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{{Infobox Language| name = Spanish, Castilian | nativename = {{lang|es|Español-->, {{lang|es|Castellano--> |pronunciation=/espa'ɲol/, /kaste'ʎano/ or /kaste'ʝano/ | familycolor = Indo-European | script = [Latin alphabet ([Spanish alphabet) | region = Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela and significant parts of the population in Andorra, Belize, Gibraltar and the [United States Encarta-Most Spoken languages- c. 400 million Ciberamerica-Castellano El Nuevo Diario Terra Noticias Totala: 400–500 million Universidad de MéxicoInstituto Cervantes ( "El Mundo" news) Yahoo Press Room
aAll numbers are approximate.| rank = 2-4 (native) Languages of the world by Ethnologue Most widely spoken languges by Nations Online Most spoken languages by Ask Men Encarta Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People
Total: 3| fam2 = [Italic languages | fam3 = [Romance languages | fam4 = [Italo-Western languages | fam5 = [Gallo-Iberian | fam6 = [Ibero-Romance languages | fam7 = [West Iberian languages | script = [Latin alphabet ([Spanish alphabet) | script = [Latin alphabet ([Spanish alphabet) | nation = [List of countries where Spanish is an official language | agency = [Association of Spanish Language Academies ({{lang|es|[Real Academia Española--> and 21 other national Spanish language academies) | iso1 = es | iso2 = spa | iso3 = spa) -->

Spanish () or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance languages originally from the northern area of Spain. From there, its use gradually spread inside the Kingdom of Kingdom of Castile, where it evolved and eventually became the principal language of the government and trade. It was later taken to Spanish Empire#Territories in Africa (1898–1975), the Spanish colonization of the Americas and Spanish East Indies in the last five centuries by Spanish explorers and colonists.

Today, it is the official language of Spain, most Latin American countries, and Equatorial Guinea. In total, 21 nations use Spanish as their primary language. Spanish is also one of United Nations#Languages of the United Nations.

The language is spoken by between 322 and 400 million people natively, Universidad de MéxicoInstituto Cervantes ( "El Mundo" news) making Spanish the most spoken Romance language and possibly the second most spoken language by number of native speakers. Ethnologue, 1999 CIA World Factbook, Field Listing - Languages (World). It is also the second most widely spoken language in the United States CIA The World Factbook United States and by far the most popular studied foreign language in United States schools and universities., Statistical Abstract of the United States: page 47: Table 47: Languages Spoken at Home by Language: 2003, MLA Fall 2002. It is estimated that the combined total of native and non-native Spanish speakers is approximately 500 million, likely making it the fourth most spoken language by total number of speakers. Universidad de MéxicoInstituto Cervantes ( "El Mundo" news).

Naming and origin Spanish people tend to call this language (Spanish) when contrasting it with languages of foreign states, such as French language and English language, but call it (Castilian), that is, the language of the Castile (historical region) region, when contrasting it with other languages of Spain such as Galician language, Basque language, and Catalan language. This reasoning also holds true for the language's preferred name in some Hispanic American countries. In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, as opposed to (lit. the other Spanish languages). Article III reads as follows:

Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (…) The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities…

The name castellano is however widely used for the language as a whole in Latin America. Some Spanish speakers consider a generic term with no political or ideological links, much as "Spanish" is in English. Often Latin Americans use it to differentiate their own variety of Spanish as opposed to the variety of Spanish spoken in Spain, or vice-versa, to refer to that variety of Spanish which is considered as standard in the region.

]

Classification and related languages Castilian Spanish has closest affinity to the other West Iberian languages Romance languages: Asturian language (), Galician language (), Ladino language (), and Portuguese language (), as well as to Aragonese language () and Catalan language ().

Catalan, an Iberian Romance languages which exhibits many Gallo-Romance traits, is more similar to the neighbouring Occitan language () than to Spanish, or indeed than Spanish and Portuguese are to each other. In the Middle Ages, it was even known as llemosí (Limousin). In later centuries it was generally regarded as a dialect of Spanish, and it wasn't until the earliest years of the 20th century that Catalan was recognised as a variant of the Occitan language.

Spanish and Portuguese share similar grammars and a majority of vocabulary as well as a common history of Influence of Arabic on other languages while a great part of the peninsula was under Islamic rule (both languages expanded over Islamic territories). Their lexical similarity has been estimated as 89%. See Differences between Spanish and Portuguese, for further information.

Ladino Ladino, which is essentially medieval Castilian and closer to modern Spanish than any other language, is spoken by many descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were Alhambra decree. In many ways it is not a separate language but a parallel dialect of Castilian. Ladino lacks Amerindian languages which was influential during the Spanish Empire, and it retains many archaic features which have since been lost in standard Castilian. It does, however, contain other vocabulary which is not found in standard Castilian, including vocabulary from Hebrew language as well as Turkish language and other languages spoken wherever the Sephardim settled.

Vocabulary comparison Spanish and Italian language share a very similar phonological system and do not differ very much in grammar. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%. As a result, Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to various degrees. The lexical similarity with Portuguese is even greater, 89%, but the vagaries of Portuguese pronunciation make it less easily understood by Hispanophones than Italian. Mutual intelligibility with French language and Romanian language is even lower (lexical similarity being respectively 75% and 71%): comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is as low as an estimated 45% - the same as of English. The common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would.

{| class="wikitable"|-! Latin! Spanish language! Galician language! Portuguese language! Catalan language! Italian language! French language! Romanian language! English language Meaning and notes|-| | | /| ¹| | ²| ³| | we|-| (lit. "true brother", i.e. not a cousin)| | | | | | | | brother|-| (Classical Latin)
(Ecclesiastical Latin)| | | | | | | | Tuesday|-| | | | | | | | | song

|-| or |
(archaically also )| |
(archaically also )|
(archaically also )| | | | more|-| | (archaically also )| |
(archaically also )| | | | | left hand|-| or
(lit. "no thing born")| | /|
(archaically also )| | /| /| | nothing|}

also in early modern Portuguese (e.g. The Lusiads)

in Southern List of languages of Italy

in Quebec French

History ]

The Spanish language developed from Latin], with major influences from Arabic language during the Al-Andalus period, and minor surviving influences from Basque language and Celtiberian language, and to some extent the Germanic languages via the Vandals. Spanish developed along the remote cross road strips among the Cantabria, Burgos, Soria and La Rioja (autonomous community) provinces of Northern Spain, partly as strongly innovative and differing variant from its nearest cousin, Asturian, with a higher degree of Basque influence in these regions(see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin , Spanish ), palatalization (Latin , Spanish , and Latin , Spanish ) and diphthongation (stem (linguistics)-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin , Spanish ; Latin , Spanish ). Similar phenomena can be found in other Romance languages as well.

During the , this northern dialect from Cantabria was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in the northern coastal regions of Morocco.

The first Latin to Spanish grammar () was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492 by Antonio de Nebrija. When Isabel de Castilla was presented with the book, she asked, "What do I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?," to which he replied, "Your highness, the language is the instrument of the Empire."

From the 16th century onwards, the language was brought to the Americas and Spanish East Indies by Spanish colonization of the Americas. Also in this epoch, Spanish became the main language of Politics and Art across the major part of Europe. In the 18th century, French language took its place.

In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara and parts of the United States, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City, that had not been part of the Spanish Empire.

For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Typical sound changes One defining characteristic of Spanish was the diphthongization of the Latin short vowels e and o into ie and ue, respectively, when they were stressed. Similar sound law can be found in other Romance languages, but in Spanish they were particularly significant. Some examples:

Lat. > Sp. , It. , Fr. , Port./Gal. "stone".
Lat. > Sp. , It. , Fr. / , Rom. , Port./Gal. "he dies".

More peculiar to early Spanish (as in the Gascon dialect of Occitan, and possibly due to a Basque substratum) was the mutation of Latin initial f- into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel which did not diphthongate. Compare for instance:

Lat. > It. , Port. , Gal. , Fr. , Occitan (but Gascon ) Sp. (but Ladino );
late Lat. > Lad. , Port./Gal. , Sp. ;
but Lat. > It. , Port./Gal. , Sp./Lad. .

Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, for example:

Lat. , acc. , > Lad. , , ; Sp. , , . However, in Spanish there are also the forms , , ; Port. , , ; Gal. , , .
Lat. acc. , , > Lad. , , ; Sp. , , ; Port. , , ; Gal. , , .

Geographic distribution Spanish is one of the official languages of the Organization of American States, the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations, and the European Union.

Latin America The vast majority of Spanish speakers are located in Latin America. Of those countries with the largest numbers of Spanish speakers, only Spain is situated outside of the Americas. Mexico boasts the world's largest number of native speakers. At the national level, Spanish is the official language of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara language), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama , Paraguay (co-official Guarani language Ethnologue - Paraguay(2000). Guaraní is also the most spoken language in Paraguay by number of native speakers.), Peru (co-official Quechua and, in some regions, Aymara language), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language (co-official language English language) in the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico.{{cite news], 1993|publisher=the New York Times|accessdate=2007-10-06-->.

The non-Spanish speaking American nations Spanish holds no official recognition in the former British overseas territories of Belize. However, according to the 2000 census, 52.1% of the population speaks the language "very well."{{cite web] due to proximity and increased trade with its Spanish-speaking neighbours, for example, as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc. MERCOSUL, Portal Oficial (Portuguese) In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President of Brazil, that makes Spanish available as a foreign language in the country's secondary schools. BrazilMag.com, August 08 2005. In many border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayan-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Riverense Portuñol is also spoken.

In the United States, 42.7 million people were of Hispanic heritage according to the 2005 census. Some 32 million people, or 12% of the whole population aged 5 years or older speak Spanish at home. U.S. Census Bureau. Percent of People 5 Years and Over Who Speak Spanish at Home: 2005 The Spanish language has a long Spanish in the United States (many states from the south used to be part of Mexico) and has recently been revitalised by heavy immigration from Spanish-speaking Latin America. Spanish, moreover, is also the most widely taught foreign language in the United States., MLA Fall 2002. Though the United States has no formally designated "official languages," Spanish is formally recognized at the state level, alongside English, in the U.S. state of New Mexico, where it is spoken by almost 30% of the population. In total, the U.S. contains the world's fifth-largest Spanish speaking population. Facts, Figures, and Statistics About Spanish, American Demographics, 1998.

Europe Spanish is official in Spain, the country for which it is named and from which it originated. It is also spoken widely in Gibraltar, although English language is used for official purposes. CIA World Factbook — Gibraltar Likewise, it is spoken in Andorra though Catalan language is the official language.{{cite web|url=http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554662/Andorra.html#s3|title=Andorra — People|publisher=MSN Encarta|accessdate=2007-08-20-->{{cite web|url=http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3164.htm|title=Background Note: Andorra|publisher=U.S. Department of State: Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs|month=January|year=2007|accessdate=2007-08-20--> It is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. BBC Education — Languages, Languages Across Europe — Spanish. Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland, Spanish is the mother tongue of 1.7% of the population, representing the first minority after the 4 official languages of the country {{cite web|url=http://www.all-about-switzerland.info/swiss-population-languages.html|title=Switzerland's Four National Languages|publisher=all-about-switzerland.info|accessdate=2007-09-19-->.

Asia

Although Spanish was an official language in the Philippines, it was never spoken by a majority of the population. Its importance fell in the first half of the 20th century following the US occupation and administration of the islands. The introduction of the English language in the Filipino government system put an end to the use of Spanish as the official language. The language lost its status in 1987, during the Corazon Aquino administration. According to the 1990 census, there were 2,658 native speakers of Spanish. The number of Spanish speakers, however, are not available in the ensuing 1995 and 2000 censuses. Additionally, according to the 2000 census, there are over 600,000 native speakers of Chavacano language, a Spanish based creole spoken in Cavite and Zamboanga. Many languages of the Philippines have numerous Spanish loanwords. See also: Spanish in the Philippines.

Africa In Africa, Spanish language is official in the UN-recognised but Moroccan-occupied Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (co-official Arabic language) and Equatorial Guinea (co-official French language and Portuguese language). Today, nearly 200,000 refugee Sahrawis are able to read and write in Spanish El refuerzo del español llega a los saharauis con una escuela en los campos de Tinduf, and several thousands have received university education in foreign countries as part of aid packages (mainly Cuba and Spain). In Equatorial Guinea, Spanish is the predominant language when counting native and non-native speakers (around 500,000 people), while Fang language is the most spoken language by number of native speakers Ethnologue -Equatorial Guinea ((2000), CIA World Factbook - Equatorial Guinea (Last updated 20 September, 2007). It is also spoken in the Spanish cities in Plazas de soberanía (Ceuta and Melilla) and in the autonomous community of Canary Islands (143,000 and 1,995,833 people, respectively). Within Nothern Morocco, a former History of Morocco#European influence that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish. Morocco.com, The Languages of Morocco.. It is spoken by some communities of Angola, because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War. In Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, the Spanish can be learned as a second foreign language in the public educative system. El idioma español en África subsahariana. In 2008, Cervantes Institutes centers will be opened in Lagos and Johannesburg, the first one in the Sub-Saharan Africa El Cervantes espera duplicar las matrículas para el 2012 dentro de la 'gran operación de comunicación' del español

Oceania Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is also spoken in Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. According to the 2001 census, there are approximately 95,000 speakers of Spanish in Australia, 44,000 of which live in Greater Sydney.

The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, since Marianas Islands and Caroline Islands were Spanish colonial possessions until late 19th century (see Spanish-American War), but Spanish has since been forgotten. It now only exists as an influence on the local native languages.

Variations

There are important variations among the regions of Spain and throughout Spanish-speaking America. In countries in Hispanophone America it is preferable to use the word castellano to distinguish their version of the language from that of Spain, thus asserting their autonomy and national identity. In Spain the Castilian dialect's pronunciation is commonly regarded as the national standard, although a use of slightly different pronouns called Loísmo of this dialect is deprecated. More accurately, for nearly everyone in Spain, "standard Spanish" means "pronouncing everything exactly as it is written", an ideal which does not correspond to any real dialect, though the northern dialects get the closest to it. In practice, the standard way of speaking Spanish in the media is "written Spanish" for formal speech, "Madrid dialect" (one of the transitional variants between Castilian and Andalusian) for informal speech.

Spanish has three grammatical person grammatical number pronouns: , , and in some parts of Latin America, (the use of this form is called voseo). Generally speaking, and are informal and used with friends (though in Spain is considered an archaic form for address of exalted personages, its use now mainly confined to the liturgy). is universally regarded as the formal address (derived from , "your grace") , and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers.

. In blue, countries that use vos as the primary spoken form. In green countries that feature voseo as a regionalism or non-mainstream practice. is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun in many countries of Latin America, including Argentina, Costa Rica, the central mountain region of Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, the Antioquia and Valle del Cauca states of Colombia and the State of Zulia in Venezuela. In Argentina, Uruguay, and increasingly in Paraguay, it is also the standard form used in the mass media, but the media in other countries with generally continue to use or except in advertisements, for instance. may also be used regionally in other countries. Depending on country or region, usage may be considered standard or (by better educated speakers) to be unrefined. Interpersonal situations in which the use of vos is acceptable may also differ considerably between regions. For further information, see Voseo.

Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. The Spanish dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural for daily use, (formal or familiar, as the case may be, though non-formal usage can sometimes appear in poetry and rhetorical or literary style). In Spain there are two forms — (formal) and (familiar). The pronoun is the plural form of in most of Spain, but in the Americas (and certain southern Spanish cities such as Cádiz or Seville, and in the Canary Islands) it is replaced with . It is remarkable that the use of for the informal plural "you" in southern Spain does not follow the usual rule for pronoun-verb agreement (linguistics); e.g., while the formal form for "you go", , uses the third-person plural form of the verb, in Cádiz or Seville the informal form is constructed as , using the second-person plural of the verb. In the Canary Islands, though, the usual pronoun-verb agreement is preserved in most cases.

Some words can be different, even embarrassingly so, in different Hispanophone countries. Most Spanish speakers can recognize other Spanish forms, even in places where they are not commonly used, but Spaniards generally do not recognise specifically American usages. For example, Spanish mantequilla, aguacate and albaricoque (respectively, "butter", "avocado", "apricot") correspond to manteca, palta, and damasco, respectively, in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. The everyday Spanish words coger (to catch, get, or pick up), pisar (to step on) and concha (seashell) are considered extremely rude in parts of Latin America, where the meaning of coger and pisar is also "to have sex" and concha means "vulva". The Puerto Rican word for "bobby pin" (pinche) is an obscenity in Mexico, and in Nicaragua simply means "stingy". Other examples include taco, which means "swearword" in Spain but is known to the rest of the world as the Mexican foodstuff. Pija in many countries of Latin America is an obscene slang word for "penis", while in Spain the word signifies "posh girl" or "snobby". Coche, which means "car" in Spain, means "pig" in Guatemala while carro means "car" in some Latin American countries and "cart" in others, as well as in Spain.

The (Royal Spanish Academy), together with the 21 other national ones (see Association of Spanish Language Academies), exercises a standardizing influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar and style guides. Due to this influence and for other sociohistorical reasons, a standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.

Writing system Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the character ñ (eñe), which represents the phoneme and is regarded as a letter of its own distinct from n, despite being typographically an n with a tilde. The digraph (orthography)s ch () and ll () are considered single letters, with their own names and places in the alphabet, because each represents a single phoneme ( and , respectively). However, the digraph rr (, "double r", or simply as opposed to ), which also represents a single phoneme , was not similarly regarded as a single letter. Thus, the traditional Spanish alphabet had 28 letters (29 if one counted w, which is only used in foreign names and loanwords):

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z.

Since 1994, the two digraphs are to be treated as letter pairs for collation purposes. Words with ch are now alphabetically sorted between those with ce and ci, instead of following cz as they used to, and similarly for ll. Nevertheless, the names che and elle are still used colloquially."No obstante, en el X Congreso de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, celebrado en 1994, se acordó adoptar para los diccionarios académicos, a petición de varios organismos internacionales, el orden alfabético latino universal, en el que la 'ch y la ll no se consideran letras independientes. En consecuencia, estas dos letras pasan a alfabetizarse en los lugares que les corresponden dentro de la C (entre -cg- y -ci-) y dentro de la L (entre -lk- y -lm-), respectivamente." Real Academia Española. Explanation at http://www.spanishpronto.com/ (in Spanish and English) All words that start with the rr sound are written with only one r and collated under this letter. There are no words that start with the r sound.

With the exclusion of a very small number of regional terms such as México (see Mexico#Toponymy), pronunciation can be entirely determined from spelling. A typical Spanish word is stressed on the syllable before the last if it ends with a vowel (not including y) or with a vowel followed by n or s; it is stressed on the last syllable otherwise. Exceptions to this rule are indicated by placing an acute accent on the stress (linguistics).

The acute accent is used, in addition, to distinguish between certain homophones, especially when one of them is a stressed word and the other one is a clitic: compare ("the", masculine singular definite article) with ("he" or "it"), or ("you", object pronoun), (preposition "of" or "from"), and (reflexive pronoun) with ("tea"), ("give") and ("I know", or imperative "be").

The interrogative pronouns (, , , , etc.) also receive accents in direct or indirect questions, and some demonstratives (, , , etc.) can be accented when used as pronouns. The conjunction ("or") is written with an accent between numerals so as not to be confused with a zero: e.g., should be read as rather than ("10,020"). Accent marks are frequently omitted in capital letters (a widespread practice in the early days of computers where only lowercase vowels were available with accents), although the Real Academia Española advises against this.

When u is written between g and a front vowel (e or i), if it should be pronounced, it is written with a diaeresis (diacritic) (ü) to indicate that it is not silent as it normally would be (e.g., cigüeña, "stork", is pronounced ; if it were written cigueña, it would be pronounced ).

Interrogative and exclamatory clauses are introduced with Inverted question mark and exclamation point in Spanish.

Sounds The phonemic inventory listed in the following table includes phonemes that are preserved only in some dialects, other dialects have merged them (such as yeísmo); these are marked with an asterisk (*). Sounds in parentheses are allophones or dialectal variants.

{]! colspan="2" | Labiodental! colspan="2" | Interdental consonant! colspan="2" | Dental consonant! colspan="2" | Laminal consonant Denti-alveolar consonant! colspan="2" | Apical consonant Alveolar consonant! colspan="2" | Postalveolar consonant! Alveolopalatal! colspan="2" | Palatal consonant! colspan="2" | Velar consonant! Uvular consonant! glottal consonant|- align=center| Plosives]| colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || | | | colspan="2" || colspan="2" ||||- align=center| Fricative consonant| colspan="2" || | | | | colspan="2" || | | | | | || | | colspan="2" | | | |- align=center| Approximant consonant| colspan="2" | | colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" | | colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" ||| colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | |||- align=center| Nasal consonant| | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | | | | colspan="2" | | | | ||- align=center| Lateral consonant| colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" | | | colspan="2" | | colspan="2" ||||- align=center| Flap consonant| colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" | | colspan="2" ||| colspan="2" || colspan="2" ||||- align=center| Trill consonant| colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" || colspan="2" | | colspan="2" ||| colspan="2" || colspan="2" ||||}

By the 16th century, the consonant system of Spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from Iberian Romance languages such as Portuguese language and Catalan language:

Initial , when it had evolved into a vacillating , was lost in most words (although this etymological h- is preserved in spelling and in some Andalusian dialects is still aspirated).
The bilabial approximant (which was written u or v) merged with the bilabial oclusive (written b). There is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v in contemporary Spanish, excepting specific areas in Spain (particularly the ones influenced by Catalan) and Latin America.
The voiced alveolar fricative which existed as a separate phoneme in medieval Spanish merged with its voiceless counterpart . The phoneme which resulted from this merger is currently spelled s.
The voiced postalveolar fricative merged with its voiceless counterpart , which evolved into the modern velar sound by the 17th century, now written with j, or g before e, i. Nevertheless, in most parts of Argentina and in Uruguay, y and ll have both evolved to or .
The voiced alveolar affricate merged with its voiceless counterpart , which then developed into the interdental , now written z, or c before e, i. But in Andalusia, the Canary Islands and the Americas this sound merged with as well. See Ceceo, for further information.

The consonant system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Ladino language and in Portuguese, neither of which underwent these shifts.

Lexical stress Spanish syllables are all pronounced at a more or less constant tempo, so it is sometimes said to be Timing (linguistics), but in fact it is stress-timed language, with different stress patterns resulting in separate meanings for the same spelling, distinguishable by written accents, especially noticeable in verb conjugations. For example, the word (with penultimate stress) means "road" or "I walk" whereas (with final stress) means "you (formal)/he/she/it walked". Another example is the word (first-syllable stress) "practical", which is different from (second-syllable stress) "I practice," and (last-syllable stress) "you (formal)/he/she/it practiced."As mentioned above, stress can always be predicted from the written form of a word. An amusing example of the significance of stress and intonation in Spanish is the riddle , to be punctuated and accented so that it makes sense. The answer is ("What do you mean / 'how / do I eat'? / I eat / the way / I eat!").

Grammar Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-Grammatical gender system and about fifty Grammatical conjugation forms per verb, but limited inflection of nouns, adjectives, and determiners. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.)

It is Branching (linguistics), uses prepositions, and usually (though not always) places adjectives after nouns. Its syntax is generally Subject Verb Object, though variations are common. It is a pro-drop language (allows the deletion of pronouns when pragmatically unnecessary) and verb framing.

See also

Chavacano language
Frespañol
Hispanic culture
Hispanophone
Isleños
Latin Union
List of English words of Spanish origin
Llanito
Names given to the Spanish language
Palenquero
Papiamento
Portuguese language
Portuñol
Real Academia Española
Spanish language rock and roll
Romance languages
Spanglish
Spanish-based creole languages
Spanish language learning and teaching
Spanish language poets
Spanish profanity
Spanish proverbs
Spanish Empire

Local varieties

Andalusian Spanish
Argentine Spanish
Bolivian Spanish
Caliche (linguistics)
Canarian dialect
Central American Spanish
Colombian Spanish
Chilean Spanish
Cuban Spanish
Dominican Spanish

Mexican Spanish
New Mexican Spanish
Panamanian Spanish
Peruvian Coast Spanish
Puerto Rican Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish
Spanish in the Philippines
Spanish in the United States
Venezuelan Spanish

References

External links

Ethnologue report for Spanish
Spanish evolution from Latin
Dictionary of the RAE Real Academia Española's official Spanish language dictionary
WikiTravel:Spanish phrasebook on WikiTravel
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