The Spanish Language - Learn What Makes It Special

Are you a language bee and want to become a Hispanohablante, i.e., Spanish speaker? But are you sure you want to learn Spanish (Español)? Or you are looking for learning Castilian (Castellano)?

Ok no worries, let’s delve into what the above question means…

You always have heard about the Spanish language, and you may speculate from its name that it is the language that is spoken by the people living in Spain. But it is not the answer to the query, a lot yet to know.

Of course, Spanish is the language of Spain and spoken by the Spanish people, even it is the 2nd largest spoken language throughout the world, spoken by around 560 million people including 90 million as second language speakers. But what has left still?

You may get surprised to know that the language we usually referred to as the Spanish language, it is, in fact, a Castilian language, a mother tongue of citizens from the Central and Northern region of Spain; while the whole world calls this the Spanish language. Though Castilian is the largest spoken language of Spain and accounting 74% of native speakers, while it is spoken by 99% of Spanish citizens, nonetheless one must know that Spain is a multilingual country, not the monolingual one, and almost there are five languages are spoken in modern Spain including Asturian, Aranese/Occitan, Basque, Castilian, Catalan, & Galician, therefore, all are the Spanish languages.

So, today, the language we referred to, is indeed a Castilian which is largely learned as a second language in the entire world making the sum of 90 million second-language speakers. Also, it is one of the most widely dispersed languages that is spoken by 3 million people in almost 44 countries. In addition, Castilian commonly known as Spanish is the official language of 21 countries including Puerto Rico (a self-governing Commonwealth in the Caribbean assoc. with the US). Castilian aka Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, as well as an official language of the European Union.

Interestingly, the Spanish people themselves are not united on this issue either they speak Castilian, or they should call it Spanish.

Historical Background

Passing through the Western Romance branch of Latin, Castilian is a member of the Ibero-Romance sub-family that has been developed by the Vulgar Latin, the main branch of all Romance languages, which was a spoken language of the Roman Empire. Even though the Vulgar Latin spread in the whole Roman empire and evolved into numerous regional dialects including Aragonese, Catalan, Castilian, Galician-Portuguese, and Leonese, however, importantly it evolved into Castilian dialect and became a distinct language later which was in actual the language of the elite. In other words, Castilian in its offset was a dialect of Vulgar Latin that was used by the elite in the Roman empire.

The document from the 9th century, written in the Castilian dialect of Vulgar Latin depicts that it had been becoming a separate language at that point. The Castilian dialect arose in the northcentral region of the Iberian Peninsula, then-called Castilla but the solid evidence of its firm establishment as a distinct language is found from the 13th century when the King Alfonso X el Sabio decided to standardize its written form for official use and encouraged the use of Castilian as a primary language in the field of science, law, and others, thus the evolution continued until 16th century.

The Arabic Influence

One of the most interesting facts about Castilian Spanish is the influence of the Arabic language over it. Castilian Spanish has been greatly influenced by Mozarabic dialects spoken in the Al Andalus, a former Arab Muslim kingdom, which previously ruled more than half of the Iberian Peninsula since the 8th century, dwindled later to the Southern part of the peninsula (the Kingdom of Grenada) by the 13th century until reconquered totally by the Christian kingdom in the late 15th century.

The Mozarabic dialects have a great impact on the Castilian (aka Spanish) which has absorbed more than 4000 Arabic loanwords estimating around 8% of Castilian (Spanish) vocabulary. This can also be understood by most of the Spanish words beginning with Al, a definite article in Arabic. 

Taking a quick apercu of Arabic loanwords, we see the most common Spanish word Ojalá (hopefully) has the root لو شاءالله ~Lau Sha Allah~ (I hope or may God wish) from the Arabic. Next is Alcalde (mayor or judge) is taken from القاضي ~Al Qadhi~ (judge).

Also read: How the Arabic language evolved?

Spanish in Mexico, Latin America & Philippines

Since its reunification in 1492 AD, the Spanish kingdom began to spread and conquer the territories outside of the Iberian Peninsula, it undoubtedly led to disperse the language of the Spanish empire - the Castilian over the conquered territories, thus, reaching the Philippines (previously Spanish east indies), South America and some extent to Africa. The Spanish conquest touched to Mexico, a southern part of North America which became the second-largest Spanish-speaking region after Spain itself. Mexico makes the sum of around 120 million Spanish-speaking population, the largest number out of any other country.

It is obvious to take the influence of native languages and dialects during the immersing of external language with the local, therefore, the Castilian has widely impacted by the variety of South American languages and old Mexican language. Nevertheless, the standard written form of Spanish is the same everywhere, but the pronunciation and the vocabulary including daily-spoken words differ from the Castilian Spanish, and this makes the variety of the Spanish language categorized into European Spanish and Latin American Spanish.

Learning Spanish in Modern Times

In general, a new Spanish learner has not easy to differentiate these Spanish varieties, but once the learner is accustomed to one, he/she can easily make sense of the distinctions between these varieties. Inquisitively, it is not a big deal to learn the Spanish varieties separately, instead, they can be acquired by the practice and the inculcate shortly.

Words from Us

So, now the question is to your which language you have learned so far, or you are planning to learn Spanish or Castilian? 

Hopefully this article you found helpful and got to know much about the Spanish language you might not be aware of them earlier. If you want to learn Castilian/Spanish by yourself, check out our another post about best 5 Spanish self-learning courses.

Best 5 Spanish Learning Courses