Spanish Language

Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries. It is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The largest population of native speakers is in Mexico.

Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the Early Modern Period spurred on the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas.

As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin, and has one of the smaller degrees of difference from it (about 20%) alongside Sardinian and Italian. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. Alongside English and French, it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world. Spanish does not feature prominently as a scientific language; however, it is better represented in areas like humanities and social sciences. Spanish is also the third most used language on internet websites after English and Chinese.

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

Name of the language and etymology

Name of the language

In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only but also (Castilian), the language from the Kingdom of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, Asturian, Catalan, Aragonese and Occitan.

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, in contrast to (lit. "the other Spanish languages"). Article III reads as follows:

The Royal Spanish Academy (''Real Academia Española''), on the other hand, currently uses the term in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the language .

The (a language guide published by the Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms— and —are regarded as synonymous and equally valid.

Etymology

The term is related to Castile ( or archaically ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name of Castile, in turn, is usually assumed to be derived from ('castle').

In the Middle Ages, the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as and later also as . Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as ("romanz castellano", "romanz de Castiella"), "lenguaje de Castiella", and ultimately simply as (noun).

Different etymologies have been suggested for the term (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, derives from the Occitan word and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin ('from Hispania'). Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula.

There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal suggested that the classic or took the suffix from Vulgar Latin, as it happened with other words such as (Breton) or (Saxon). The word evolved into the Old Spanish , eventually becoming .

History

Like the other Romance language