The Spanish Language
After Mandarin Chinese, what do you think is the language with the world’s second-largest number of native speakers?
If you guessed English, you’re wrong. English only takes the second-prize if you count the number of people who learned it as a second language.
Today, there are anywhere from 322 to 400 million native Spanish speakers, making it the second-most common native language worldwide. The language we know today as Spanish actually hails from one province of Spain, the province of Castile. How did the language of a small Spanish province grow to be spoken by so many different people?
The Origins of Spanish
Spanish began in the time of the Roman Empire, as a dialect of Latin. After the Roman Empire fell, the languages that were spoken within its provinces began to drift off from one another, forming the various Romance languages.
The Castilian dialect was simply one dialect among many for quite some time. However, in the 8th century, Spain was almost completely subdued by the Moorish empire to the south. Castile played a major role in the 800-year-long struggle to get Spanish land back from the Moors, known as the Reconquista. When the Reconquista was over, the Castilian dialect had spread all over Spain, replacing many (but not all) of the other Spanish dialects.
Castilian Spanish was also heavily promoted in the court of Alfonso X, who encouraged its use in administration and court documents instead of the traditional Latin.
Also, since many of the heroes of the Reconquista were Castilian, heroic poems about these figures were recited all across Spain in the Castilian dialect. The Spanish language was developed even further after the Reconquista was complete and all of Spain was ruled by Ferdinand and Isabella. The first Spanish dictionary was written during this time period and presented to Queen Isabella in 1492, the same year Columbus set sail.
Expansion of Spain
When Columbus landed in the New World, Spain was able to expand and build an empire outside of Europe.
Spanish explorers wrested large amounts of territory from Native Americans and colonised Central, South and parts of North America. Wherever they went, naturally, they brought their language with them.
Although many natives never learned Spanish, the descendants of the original Spanish settlers continued to speak it.
Spanish outside of Spain
Today, Spanish is the official language of many former Spanish colonies, including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Additionally, Spanish is an official language of the American state of New Mexico and the American territory of Puerto Rico. Colonial Spain also managed to get a tiny foothold in Africa, so Spanish is spoken there in Equatorial Guinea and the Canary Islands.
Of course, most of these people do not speak Spanish exactly as it’s spoken in Spain. With such a widespread language distribution, regional language variations are inevitable, just like the differences between UK English and US English. These differences aren’t enough to make Spanish from one region unintelligible to a Spanish speaker from another country, but before you travel to a Spanish-speaking country it is helpful to know how Spanish is spoken there.
For example, in Spain itself, the pronoun vosotros and its associated verb case is often used to indicate that you are talking to a group of friends. Basically, it’s the plural, informal version of “you.” In most Latin American countries, vosotros isn’t used. The formal, plural word for “you”, ustedes, is used instead, even if you are addressing a group of people with whom you are familiar. There are also regional differences in the way words are pronounced, slang, vocabulary, and speech rhythm.
When you are translating material to Spanish, it’s important to make sure that the translation is done by someone who is familiar with the way Spanish is spoken in the country you are translating for. That way, you can be sure to avoid any language mishaps, such as those suffered by the American beer company Coors Brewing Co. When Coors went to translate its slogan “Turn it loose” into Spanish, it came out as “Suffer from diarrhea.” Obviously, this did not attract Spanish-speakers to the product.
Again, this underscores the need to have translations done by people with enough local knowledge to keep misunderstandings from happening in the first place!
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