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http://www.spanishprograms.com/ your continued donations keep wikipedia running! spanish language from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (redirected from spanish language) jump to: navigation, search “español” redirects here. for other uses, see español (disambiguation). spanish español, castellano pronunciation: /espa'ɲol/, /kaste'ʎano/ spoken in: argentina, bolivia, chile, colombia, costa rica, cuba, dominican republic, ecuador, equatorial guinea, el salvador, guatemala, honduras, mexico, nicaragua, panama, paraguay, peru, puerto rico, spain, uruguay, venezuela and a part of the population of andorra, belize, gibraltar, philippines and the united states. total speakers: first language: 400 million second language: 100 million total: 500 million[1][2] ranking: 2 (natively), 3 (total) language family: indo-european italic romance italo-western gallo-iberian ibero-romance west iberian spanish writing system: latin (spanish variant) official status official language of: flag of argentina argentina flag of bolivia bolivia flag of chile chile flag of colombia colombia flag of costa rica costa rica flag of cuba cuba flag of dominican republic dominican republic flag of ecuador ecuador flag of el salvador el salvador flag of equatorial guinea equatorial guinea flag of european union european union (eu) flag of guatemala guatemala flag of honduras honduras flag of mexico mexico flag of nicaragua nicaragua flag of panama panama flag of paraguay paraguay flag of peru peru flag of puerto rico puerto rico flag of spain spain flag of united nations united nations (un) flag of uruguay uruguay flag of venezuela venezuela regulated by: asociación de academias de la lengua española (real academia española and 21 other national spanish language academies) language codes iso 639-1: es

iso 639-2: spa iso 639-3: spa for detailed information about the legend and the sources taken to make the map, see its description page note: this page may contain ipa phonetic symbols in unicode. spanish (español (help·info)) is a romance language originally from the northern area of spain. it is the only official language covering the entirety of spain, most latin american countries and one of the official languages of equatorial guinea. in total, twenty-five nations and territories use spanish as their primary language. in addition, it is an important language in twenty other countries. spanish originated as a latin dialect along the remote cross road strips among the cantabria, burgos, soria and la rioja provinces of northern spain. from there, its use gradually spread inside the kingdom of castile, where it evolved and eventually became the principal language of the government and trade. it was later brought to the americas and other parts of the world in the last five centuries by spanish explorers and colonists. the language is spoken by up to 400 million people natively,[1][2] making spanish the most popular romance language and possibly the second most spoken language by number of native speakers.[3][4] it is estimated that the combined total of native and non-native spanish speakers is approximately 500 million, probably making it the third most spoken language by total number of speakers.[1][2] it is one of six official working languages of the united nations. the language is spoken most extensively in the americas, spain and to a small extent in africa and asia pacific. it is also the second most widely spoken language in the united states[5] and by far the most popular studied foreign language in u.s. schools and universities.[6][7] within the globalized market, there is currently an international expansion and recognition of the spanish language in literature, the film industry, television (notably telenovelas) and music. contents [hide] * 1 naming * 2 classification and related languages o 2.1 ladino o 2.2 vocabulary comparison o 2.3 characterization * 3 history * 4 geographic distribution o 4.1 the non-spanish speaking americas o 4.2 europe o 4.3 asia o 4.4 africa o 4.5 oceania o 4.6 antarctica * 5 number of speakers by country * 6 variations * 7 writing system * 8 sounds o 8.1 lexical stress * 9 grammar * 10 see also o 10.1 local varieties * 11 references * 12 external links

[edit] naming main article: names given to the spanish language spanish people tend to call this language español when contrasting it with languages of foreign states, such as french and english, but call it castellano, i.e. castilian, the language of the castile region, when contrasting it with other languages of spain (such as galician, basque, and catalan). in this manner, the spanish constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole state, as opposed 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… some philologists use "castilian" only when speaking of the language spoken in castile during the middle ages, stating that it is preferable to use "spanish" for its modern form. the subdialect of spanish spoken in northern parts of modern day castile is also called "castilian" sometimes. this dialect differs from those of other regions of spain (andalusia or madrid for example); the castilian dialect is conventionally considered in spain to be the same as standard spanish. the name castellano is however widely used for the language as a whole in latin america. some spanish speakers consider castellano a generic term with no political or ideological links, much as "spanish" is in english. [edit] classification and related languages spanish/castilian has closest affinity to the other west iberian romance languages: asturian (asturianu), galician (galego), ladino (djudeo-espanyol, sefardí), and portuguese (português), as well as to aragonese (fabla) and catalan (català). most of these are mutually intelligible without too much difficulty. catalan, an east iberian language which exhibits many gallo-romance traits, is more similar to the neighbouring occitan language (occitan) than spanish and portuguese are to each other. spanish and portuguese share similar grammars and a majority of vocabulary as well as a common history of arabic influence while a great part of the peninsula was under islamic rule (both languages expanded over islamic territories). their lexical similarity is estimated at 89%.[8] see differences between spanish and portuguese, for further information. [edit] ladino further information: ladino language 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 expelled from spain in the 15th century. in many ways it is not a separate language but a dialect of castilian. ladino lacks native american vocabulary which was influential during colonial times. it does contain other vocabulary from turkish, hebrew and from other languages spoken wherever the sephardis settled. [edit] vocabulary comparison spanish and italian share a very similar phonological system and do not differ very much in grammar, vocabulary and above all morphology. speakers of both languages can communicate

relatively well: at present, the lexical similarity with italian is estimated at 82%.[8] as a result, spanish and italian are mutually intelligible to various degrees. mutually intelligibility with french and with romanian is much smaller (lexical similarity is respectively 75% and 71%[8]). the common features of the writing systems of the romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would. latin spanish portuguese catalan italian french romanian english meaning and notes nos nosotros nós nosaltres noi1 nous2 noi we[-others] fratrem germānum (lit. "true brother", related brother) hermano irmão germà fratello frère frate brother dies martis (classical) tertia feria (ecclesiastical) martes terça-feira cantiōnem canción song magis or plus más mais (archaically also chus) més manūm sinistram mano (archaically also siniestra) mão esquerda (archaically also sẽestra) left hand (basque: esku ezkerra) nihil or nullam rem natam (lit. "no thing born") nada (archaically also rem)

dimarts martedì mardi marți canção cançó canzone più plus izquierda mai more

tuesday chanson

cântec

mà esquerra

mano sinistra

main gauche

mâna stângă

nada res

niente/nulla

rien/nul

nimic nothing

1. noi altri in southern italian dialects and languages 2. nous autres in quebec french [edit] characterization 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 changes can be found in other romance languages, but in spanish they were particularly significant. some examples: * lat. petra > sp. piedra, it. pietra, fr. pierre, port./gal. pedra "stone". * lat. moritur > sp. muere, it. muore, fr. meurt / muert, rom. moare, port./gal. morre "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. filium > it. figlio, port. filho, fr. fils, occitan filh (but gascon hilh) sp. hijo (but ladino fijo); * late lat. *fabulare > lad. favlar, port. falar, sp. hablar; * but lat. focum > it. fuoco, port. fogo, sp./lad. fuego. some consonant clusters of latin also produced characteristicaly different results in

these languages, for example: * lat. clamare, acc. flammam, plenum > lad. lyamar, flama, pleno; sp. llamar, llama, lleno; port. chamar, chama, cheio. * lat. acc. octo, noctem, multum > lad. ocho, noche, muncho; sp. ocho, noche, mucho; port. oito, noite, muito. [edit] history main article: history of the spanish language a page of cantar de mio cid, in medieval castilian. a page of cantar de mio cid, in medieval castilian. the spanish language developed from vulgar latin, with influence from celtiberian, basque and arabic, in the north of the iberian peninsula (see iberian romance languages). typical features of spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (latin vita, spanish vida), palatalization (latin annum, spanish año) and diphthongation (stemchanging) of short e and o from vulgar latin (latin terra, spanish tierra; latin novus, spanish nuevo). similar phenomena can be found in other romance languages as well. during the reconquista, 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 (gramática de la lengua castellana) was written in salamanca, spain, in 1492 by elio 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, federated states of micronesia, guam, marianas, palau, and the philippines by spanish colonization. also in this epoch, spanish became the main language of politics and art across the major part of europe. in the 18th century, french 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. [edit] geographic distribution spanish language the letter Ñ on a spanish keyboard names for the language history pronunciation dialects writing system grammar: * determiners * nouns * pronouns * adjectives * prepositions

* verbs o conjugation + irregular verbs 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. with approximately 106 million first-language and second-language speakers, mexico boasts the largest population of spanish-speakers in the world. the three next largest spanish-speaking populations reside in colombia, spain and argentina. spanish is the official language in 20 countries: argentina, bolivia (co-official quechua and aymara), chile, colombia, costa rica, cuba, dominican republic, ecuador, el salvador, equatorial guinea (co-official french), guatemala, honduras, mexico, nicaragua, panama , paraguay (coofficial guaraní), peru (co-official quechua and aymara), spain (co-official in some regions with catalan, galician and basque), uruguay, venezuela, and the u.s. territory puerto rico (co-official english). the vast majority of its speakers are located in spain and the western hemisphere. [edit] the non-spanish speaking americas spanish holds no official recognition in the former british colony of belize. however, it is the native tongue of about 40% of the population, and is spoken as a second language by another 15%.[9][10] it is mainly spoken by hispanic descendants who have remained in the region since the 17th century. however, english remains the sole official language.[11] spanish has become increasingly important in brazil due to proximity and increased trade with its spanish-speaking neighbors (for example, as a member of the mercosur trading bloc).[12] in 2005, the national congress of brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the president, that makes spanish available as a foreign language in the country's secondary schools.[13] in many border towns and villages (especially along the uruguayan-brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as portuñol is also spoken.[14] in the united states, 42.7 million people are hispanics according to the 2005 census. some 32 million people (12% of the whole population) aged 5 years or older speak spanish at home.[15] while this may be due to immigration, spanish is also the most widely taught foreign language.[16] in total, the u.s. contains the world's fifth-largest spanish speaking population.[17] [edit] europe spanish is an official language of the european union. in european countries other than spain, it is spoken in communities in the united kingdom, france, and germany, and an important language of business communication for those countries as well.[18][19] it is also spoken widely in gibraltar, although english is used for official purposes.[20] likewise, it is spoken in andorra though catalan is the official language.[21][22] spanish also shares a strong lexical similarity with its sister romance languages of italian and portuguese, and may be mutually intelligible on a small scale with those languages within italy and portugal.[23] [edit] asia although spanish was an official language in the philippines for over three centuries, it was never spoken by the 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 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.[24] 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, a spanish based creole spoken in cavite and zamboanga. many philippine languages have numerous spanish loanwords. see also: spanish language in the philippines. spanish is also spoken by about 50,000 japanese peruvian expatriates living in japan.[25] [edit] africa in africa, spanish is spoken in canary islands, an autonomous community of spain. it is also spoken in the spanish territories of peñón de alhucemas, isla perejil, ceuta, the chafarinas islands, melilla, and peñón de vélez de la gomera, some of which are contested with morocco. it is co-official with french in equatorial guinea, a small country of 500,000 people, where it is the prevalent language.[26]. in morocco, a former spanish colony that is also geographically close to spain, approximately 20,000 people speak spanish.[27] [edit] oceania among the countries and territories in oceania, spanish is also spoken by 3,000 inhabitants of 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.[28] the island nations of guam, palau, northern marianas, marshall islands and federated states of micronesia all once had spanish speakers, since marianas and caroline islands were hispanic colonial possesions until late 19th century (see spanish-american war), but spanish has long since been forgotten. it now only exists as an influence on the local native languages. [edit] antarctica in antarctica, the territorial claims and permanent bases made by argentina and chile also place spanish as the official and working language of these exclaves.[citation needed] [edit] number of speakers by country the following is a list of the numbers of estimated spanish speakers in different regions of the world where spanish has or once had a strong presence. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 country speakers mexico 106,255,000 colombia 46,500,000 spain 44,000,000 argentina 41,248,000 venezuela 26,021,000 peru 23,191,000 chile 15,795,000 cuba 11,285,000 ecuador 10,946,000 dominican republic 8,850,000 guatemala 8,163,000 honduras 7,267,000 bolivia 7,010,000 el salvador 6,859,000 nicaragua 5,503,000 paraguay 4,737,000 costa rica 4,220,000

18 19 20 21 22

puerto rico (u.s.) 4,017,000 uruguay 3,442,000 panama 3,108,000 philippines 3,180,000 (a) equatorial guinea 447,000

a) estimated statistics provided on behalf of the "instituto cervantes de manila", "education council and embassy of spain in manila" (consejería de educación de la embajada de españa en manila) in 2006 and the philippine academy of the spanish language " (academia filipina de lengua española) in 2006. the following is a list of the numbers of estimated spanish speakers in different regions of the world where spanish is a minority language. 1 2 3 4 5 country speakers united states of america canada 245,000[29] belize 206,404[9] western sahara 37,132 (c) morocco 20,000 32,200,000 (b)

(b) only includes people of 5 years of age and older. also, people who use the language at work or other settings but not at home are not included[15] (c) although part of the spanish empire, arabic language and arabic culture remains the dominant cultural production in western sahara. spanish is only spoken by expatriate spanish speakers and people of spanish ancestry. [edit] variations main article: spanish dialects and varieties dialectal map of castilian spanish in spain. dialectal map of castilian spanish in spain. there are important variations among the regions of spain and throughout spanish-speaking america. in spain the castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly regarded as the national standard, although the characteristic weak pronouns usage called laísmo of this dialect is deprecated. more accurately, for nearly everyone in spain, "standard spanish" means "pronouncing everything exactly as it is written",[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: tú, usted, and in some parts of latin america, vos (the use of this form is called voseo). generally speaking, tú and vos are informal and used with friends (though in spain vos is considered an archaic form for address of exalted personages, its use now mainly confined to the liturgy). usted is universally regarded as the formal address (derived from vuestra merced, "your grace") , and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers. countries that feature voseo. in blue, countries that use vos as the primary spoken form. in green countries that feature voseo as a regionalism or non-mainstream practice. countries that feature voseo. in blue, countries that use vos as the primary spoken form. in green countries that feature voseo as a regionalism or non-mainstream practice.

vos 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[citation needed], 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 media, but the media in other countries with voseo generally continue to use usted or tú except in advertisements, for instance. vos 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, ustedes (formal or familiar, as the case may be). in spain there are two forms — ustedes (formal) and vosotros (familiar). the pronoun vosotros is the plural form of tú in most of spain, but in the americas (and certain southern spanish cities such as cádiz, and in the canary islands) it is replaced with ustedes. it is remarkable that the use of ustedes for the informal plural "you" in southern spain does not follow the usual rule for pronoun-verb agreement; e.g., while the formal form for "you go", ustedes van, uses the third-person plural form of the verb, in cádiz the informal form is constructed as ustedes vais, using the second-person plural of the verb. in the canary islands, though, the usual pronounverb 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 "vagina". 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[citation needed] while carro means "car" in some latin american countries and "cart" in others as well as in spain. the real academia española (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. [edit] writing system main article: writing system of spanish spanish is written using the latin alphabet, with the addition of the character "ñ" (eñe), which represents the phoneme /ɲ/ and is regarded as a letter of its own distinct from "n", despite being typographically an "n" with a tilde. historically, the digraphs "ch" (che) and "ll" (elle) were regarded as single letters, with their own names and places in the alphabet, because each represents a single phoneme (/tʃ/ and /ʎ/, respectively). however, the digraph "rr" (erre doble, double "r", or simply erre as opposed to ere), which also represents a single phoneme /r/, 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". however, the names che, and elle are still used colloquially. 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 stressed vowel. 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 el ("the", masculine singular definite article) with él ("he" or "it"), or te ("you", object pronoun), de (preposition "of" or "from"), and se (reflexive pronoun) with té ("tea"), dé ("give") and sé ("i know", or imperative "be"). the interrogative pronouns (qué, cuál, dónde, quién, etc.) also receive accents in direct or indirect questions, and some demonstratives (ése, éste, aquél, etc.) can be accented when used as pronouns. the conjunction o ("or") is written with an accent between numerals so as not to be confused with a zero: e.g., 10 ó 20 should be read as diez o veinte rather than diez mil veinte ("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 rae advises against this. in rare cases, "u" is written with a diaeresis ("ü") when it comes between "g" and a front vowel ("e" or "i"), to indicate that it should be pronounced, rather than silent as usual (e.g., cigüeña, "stork", is pronounced /θ̟ iˈɰweɲa/; if it were written cigueña, it would be pronounced /θ̟ iˈɰeɲa/). interrogative and exclamatory clauses are introduced with inverted question ( ¿ ) and exclamation marks ( ¡ ). [edit] sounds main article: spanish phonology 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. consonants of spanish bilabial labiodental interdental dental laminal denti-alveolar apical alveolar postalveolar alveolopalatal palatal velar uvular glottal plosives p (b) t̪ (d) ̪ (ɟ) k (g) affricate ʧ (ʤ) (ʨ) fricatives (ʃ) (ʒ) approximants β̞ nasals (m) ̥ ɲ laterals flaps m (ŋ) ̥ f (v) (ç) θ̟ * ʝ ð̞ (n) ̪̥ (l) ̻ (ð) ̟ x (χ) s̻ (h) (z) ̻ (s) ̺ (j) (n) ̪ l ɾ (n) ̻ (l) ̠ n (l̠ʲ) (n) ̠̥ ʎ* (n) ̠ (z) ̺ ɰ (n̠ʲ̥ )

(ɱ) (ŋ) (l) ̟

(n) ̟ (ɴ) (l) ̪

trills

r

by the 16th century, the consonant system of spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from neighboring romance languages such as portuguese and catalan: * initial /f/, when it had evolved into a vacillating /h/, was lost in most words (although this etymological h- is preserved in spelling and in some andalusian dialects is still aspirated). * the bilabial approximant /β̞ / (which was written u or v) merged with the bilabial oclusive /b/ (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 /z/ which existed as a separate phoneme in medieval spanish merged with its voiceless counterpart /s/. the phoneme which resulted from this merger is currently spelled s. * the voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ merged with its voiceless counterpart /ʃ/, which evolved into the modern velar sound /x/ 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 /ʒ/ or /ʃ/. * the voiced alveolar affricate /dz/ merged with its voiceless counterpart /ts/, which then developed into the interdental /θ/, now written z, or c before e, i. but in andalusia, the canary islands and the americas this sound merged with /s/ as well. see ceceo, for further information. the consonant system of medieval spanish has been better preserved in ladino and in portuguese, neither of which underwent these shifts. [edit] lexical stress spanish has a phonemic stress system — stress is not fixed, and different stress patterns can result in separate meanings for one and the same word. spanish makes abundant use of this feature, especially in distinguishing verb conjugation forms. for example, the word camino (with penultimate stress) means "road" or "i walk" whereas caminó (with final stress) means "you (formal)/he/she/it walked". another example is the word práctico (first-syllable stress) "practical", which is different from practico (second-syllable stress) "i practice," and practicó (last-syllable stress) "you (formal)/he/she/it practiced." also, since spanish syllables are all pronounced at a more or less constant tempo, the language is said to be syllable-timed. 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 como como como como como como, to be punctuated and accented so that it makes sense. the answer is ¿cómo "cómo como"? ¡como como como! ("what do you mean / 'how / do i eat'? / i eat / the way / i eat!"). [edit] grammar main article: spanish grammar spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated 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 right-branching, uses prepositions, and usually 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-framed.

[edit] see also * romance languages * real academia española * common phrases in spanish * hispanic culture * hispanophone * list of english words of spanish origin * names given to the spanish language * spanish proverbs * spanish language poets * spanish-based creole languages * spanish profanity * portuguese language * portuñol * papiamento, chavacano language, palenquero * llanito * rock en español (spanish language rock and roll) * latin union * isleños * spanish empire * frespañol * spanglish [edit] local varieties * argentine spanish * bolivian spanish * caliche * central american spanish * chilean spanish * cuban spanish * dominican spanish

* mexican spanish * peruvian coast spanish * puerto rican spanish * rioplatense spanish * spanish in the philippines * spanish in the united states * venezuelan spanish [edit] references 1. ^ a b c universidad de méxico 2. ^ a b c instituto cervantes ("el mundo" news) 3. ^ ethnologue, 1999 4. ^ cia world factbook, field listing - languages (world). 5. ^ cia the world factbook united states 6. ^ united states census bureaupdf (1.86 mib), statistical abstract of the united states: page 47: table 47: languages spoken at home by language: 2003 7. ^ foreign language enrollments in united states institutions of higher learningpdf (129 kib), mla fall 2002. 8. ^ a b c spanish. ethnologue.

9. ^ a b http://www.cso.gov.bz/publications/mf2000.pdf 10. ^ belize population and housing census 2000 11. ^ cia world factbook — belize 12. ^ mercosul, portal oficial (portuguese) 13. ^ brazilmag.com, august 08 2005. 14. ^ lipski, john m. (2006). "too close for comfort? the genesis of “portuñol/portunhol”". selected proceedings of the 8th hispanic linguistics symposium. ed. timothy l. face and carol a. klee, 1–22. somerville, ma: cascadilla proceedings project. 15. ^ a b u.s. census bureau. percent of people 5 years and over who speak spanish at home: 2005 16. ^ foreign language enrollments in united states institutions of higher learningpdf (129 kib), mla fall 2002. 17. ^ facts, figures, and statistics about spanish, american demographics, 1998. 18. ^ bbc education — languages, languages across europe — spanish. 19. ^ elucidate — business communication across borders: a study of language use and practice in european companies edited by professor s hagen © interact international, 1997] 20. ^ cia world factbook — gibraltar 21. ^ http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554662/andorra.html#s3 22. ^ http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3164.htm 23. ^ ethnologue gordon, raymond g., jr. (ed.), 2005. ethnologue: languages of the world, fifteenth edition. dallas, tex.: sil international. online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/. 24. ^ ethnologue. ethnologue report for the philippines. 25. ^ asia times. home; is where the heartbreak is for japanese-peruvians by abraham lama. 26. ^ cia world factbook, equatorial guinea. 27. ^ morocco.com, the languages of morocco. 28. ^ australian bureau of statistics, accessed march 27, 2007 29. ^ population by mother tongue. statistics canada. [edit] external links wikibooks wikibooks has a book on the topic of spanish wikipedia spanish language edition of wikipedia, the free encyclopedia wikiversity at wikiversity, you can learn about: topic:spanish wiktionary spanish language edition of wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus * ethnologue report for spanish * spanish evolution from latin * (spanish) dictionary of the rae real academia española's official spanish language dictionary * spanish phrasebook on wikitravel * the project gutenberg ebook of a first spanish reader by erwin w. roessler and alfred remy. * ¡colorin colorado! official web site * spanish slangs dictionary * learn spanish free online official languages of the united nations arabic • chinese • english french • russian • spanish source: official un website v•d•e

official languages of the european union[show] european union translation agency logo bulgarian · czech · danish · dutch · english · estonian · finnish · french · german · greek · hungarian · irish · italian · latvian · lithuanian · maltese · polish · portuguese · romanian · slovak · slovenian · spanish · swedish v•d•e romance languages[show] aragonese • aromanian • arpitan • asturian (astur-leonese, leonese, mirandese) • auvergnat • aupenc • burgundian • catalan (valencian, balear) • champenois • corsican (gallurese, sassarese) • dalmatian • emiliano-romagnolo • fala • franc-comtois • french (haitian creole) • friulian • galician • gallo • gascon (aranese) • istriot • istro-romanian • italian (central italian, romanesco, tuscan, florentine) • judeo-italian • ladin • ladino • languedocien • ligurian (genoese, monégasque) • limousin • lombard languages (western lombard [ milanese, ticinese, bustocco and legnanese, comasco-lecchese and vallassinese, brianzöö and canzés, varesino, southwestern lombard and nuaresat and cremunéez ] and eastern lombard) • lorrain • megleno-romanian • mozarabic • neapolitan • norman (anglo-norman, auregnais, guernésiais, jèrriais, sercquiais) • occitan • picard • piedmontese • poitevin-saintongeais • portuguese • provençal • romance pannonian language • romanian (moldovan, vlach) • romansh • sardinian • sicilian (calabrian) • spanish (castilian) • shuadit • venetian (talian) • walloon • zarphatic v•d•e languages of europe[show] albania · andorra · armenia2 · austria · azerbaijan4 · belarus · belgium · bosnia and herzegovina · bulgaria · croatia · cyprus2 · czech republic · denmark · estonia · finland · france5 · georgia4 · germany · greece · hungary · iceland · ireland · italy · kazakhstan1 · latvia · liechtenstein · lithuania · luxembourg · republic of macedonia · malta · moldova · monaco · montenegro · netherlands · norway · poland · portugal · romania · russia1 · san marino · serbia · slovakia · slovenia · spain · sweden · switzerland · turkey1 · ukraine · united kingdom · vatican city dependencies, autonomies and other territories abkhazia4 · adjara2 · Åland · akrotiri and dhekelia · azores · crimea · faroe islands · gibraltar · guernsey · isle of man · jersey · kosovo · nagorno-karabakh2 · nakhchivan2 · transnistria · turkish republic of northern cyprus2, 3 · 1 has significant territory in asia. 2 entirely in west asia, but considered european for cultural, political and historical reasons. 3 only recognised by turkey. 4 partially or entirely in asia, depending on the definition of the border between europe and asia. 5 has territory in the caribbean, south america and the indian ocean. v•d•e languages of south america[show] argentina · bolivia · brazil · chile · colombia · ecuador · guyana · panama* · paraguay · peru · suriname · trinidad and tobago* · uruguay · venezuela · dependencies and other territories aruba* · the falkland islands · french guiana · the netherlands antilles* · south georgia and the south sandwich islands · * territories also in or commonly reckoned elsewhere in the americas (north america). v•d•e latin union[show] andorra · angola · argentina · bolivia · brazil · cape verde · chile · colombia · costa rica · côte d'ivoire · cuba · dominican republic · ecuador · el salvador · france · guatemala · guinea-bissau ·

haiti · holy see · honduras · italy · mexico · moldova · monaco · mozambique · nicaragua · panama · paraguay · peru · philippines · portugal · romania · san marino · são tomé and príncipe · senegal · sovereign military order of malta · spain · timor-leste · uruguay · venezuela retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/spanish_language" categories: articles with unsourced statements since february 2007 | all articles with unsourced statements | articles with unsourced statements since march 2007 | spanish language | languages of spain | languages of andorra | languages of argentina | languages of belize | languages of brazil | languages of bolivia | languages of chile | languages of colombia | languages of costa rica | languages of the dominican republic | languages of ecuador | languages of el salvador | languages of equatorial guinea | languages of guatemala | languages of honduras | languages of mexico | languages of morocco | languages of nicaragua | languages of panama | languages of paraguay | languages of peru | languages of the philippines | languages of the united states | languages of the united states virgin islands | languages of uruguay | languages of venezuela | west iberian languages | romance languages views * article * discussion * edit this page * history personal tools * sign in / create account navigation * main page * contents * featured content * current events * random article interaction * about wikipedia * community portal * recent changes * file upload wizard * contact us * make a donation * help search toolbox * what links here * related changes * upload file * special pages * printable version * permanent link

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