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Spanish (español) or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 600 million when including speakers as a second language.[4][5] Spanish is the official language of 20 countries. It is also one of the six official languages of United Nations.[6] Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese;[5][7] 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 country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.[8]

Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group, in which the language is also known as Castilian (castellano). The group 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,[9] 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.[10]

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.[11] Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek.[12][13] Alongside English and French, it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world.[14] Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences.[15] Spanish is also the third most used language on internet websites after English and Chinese.[16]

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, Organization of American States, Union of South American Nations, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, African Union and many other international organizations.[17]

Name of the language and etymology
Main article: Names given to the Spanish language
Name of the language
In Spain and some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but also castellano (Castilian), the language from the Kingdom of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, Asturian, Catalan, Aragonese, Occitan and other minor languages.

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

El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. ... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas...
Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...

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

The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms—español and castellano—are regarded as synonymous and equally valid.[18]

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

In the Middle Ages, the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as Romance and later also as Lengua vulgar.[19] Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as Romance castellano ("romanz castellano", "romanz de Castiella"), "lenguaje de Castiella", and ultimately simply as castellano (noun).[19]

Different etymologies have been suggested for the term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Occitan word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin *hispaniolus ('of Hispania').[20] Hispania was the Roman name for the entire 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 hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin, as happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon).

History
Main article: History of the Spanish language

The Visigothic Cartularies of Valpuesta, written in a late form of Latin, were declared in 2010 by the Royal Spanish Academy as the record of the earliest words written in Castilian, predating those of the Glosas Emilianenses.[21]
Like the other Romance languages, the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages)—some distantly related to Latin as Indo-European languages, and some that are not related at all—were previously spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Proto-Basque, Iberian, Lusitanian, Celtiberian and Gallaecian.

The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages—Mozarabic (Andalusi Romance), Navarro-Aragonese, Leonese, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, Occitan, and later, French and Italian. Spanish also borrowed a considerable number of words from Arabic, as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the migration of tribes and a period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin in use at that time.

According to the theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal, local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos, and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo, where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century.[22] In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese, and, according to some authors, was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista, and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus, much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic-derived words, make up around 8% of the language today).[23] The written standard for this new language was developed in the cities of Toledo, in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid, from the 1570s.[22]

The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages, including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o—which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in the following table:

Latin Spanish Ladino Aragonese Asturian Galician Portuguese Catalan Gascon / Occitan French Sardinian Italian Romanian English
petra piedra pedra pedra, pèira pierre pedra, perda pietra piatrǎ 'stone'
terra tierra terra tèrra terre terra țară 'land'
moritur muere muerre morre mor morís meurt mòrit muore moare 'dies (v.)'
mortem muerte morte mort mòrt mort morte, morti morte moarte 'death'

Chronological map showing linguistic evolution in southwest Europe
Spanish is marked by palatalization of the Latin double consonants (geminates) nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año, and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo).

The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably "fortified" to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with the consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v.

Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboring Gascon extending as far north as the Gironde estuary, and found in a small area of Calabria), attributed by some scholars to a Basque substratum was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h-, still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects, it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and neighboring Romance languages, there are many f-/h- doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, though fondo means "bottom", while hondo means "deep"); additionally, hacer ("to make") is cognate to the root word of satisfacer ("to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho ("satisfied").

Compare the examples in the following table:

Latin Spanish Ladino Aragonese Asturian Galician Portuguese Catalan Gascon / Occitan French Sardinian Italian Romanian English
filium hijo fijo (or hijo) fillo fíu fillo filho fill filh, hilh fils fizu, fìgiu, fillu figlio fiu 'son'
facere hacer fazer fer facer fazer fer far, faire, har (or hèr) faire fàghere, fàere, fàiri fare a face 'to do'
febrem fiebre (calentura) febre fèbre, frèbe, hrèbe (or
herèbe) fièvre calentura febbre febră 'fever'
focum fuego fueu fogo foc fuòc, fòc, huèc feu fogu fuoco foc 'fire'
Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table:

Latin Spanish Ladino Aragonese Asturian Galician Portuguese Catalan Gascon / Occitan French Sardinian Italian Romanian English
clāvem llave clave clau llave chave chave clau clé giae, crae, crai chiave cheie 'key'
flamma llama flama chama chama, flama flama flamme framma fiamma flamă 'flame'
plēnum lleno pleno plen llenu cheo cheio, pleno ple plen plein prenu pieno plin 'plenty, full'
octō ocho güeito ocho, oito oito oito (oito) vuit, huit uèch, uòch, uèit huit oto otto opt 'eight'
multum mucho
muy muncho
muy muito
mui munchu
mui moito
moi muito molt molt (arch.) très, beaucoup, moult meda molto mult 'much,
very,
many'

Antonio de Nebrija, author of Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar of a modern European language[24]
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent a dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants, known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes, which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩). See History of Spanish (Modern development of the Old Spanish sibilants) for details.

The Gramática de la lengua castellana, written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija, was the first grammar written for a modern European language.[25] According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I, she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire.[26] In his introduction to the grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."[27]

From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").[28]

In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara, and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City. For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Geographical distribution
See also: Hispanophone

Geographical distribution of the Spanish language
Official or co-official language
Important minority (more than 25%) or majority language, but not official
Notable minority language (less than 25% but more than 500,000 Spanish speakers)
Spanish is the primary language in 20 countries worldwide. As of 2023, it is estimated that about 486 million people speak Spanish as a native language, making it the second most spoken language by number of native speakers.[29] An additional 75 million speak Spanish as a second or foreign language, making it the fourth most spoken language in the world overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi with a total number of 538 million speakers.[30] Spanish is also the third most used language on the Internet, after English and Chinese.[31]

Europe
Main article: Peninsular Spanish

Percentage of people who self reportedly know enough Spanish to hold a conversation, in the EU, 2005
Native country
More than 8.99%
Between 4% and 8.99%
Between 1% and 3.99%
Less than 1%
Spanish is the official language of Spain. Upon the emergence of the Castilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred.[32] Hard policies imposing the language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward.[33]

Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken include Gibraltar and Andorra.[34]

Spanish is also spoken by immigrant communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany.[35] Spanish is an official language of the European Union.

Americas
Hispanic America
Main article: Spanish language in the Americas
Today, the majority of the Spanish speakers live in Hispanic America. Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure—of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official with 36 indigenous languages), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní),[36] Peru (co-official with Quechua, Aymara, and "the other indigenous languages"),[37] Puerto Rico (co-official with English),[38] Uruguay, and Venezuela.

United States
Main article: Spanish language in the United States
See also: New Mexican Spanish and Isleño Spanish

Percentage of the U.S. population aged 5 and over who speaks Spanish at home in 2019, by states
Spanish language has a long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century.[39] In the wake of the 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States.[39] The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce.[40]

According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of the U.S. population were of Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin.[41] In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population.[42] Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico, where it is also an official language along with English.

Spanish is by far the most common second language in the country, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included.[43] While English is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico.[44] The language has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Tucson and Phoenix of the Arizona Sun Corridor, as well as more recently, Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration.

Rest of the Americas
Although Spanish has no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize (known until 1973 as British Honduras) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2010 census it was then spoken natively by 45% of the population and 56.6% of the total population were able to speak the language.[45]

Due to their proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existing native Spanish speaking minority, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidad government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005.[46]

In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation of Mercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching in Brazil.[47][48] In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil.[49] In September 2016 this law was revoked by Michel Temer after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff.[50] In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.[51]

Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
See also: Equatoguinean Spanish

Spanish language signage in Malabo, capital city of Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during the Spanish colonial period.[52] Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in the Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business.[53] Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish.[54] The Instituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish.[55] This figure highlights Equatorial Guinea as having a higher proportion of proficient speakers of a colonial language relative to the respective metropolitan languages in other West and Central African nations.[56]

Spanish is spoken by very small communities in Angola due to Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence.[57]

North Africa and Macaronesia
See also: Canarian Spanish and Saharan Spanish
Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off the northwest of the African mainland. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands, traces its origins back to the Castilian conquest in the 15th century, and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas,[58] which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish.[59] The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as a second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system.[60]

While far from the heyday of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, there are some presence of the Spanish language in the north of Morocco, stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media.[61] According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches a 4.6% of the population.[62] Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish,[61] with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla.[63] Spanish has also presence in the education system of the country (either by means of selected education centers running the Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, and the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education).[61]

In Western Sahara, formerly Spanish Sahara, a primarily Hassaniya Arabic-speaking territory, Spanish was officially spoken as the language of the colonial administration during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Today, Spanish is present in the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as its secondary official language,[64] and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf (Algeria), where the Spanish language is still taught as a second language, largely by Cuban educators.[65][66][67] The number of Spanish speakers is unknown.[failed verification][68][69]

Spanish is also an official language of the African Union.

Asia
See also: Chavacano, Philippine Spanish, and Spanish language in the Philippines

Spanish language newspaper in the Philippines from 1892
Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization, it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as a first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos (Ilustrados). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing.[70]

Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration after the Spanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s.[71] Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English and Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog.

Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos two months later.[72] It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language.[73] Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of the country's constitution.[74] In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language,[75][76] and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system,[77] with over 7,000 students studying the language in the 2021–2022 school year alone.[78] The local business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects.[79] Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population,[80] a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely.[81]

Aside from standard Spanish, a Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish.[82] The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996.[83] The local languages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived from Mexican Spanish, owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898.[84][85]

Oceania

Announcement in Spanish on Easter Island, welcoming visitors to Rapa Nui National Park
Spanish is the official and most spoken language on Easter Island, which is geographically part of Polynesia in Oceania and politically part of Chile. However, Easter Island's traditional language is Rapa Nui, an Eastern Polynesian language.

As a legacy of comprising the former Spanish East Indies, Spanish loan words are present in the local languages of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Marshall Islands and Micronesia.[86][87]

In addition, in Australia and New Zealand, there are native Spanish communities, resulting from emigration from Spanish-speaking countries (mainly from the Southern Cone).[88]

Spanish speakers by country
20 countries and one United States territory speak Spanish officially, and the language has a significant unofficial presence in the rest of the United States along with Andorra, Belize and the territory of Gibraltar.