Spanish is a Romance language, evolved from Latin. They are two main types of Latin.

used in
writing, politics and poetry, and Vulgar which was mainly spoken. Spanish comes from Vulgar
Latin.

Its rich history begins before Romans ever set on the Iberian Peninsula (Peninsula Ibérica).
Back in the Second Century BC, The Peninsula had several civilizations and languages,
including Iberian, Basque, Celtiberian, Tartessian and Gallaecian. The Spanish language has
been symbol of cultural identity, and has both been used as a tool of unity and caused
considerable divisiveness. (mapa)

As their Empire expanded The Romans arrived at the Peninsula around 200BC, and after
couple of hundred years of war, Latin was around for centuries, giving most of the Spanish
lexicon. For example, Siesta comes from Latin for Sixth Hour= sexta hora, the hottest time of
the day.

From 7th Century, the varieties of Latin spoken on the peninsular were gradually becoming very
different from that spoken in other areas. But we have wait until 1492 to see the first grammar
of a Romance Language published, written by humanist Antonio de Nebrija.

In the 5th century several Germanic groups invaded the peninsula before being chased off by
the Visigoths, who stayed for 300 years, but didn’t influence the culture and the language
much. Even though, they did leave words, many to do with admin and war. For example: espía
= spy, Guerra= war, and also popularized many suffixes that are found on Spanish surnames -az
(Díaz), -ez (Gutiérrez), -oz (Muñoz).

Around the 8th Century, a Muslim army from North Africa, landed and conquered the Visigoths
settling in for centuries. Their impact on the Spanish Lexicon was enormous. they give us
around 4000 words like sugar (azúcar), oil (aceite), watermelon (sandia) and pillow
(almohada). Many beginning with the Arabic article Al-.

The Romance language of French influenced Spanish in waves. In the 10th Century, pilgrimages
across the mountains known as the French way brought Monks (monje) and priest (capellán).
Don Quixote was the poster boy for the golden age of Spanish Literature. While new words
form France were apperaring like skirting board (rodapié) and napkin (servilleta), this was a
time when Spanish influenced the rest of Europe. And during the reign of the Bourbon King
Philip the 5th, there built the Real Academia Española committed to standardizing the
language, publishing dictionaries, grammar books and keeping an eye on Spanish wherever it
was spoken.

Other Romance languages also gave words like:

 Catalans: papel and paella.

 Galicians: morriña and sarpullido
 Italians: casino and cortejar.

The Spanish language has been able to go a long way down the peninsula when Christopher
Columbius arrived on an island in the West Indies and imaginatively named La Española. This
was the first contact between the between the Spanish and more more than 2000 languages
of the Indigenous Americans. As colonization grew and Bourbon reforms enforced the use of
Spanish.
With more than 124 million people, Mexico is the country with the largest number of Spanish
speakers with a native command of the language in 2021, according to a study conducted by
the Cervantes Institute. Colombia is in second place in the ranking, with almost 50 million, and
Argentina in third place, with 44.9 million. As for Spain, the birthplace of the Castilian
language, around 43 million people were native Spanish speakers.

Spanish today

- Spanish is the third most spoken language on the planet.

- Is an official language in 18 South American countries
- It is spoken unofficially in the Philippines, USA and Equatorial Guinea.
- The U.S. is the country with the fifth largest number of Spanish speakers in the world

Because of its worldwide expansion, there are two institutions that watch over the unity of the
Spanish language.

RAE

INSTITUTO CERVANTES

What is the Instituto Cervantes and what is its function?

The Instituto Cervantes is the public institution created by Spain in 1991 for the promotion and
teaching of the Spanish language and co-official languages and for the dissemination of
Spanish and Latin American culture. It is present in 88 cities in 45 countries on five continents.

La familia lingüística

The family of Spanish (pan, hijo) is the Romance one, and sister languages are French (pain,
fils), Italian (pane, figlio), Catalan (pa, fill) and Portuguese (pão, filho), but also Galician,
Aranese, Romanian...