Spaniard - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Spanish or Castilian

The Spanish term is recommended by the Spanish Royal Académie (Real Academia Española, RAE), and the Association of the Academies of the Spanish language to indicate a spoken language by 480 million people, because it is the international denomination (Spanish, Spanish, Spanisch, spagnolo, etc). One can say that Spanish is the third language most spoken about the world (after English and Chinese).

The denomination Castilian is reserved, according to the same source, for employment in the following case:

to indicate the Romance dialect born and employee with the Kingdom from Castille during the Middle Ages.
to refer to the modern dialect currently spoken in the Spanish central areas about Castille-and-León, Castille it Sleeve and Madrid.
In Spain, the Castilian term is also employed to indicate the common language of the State, in reference to the other Co-official languages of certain autonomous territories like the Catalan, the Basque and the Galician , considered as Spanish languages.
In Argentine, with the Chile, the Paraguay and in Uruguay one uses the term Castilian more often than Spanish, which can be interpreted like a reaction to the old Spanish colonialism.

Geography

→ See the detailed article: Spanish (official language) .

Spanish is an imperial language. Spanish is Official language of the Spain (Co-official according to the autonomous regions) in Europe (45 million). In America, the countries with the largest Spanish-speaking populations are the Mexico (107 million), the Colombia (45 million), the Argentine (40 million), the Peru (28 million) and the Venezuela (26 million). It is also the national language of the Bolivia, of the Chile, the Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Ecuador, the Guatemala, the Honduras, the Nicaragua, the Panama, the Paraguay, Puerto Rico, the El Salvador and the Uruguay. Spanish is still spoken by the Spanish-speaking communities about the the United States (42,69 million), in particular in the states of the south (New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Florida with in all more than 18% the Spanish-speaking ones). There are also some speakers with the Brésil (obligatory language at the elementary school since 2005). In Africa, Spanish is spoken in Guinea Equatoriale, in the cities of the the Sahara and in parts of the north of the Morocco. In Asia, more than 3 million speakers existed with the Filipino , but today there is less: 100,000. Lastly, a variety of the Castilian called according to the authors judesmo , ispanyol or Judéo-espagnol is spoken by the community Juive Sépharade originating in the Iberian peninsula in Israel, Turkey or Gibraltar.

Variations and dialects

Variations in Hispanic America

Among most important let us mention the use of the vosotros (2nd person of plural, equivalent in Spain to the " vous" French when one addresses oneself to a whole of addressed as tu people). The pronoun of third person plural ustedes (which is used in Spain to be addressed to a whole of addressed as vous people) is preferred to him in Latin America.

Also let us note the Iberian pronunciation of the consonant C (in front of the letters E and I ) or Z (in front of has , O and U ), interdentale near to HT English of thick , whereas this sound is always pronounced like a S in Latin America, important milks common with the peninsular dialect Andalusian and the Canarian. It is advisable here to notice that the Castilian of Hispanic America was largely influenced by the Andalusian dialects and Canarian. This is explained by the fact why the colonization of Hispanic America and all the commercial exchanges with this one were centralized for a long time with Seville (the the Canaries often being used as intermediary with the Iberian peninsula), which allowed a better control of Monarchy. It is thus the dialect Andalusian which was dominating among migrants (who often spent long months there before being able to embark for the Nouveau World). As for the accent, the Canarian is closest, this dialect being difficult to distinguish, even for the Spanish-speaking ones, of those of Cuba or Venezuela.

Also let us underline the influence of the many African slaves off-set in the Spanish empire. Those indeed developed the particular Spanish shape in contact with the colonists while bringing their African accent.

Great differences can exist at the lexical level. For example certain words running in peninsular Spanish are obscenes in Argentina or in Mexico.

The pronunciation of the hour can differ in Spain and Latin America. As regards first half of the dial (12 to 6) the use is the same one. For second half (6 to 12), there are variations. For example, in Spain 9:40 will say " its mow diez menos veinte" while in Latin America one will generally prefer " faltan veinte tired para diez" , well the peninsular paradigm exists and is sometimes employed. 1:00 and 13:00 are said in the same way: " Es the una".

To illustrate these differences one can quote as example among most remarkable, in Latin America:

Castilian Argentinian

Castilian Chilean

Castilian Mexican

Castilian Peruvian

The spanglish

A consequence of the contact of the Spanish language with the English, is the formation of a mixed code known like Spanglish, which is employed in particular by speakers with the the United States. This alternative of Spanish is studied in certain universities like the Amherst University of the Massachusetts.

Examples of Spanglish (espagnol->anglais->spanglish):

Banda->Gang->Ganga
Estacionar->To park->Parquear
Coger->To catch->Cachar
Camioneta->Truck->Troca
Reloj->Watch->Wacho

Vocabulary

Spanish resembles in many points the French, because of their origin Latin E commune. Nevertheless, the historical events which these two countries knew impregnated the Vocabulaire S Spanish and French in a very different way. Indeed, Spanish knew a very important influence of the Arab at the lexical level (approximately 5000 to 6000 words), heritage of the Moslem time, and also was very influenced by the ancestor of the Basque (the Castilian indeed was born in the Cantabric one, a zone where the ancestor of the Basque was then spoken). On the contrary French, in his pronunciation knew Germanic influences. This is visible by the system of five vowels, the disappearance of the F initial of much of Latin words and by the existence of Spanish words, of origin Basque. For example, izquierda ( left Spanish ) comes from the Basque word will ezkerra ; hijo (wire) comes from Latin filium whose F initial was first of all pronounced in a way aspired (graphically transformed into H ) before disappearing completely from the pronunciation. The Caló (Spanish dialect of the Romaní, language of the gipsies) also notably enriched the Spanish vocabulary, especially on the level of the Argot.

Belonging to the same subbranch as the Portuguese and the Galician (they are ibéro-Romance languages), Spanish allows a certain mutual comprehension written with these two languages.

| |- | colspan=" 2" | Source: Diccionario of Real Academia, http://www.rae.es |}

Writing

Like the others Romance languages, Spanish adopted the Latin alphabet and resorts to diacritic S and Digramme S to supplement it. The Tilde is perhaps most famous of diacritic Spanish; it gives rise to a character considered as a letter with whole share, Ñ ñ . In addition, the Acute accent is used to indicate the tonic accents irregular and to distinguish some Homophone S: the Voyelle S carrying it are the following ones: Á á , E E , Í í , Ó ó and Ú ú . Lastly, the U carries a Tréma in rare occasions, namely in the continuations ford and GUI to indicate that the U decides (for example: bilingual , “bilingual”).

Formerly, it was considered that the digraphs CH and L constituted each one a distinct letter (they had their entry in the dictionary), but one treats them today more and more like two separate letters. The NR tilde is, at the origin, also a digraph NR , the second NR having been shortened by suspension by means of a feature become undulated, ~ . Although in fact the Spanish scribes invented the Cédille ( zedilla , “small Z ”), this one is not used any more since the 18th century (the C which noted having become a interdental noted Z : launched became lanza , “lance”, or C in front of E and I : ciego , “blind man”).

The alphabetical classification, modified in 1994, is described more in detail in the article which is devoted to him.

Lastly, the points of exclamation and interrogation are accompanied by signs of the same type reversed, ¡ and ¿ , placed at the beginning of the proposal concerned (and not at the beginning of the sentence): ¿ That tal estás? (“How are you? ”), ¡ That raro! (“As it is strange! ”) but If suit you has Sevilla, ¿ me comprarás a abanico? (“If you from go away to Seville, you will buy a range to me? ”).

Orthography

The presentation of the Spanish orthography summarizes with the sentence “ In español, todo lo that escribe pronuncia . ” (“In Spanish, all that is written pronounces. ”) This characteristic makes its training as easy for the Spanish-speaking natives, as for the people wishing to learn the language. The combinations of letters pH Rh and HT are not used, and only the letters C , N , L and R can be doubled.

Grammar

Literature

The Nobel Prize of literature in Spanish:

Jose Echegaray of Spain (1904)
Jacinto Benavente of Spain (1922)
Gabriela Mistral of Chile (1945)
Juan Ramón Jiménez of Spain (1956)
Miguel Angel Asturias of Guatemala (1967)
Pablo Neruda of Chile (1971)
Vicente Aleixandre (1977)
Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia (1982)
Camilo Jose That of Spain (1989)
Octavio Paz of Mexico (1990)

See too

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