Study Abroad in Andalusia
| Spanish Language |
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In terms of the number of speakers, Spanish is the third most important language in the world. It is the official language of 21 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Equatorial Guinea, The Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. Its proper name is Castellano, derived from the name of the linguistic community that spoke this Romanic variation in medieval times: Castile. Today it is an official UN language, and throughout the coming century will become one of the most widely-spoken languages. Castellano is the great legacy of men like Cervantes Saavedra, Octavio Paz, Nebrija, Borges, Nervo, and many others who expressed themselves so brilliantly through it. It is the second most widely-spoken language in the US, where there are several radio stations and TV channels broadcasting exclusively in Spanish. For purely economic reasons, it is also the most widely-studied foreign language in the non-Hispanic countries of Europe and the Americas. Spanish reached the American continent aboard Columbus’s ship, and later with the waves of settlers seeking new opportunities in the Americas. Throughout the new continent the Spanish in use was largely homogeneous, but also found diversification. There are common traits between mainland and Hispano-American Spanish, like the rules and limitations of the system, but there are differences in the patterns of usage (local variations and different social aspects of language usage). Despite its being spoken in such diverse parts of the world, it retains a certain uniformity in formal usage of the language, allowing people on either side of the Atlantic to understand each other without too many problems. |
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