Many of these words contained consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s which, in oral transmission, had been reduced to simpler consonant clusters or single consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
s in previous centuries
A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c.
A centennial or ...
. This same process affected many of these new, more academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
, words, especially when the words extended into popular usage in the Old Spanish period. Some of the consonant clusters affected were -''ct''-, -''ct'' , -''pt''-, -''gn''-, -''mn''-, -''mpt''-, and -''nct''-. Most of the simplified forms have since reverted to the learned forms or are now considered to be uneducated.
Most of these words have modern forms which more closely resemble Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
than Old Spanish. In Old Spanish, the simplified forms were acceptable forms which were in coexistence (and sometimes competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indiv ...
) with the learned forms. The Spanish educational system
The educational system generally refers to the structure of all institutions and the opportunities for obtaining education within a country. It includes all pre-school institutions, starting from family education, and/or early childhood education ...
, and later the Real Academia Española, with their demand that all consonants of a word be pronounced, steadily drove most simplified forms from existence. Many of the simplified forms were used in literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
works in the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
(sometimes intentionally as an archaism), but have since been relegated mostly to popular and uneducated speech. Occasionally, both forms exist in Modern Spanish with different meanings or in idiomatic usage: for example ''afición'' is a 'fondness (of)' or 'taste (for)', while ''afección'' is 'illness'; Modern Spanish ''respeto'' is '(attitude of) respect', while ''con respecto a'' means 'with regard to'.
Most words with consonant clusters in syllable-final position are loanwords from Classical Latin, examples are: ''transporte'' , ''transmitir'' , ''instalar'' , ''constante'' , ''obstante'' , ''obstruir'' , ''perspectiva'' , ''istmo'' . A syllable-final position cannot be more than one consonant (one of n, r, l, s or z) in most (or all) dialects in colloquial speech, reflecting Vulgar Latin background. Realizations like , , , , , , and are very common, and in many cases, they are considered acceptable even in formal speech.
Another type of consonant cluster simplification involves "double" (geminate) plosives that reduced to single: ''-pp-, -tt-, -cc-, -bb-, -dd-, -gg-'' > ''-p-, -t-, -c-, -b-, -d-, -g-'' . The simplified Spanish outcomes of the Latin voiced series ''-bb-, -dd-, -gg-'' remain voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
, inducing phonemic merger with intervocalic /b/, /d/, /g/ that issued from voicing of Latin /p/, /t/, /k/, so that all are subject to the same phonetic realization as voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
: , , and , respectively.
Vocalization
The term "vocalization" refers to the change from a consonant to the vowel-like sound of a glide. Some syllable-final consonants, regardless of whether they were already syllable-final in Latin or brought into that position by syncope, became glides. Labials (''b'', ''p'', ''v'') yielded the rounded glide (which was in turn absorbed by a preceding round vowel), while the velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
''c'' () produced the palatal glide
The voiced palatal approximant, or yod, is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic no ...
(which could palatalize a following and be absorbed by the resulting palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
affricate). (The forms ''debda'', ''cobdo'', and ''dubdar'' are documented in Old Spanish; but the hypothetical forms *''oito'' and *''noite'' had already given way to ''ocho'' and ''noche'' by the time Castilian became a written language.)
Betacism
Most Romance languages have maintained the distinction between a phoneme and a phoneme : a voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
and a voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
, usually labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
, fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
, respectively. Instances of the phoneme could be inherited directly from Latin (unless between vowels), or they could result from the voicing of Latin between vowels. The phoneme was generally derived either from an allophone of Latin between vowels or from the Latin phoneme corresponding to the letter ⟨v⟩ (pronounced in Classical Latin but later fortified
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
to the status of a fricative consonant in Vulgar Latin). In most Romance-speaking regions, had labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
articulation, but in Old Spanish, which still distinguished /b/ and /v/, the latter was probably realized as a bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
. The contrast between the two phonemes was neutralized in certain environments, as the fricative also occurred as an allophone of /b/ between vowels, after a vowel, and after certain consonants in Old Spanish. The similarity between the stop and fricative resulted in their complete merger by the end of the Old Spanish period (16th century). In Modern Spanish, the letters ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ represent the same phoneme (usually treated as in phonemic transcription), which is generally realized as the fricative except when utterance-initial or after a nasal consonant, when it is realized as the stop . The same situation prevails in northern Portuguese dialects
Portuguese dialects are the mutually intelligible variations of the Portuguese language over Portuguese-speaking countries and other areas holding some degree of cultural bound with the language. Portuguese has two standard forms of writing and ...
and in Galician, but the other Portuguese dialects maintain the distinction. The merger of and also occurs in Standard Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
in eastern Catalonia, but the distinction is retained in most varieties of Valencian
Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
and in some areas in southern Catalonia, in the Balearic dialect
Balearic ( ca, balear) is the collective name for the dialects of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands: in Mallorca, in Ibiza and in Menorca.
At the last census, 746,792 people in the Balearic Islands claimed to be able to speak Catalan, th ...
, as well as in Algherese
Algherese or Alguerese (Algherese: ) is the variant of Catalan spoken in the city of Alghero ( in Catalan), in the northwest of Sardinia, Italy.
The dialect has its roots in 1372, when Catalan-speaking colonists were allowed to repopulate Al ...
.
In Modern Spanish, from the 16th century onward, the choice of orthographic ⟨b⟩ or ⟨v⟩ depends mainly on the etymology of the word. The orthography attempts to mimic the Latin spelling, rather than to keep the pronunciation-based spelling of Old Spanish. Thus, Old Spanish ''bever'' "to drink", ''bivir/vivir'' "to live" become ''beber, vivir'', respectively, following the Latin spelling ''bibere, vīvere''. The Spanish placename Córdoba, often spelled ''Cordova'' in Old Spanish (the spelling that prevailed in English until the 20th century), now reflects the spelling used by the city's Roman founders, "Corduba".
Latin ''f-'' to Spanish ''h-'' to null
''F'' was almost always initial in Latin words, and in Spanish most of them passed through a stage in which the consonant eventually developed to and then was lost phonologically. Spelling conventions have grapheme
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.
The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called '' graphemi ...
⟨h⟩ used in words such as ''humo'' 'smoke', ''hormiga'' 'ant', ''hígado'' 'liver' (compare Italian ''fumo, formica, fegato'', with intact), but in terms of both structure and pronunciation, the initial consonant has been lost: , , . It is thought that ⟨f⟩ represented the labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
in Latin, which underwent a series of lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
s to become, successively, bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
and then glottal (hence the modern spelling), and it was then lost altogether in most varieties; ⟨h⟩ is assumed to have been "silent" in Vulgar Latin. The first written evidence of the process dates from 863, when the Latin name ''Forticius'' was written as ''Ortiço'', which might have been pronounced with initial but certainly not . (The same name appears as ''Hortiço'' in a document from 927.) The replacement of ⟨f⟩ by ⟨h⟩ in spelling is not frequent before the 16th century, but that is thought not to reflect preservation of . Rather, ⟨f⟩ was consistently used to represent until the phoneme reappeared in the language (around the 16th century, as a result of loanwords from Classical Latin). Then, it became necessary to distinguish both phonemes in spelling.
The change from to occurred in the Romance speech of Old Castile
Old Castile ( es, Castilla la Vieja ) is a historic region of Spain, which had different definitions along the centuries. Its extension was formally defined in the 1833 territorial division of Spain as the sum of the following provinces: Sant ...
, eastern Asturian, and Gascon, but nowhere else nearby. Since much of this area was historically bilingual with Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, and Basque once had but no , it is often suggested that the change was caused by Basque influence. However, this is contested by many linguists.
Most current instances of ⟨f⟩ are either learned words (those influenced by their written Latin form, such as ''forma'', ''falso'', ''fama'', ''feria''), loanwords of Arabic and Greek origin, or words whose initial ⟨f⟩ in Old Spanish is followed by a non-vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
(⟨r⟩, ⟨l⟩, or the glide
Glide may refer to:
* Gliding flight, to fly without thrust
Computing
*Glide API, a 3D graphics interface
*Glide OS, a web desktop
*Glide (software), an instant video messenger
*Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schr ...
element of a diphthong), as in ''frente'', ''flor'', ''fiesta'', ''fuerte''. That, along with the effect of preservation of regionally ( Asturian ''fumu'' 'smoke', ''formiga'' 'ant', ''fégadu'' 'liver'), accounts for modern doublets such as ''Fernando'' (learned) and ''Hernando'' (inherited) (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ''fierro'' (regional) and ''hierro'' (both "iron"), ''fastidio'' and ''hastío'' (both Spanish for "boredom"), and ''fondo'' and ''hondo'' (''fondo'' means "bottom" and ''hondo'' means "deep"). Also, ''hacer'' ("to make") is the root word of ''satisfacer'' ("to satisfy"), and ''hecho'' ("made") is the root word of ''satisfecho'' ("satisfied").
As mentioned above, was not lost in all varieties. As of the late 20th century, word-initial was pronounced as an in lower-class, predominantly rural speech in a number of western regions of Spain, specifically western Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
and Extremadura
Extremadura (; ext, Estremaúra; pt, Estremadura; Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is an autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central-western part of the Iberian Peninsula, it ...
, the Canary Islands, part of western Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...
, part of Cantabria
Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...
, a northeastern area in León, and in the Asturian language as spoken in eastern Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain.
It is coextensiv ...
, as well as in much of Latin America, where it similarly tends to be confined to lower-class and rural speech. The distribution of this pronunciation throughout so much of western Spain suggests that its spread was due in large part to the role of eastern Asturians in the reconquest of these zones. At least in Latin America, the Canaries, Andalusia, and Extremadura, this is merged with the phoneme , which comes from medieval and .
''Fabulāri'' is translated as "make stories", opposed to its Spanish derivative ''hablar'' which means "speak" or "to talk".
Silent Latin ''h-''
'H' is originally pronounced in Classical Latin, but became silent in Vulgar Latin. Thus, words were spelled without any such consonant in Old Spanish; in Modern Spanish, from the 16th century onward, it attempts to mimic the Latin spelling rather than continue Old Spanish orthography.
Modern development of the Old Spanish sibilants
During the 16th century, the three voiced sibilant phonemes—dental , apico-alveolar , and palato-alveolar (as in Old Spanish ''fazer'', ''casa'', and ''ojo'', respectively) lost their voicing and merged with their voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
counterparts: , , and (as in ''caçar'', ''passar'', and ''baxar'' respectively). The character ⟨ ç⟩, called ''⟨c⟩ cedilla'', originated in Old Spanish but has been replaced by ⟨z⟩ in the modern language.
Additionally, the affricate lost its stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
component, to become a laminodental fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
, . As a result, the sound system then contained two sibilant fricative phonemes whose contrast depended entirely on a subtle distinction between their places of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
: apicoalveolar, in the case of the , and laminodental, in the case of the new fricative sibilant , which was derived from the affricate . The distinction between the sounds grew in the dialects of northern and central Spain by paradigmatic dissimilation, but dialects in Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
and the Americas merged both sounds.
The dissimilation in the northern and central dialects occurred with the laminodental fricative moving forward to an interdental
Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. That differs from dental consonants, which are articulated with the tongue against the ''back'' of the upper incisors. No language is kn ...
place of articulation, losing its sibilance
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
to become . The sound is represented in modern spelling by ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ and by ⟨z⟩ elsewhere. In the south of Spain, the deaffrication of resulted in a direct merger with , as both were homorganic,, and the new phoneme became either laminodental ("seseo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
", in the Americas and parts of Andalusia) or ("ceceo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
", in a few parts of Andalusia). In general, coastal regions of Andalusia preferred , and more inland regions preferred (see the map at ceceo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
).
During the colonization of the Americas, most settlers came from the south of Spain; that is the cause, according to almost all scholars, for nearly all Spanish-speakers in the New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
still speaking a language variety derived largely from the Western Andalusian and Canarian dialects.
Meanwhile, the alveopalatal fricative , the result of the merger of voiceless (spelled ⟨x⟩ in Old Spanish) with voiced (spelled with ⟨j⟩ in some words and in others with ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩), was moved backwards in all dialects, to become (depending on geographical variety) velar , uvular (in parts of Spain) or glottal (in Andalusia, Canary Islands, and parts of the Americas, especially the Caribbean region).
Interchange of the liquids /l/ and /r/
One unusual feature of Spanish etymology is the way in which the liquids
A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...
and have sometimes replaced each other in words derived from Latin, French and other sources. For example, Spanish ''milagro'', "miracle", is derived from Latin ''miraculum''. More rarely, this process has involved consonants like and (as in ''alma'', from Latin ''anima''). Here is an incomplete list of such words:
* ancla, "anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄ ...
", Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''ancora''
* albedrío, " will, whim, fancy", Latin ''arbitrium'', "judgment, decision, will" ('' arbitrio'' is a learned form, i.e.: loanword from Classical Latin)
* algalia, "catheter
In medicine, a catheter (/ˈkæθətər/) is a thin tubing (material), tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgi ...
", grc, ἐργαλεία ''ergaleía'', "tools"
* alimaña, " pest", Latin, ''animalĭa'', "animals"
* alma, "soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
", Latin ''anima''
* alondra, "lark
Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark oc ...
", Latin ''alaudula''
* altramuz, " lupin", Hispanic Arabic '' at-tarmūs''
* árbol, "tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
", Latin ''arbor''
* Argelia, "Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
(nation)"
* azufre, sulfur, Latin ''sulphur''
* azul, "blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
", ar, لازورد ''lāzaward'' " lapis lazuli" (cf. medieval Latin ''azura'', French ''azure'')
* blandir, "to brandish", French ''brandir''
* bolsa, " bag, purse", Latin ''bursa''
* cárcel, "prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...
", Latin ''carcer'' (cf. English "incarcerate")
* calambre, "cramp
A cramp is a sudden, involuntary, painful skeletal muscle contraction or overshortening associated with electrical activity; while generally temporary and non-damaging, they can cause significant pain and a paralysis-like immobility of the aff ...
, electric shock", French ''crampe''
* Catalina, Latin ''Catharina'' (proper name
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
; ''Catarina'' is a learned form; i.e. loanword from Classical Latin)
* chaflán, " chamfer", French ''chanfrein''.
* cilantro, " coriander", Latin ''coriandrum''
* cimbrar, "shake (a stick), sway, swish", Latin ''cymula'', "sprout, shoot (of plant)"
* coronel, "colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge o ...
", French ''colonel'', from Italian ''colonnello''
* Cristóbal, Germanic ''Christoffer'', from Latin ''Christopherus'' (proper name
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
)
* cuartel, "quarter A quarter is one-fourth, , 25% or 0.25.
Quarter or quarters may refer to:
Places
* Quarter (urban subdivision), a section or area, usually of a town
Placenames
* Quarter, South Lanarkshire, a settlement in Scotland
* Le Quartier, a settlement ...
", French ''quartier''
* dintel, " lintel", Old French ''lintel''
* escolta, " escort", Italian ''scorta''
* espuela, "spur
A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...
", Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
*''spaúra'' (cf. French ''éperon'')
* estrella, " star", from Latin ''stella'' (cf. Italian ''stella'', French ''étoile'')
* flete, "freight
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tran ...
, cargo
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...
", French ''fret''
* fraile, "friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...
", Provençal ''fraire'', from Latin ''frater'', "brother
A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-familia ...
"
* franela, "flannel
Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of various fineness. Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fiber. Flannel is commonly used to make tartan clothing, blankets, ...
", French ''flanelle''
* frasco, "flask
Flask may refer to:
Container
* Hip flask, a small container used to carry a small amount of liquid
* Laboratory flask, laboratory glassware for holding larger volumes than simple test tubes
** Erlenmeyer flask, a common laboratory flask wit ...
", Germanic ''flasko''
* guirnalda, "garland
A garland is a decorative braid, knot or wreath of flowers, leaves, or other material. Garlands can be worn on the head or around the neck, hung on an inanimate object, or laid in a place of cultural or religious importance.
Etymology
From the ...
", older Spanish ''guirlanda'', cf. French ''guirlande''
* golondrina, "swallow
The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...
(bird)", Latin ''hirundo''
* lirio, "lily
''Lilium'' () is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large prominent flowers. They are the true lilies. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in much of the world. M ...
, iris", Latin ''lilium''
* mármol, "marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...
", Latin ''marmor''
* miércoles, "Wednesday
Wednesday is the day of the week between Tuesday and Thursday. According to international standard ISO 8601, it is the third day of the week. In countries which have Friday as their holiday, Wednesday is the fifth day of the week. In countrie ...
", Latin ''Mercuri ies', " Mercury's ay
* milagro, "miracle
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...
", Latin ''miraculum''
* nivel, " level", Latin ''libellum'', "little balance", from ''libra'', "balance"
* olor, " smell, scent", Latin ''odor''
* papel, "paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
", Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
''paper'', Latin ''papyrus''
* palabra, "word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...
", Latin ''parabola''
* peligro, "danger
Danger is a lack of safety and may refer to:
Places
* Danger Cave, an archaeological site in Utah
* Danger Island, Great Chagos Bank, Indian Ocean
* Danger Island, alternate name of Pukapuka Atoll in the Cook Islands, Pacific Ocean
* Danger Isla ...
", Latin ''periculum'' (cf. English "peril")
* plática, " chat, conversation", Latin ''practica''
* quilate, " carat", ar, قيراط ''qīrāṭ'' "carat" < grc, κεράτιον " carob seed" (cf. Italian ''carato'')
* recluta, "recruit __NOTOC__
Recruit can refer to:
Military
* Military recruitment
* Recruit training, in the military
* '' Rekrut'' (English: Recruit), a military recruit or low rank in German-speaking countries
* Seaman recruit Books
*''Le Réquisitionnaire'' (E ...
", French ''recrute''
* regaliz(a), " liquorice", Late Latin ''liquiritia''
* roble, "oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
", Latin ''robur'', "strong"
* silo, " silo", Latin ''sirus'' from Greek ''siros'', "pit for storing grain"
* surco, "groove
Groove or Grooves may refer to:
Music
* Groove (music)
* Groove (drumming)
* The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s
* The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station
* Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station
...
, furrow
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
", Latin ''sulcus''
* taladro, " drill", Latin ''tarātrum'' < Celtic ''tarātron''
* temblar, " tremble", Latin ''tremulāre''
* templar, "temper, warm up", Latin ''temperō"
* tiniebla(s), "darkness
Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown.
Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low ...
", Latin ''tenebrae''
Yeísmo
Documents from as early as the 15th century show occasional evidence of sporadic confusion between the phoneme (generally spelled ⟨y⟩) and the palatal lateral (spelled ⟨ll⟩). The distinction is maintained in spelling, but in most dialects of Modern Spanish, the two have merged into the same, non-lateral palatal sound. Thus, for example, most Spanish-speakers have the same pronunciation for ''haya'' (from the verb ''haber'') as for ''halla'' (from ''hallar''). The phonemic merger is called yeísmo
''Yeísmo'' (; literally "Y-ism") is a distinctive feature of certain dialects of the Spanish language, characterized by the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ) and its merger into the phoneme (written ), ...
, based on one name for the letter ⟨y⟩.
Yeismo is a trait of the Andalusian dialect, among others. Since more than half of the early settlers of Spanish America came from Andalusia, most Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas have ''yeísmo'', but there are pockets in which the sounds are still distinguished. Native-speakers of neighboring languages, such as Galician, Astur-Leonese, Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, Aragonese, Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
and Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
, usually do not feature ''yeísmo'' in their Spanish since those languages retain the phoneme.
A related trait that has also been documented sporadically for several hundred years is ''rehilamiento'' (literally "whizzing"), the pronunciation of as a sibilant fricative or even an affricate , which is common among non-native Spanish speakers as well. The current pronunciation varies greatly depending on the geographical dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
and sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acqui ...
(with , especially, stigmatized except at the beginning of a word). Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is ...
(of Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
) is particularly known for the pronunciation of both and original . A further development, the unvoiced pronunciation , during the second half of the twentieth century came to characterize the speech of "most younger residents of Buenos Aires" and continues to spread throughout Argentina.
See also
* Cantar de Mio Cid
*Hispano-Celtic languages
Hispano-Celtic is a term for all forms of Celtic spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before the arrival of the Romans (c. 218 BC, during the Second Punic War). In particular, it includes:
* A northeastern inland language attested at a relative ...
* Iberian language
* Iberian Romance languages
*Influences on the Spanish language
Spanish is a Romance language which developed from Vulgar Latin in central areas of the Iberian peninsula and has absorbed many loanwords from other Romance languages like French, Occitan, Catalan, Portuguese, and Italian. Spanish also has lexic ...
* List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin
* List of Spanish words of Philippine origin
*List of English words of Spanish origin
This is a list of English language words whose origin can be traced to the Spanish language as "Spanish loan words". Words typical of " Mock Spanish" used in the United States are listed separately.
A
; abaca: via Spanish ''abacá'' from Tagal ...
*Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
* Spanish dialects and varieties
*Spanish phonology
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system ...
*Old Spanish language
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
*Paleohispanic languages
The paleo-Hispanic languages were the languages of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, excluding languages of foreign colonies, such as Greek in Emporion and Phoenician in Qart Hadast. After the Roman conquest of Hispania the Paleo ...
* Middle Spanish
*Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
* Rafael Lapesa
References
Sources
*
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*
External links
An explanation of the development of Medieval Spanish sibilants in Castile and Andalusia.
* ttp://assets.cambridge.org/052180/5872/sample/0521805872ws.pdf ''A History of the Spanish language''(sample from the second edition, 2002), by Ralph Penny
Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española
Check the historic evolution of Latin words to modern Spanish.
{{Language histories
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...