Spanish language

     From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Spanish is an Iberian Romance language, and the third or fourth most spoken language on the planet, spoken by about 352 million persons in 1999 around the world, especially in The Americas (417 million, including second-language users).

In Spanish, the language has two names: espanol and castellano. Spaniards usually call their language castellano (Castilian), but they understand the term espanol to refer to the language, although it is not preferred. In Spain's schools, the official name of the language is castellano, mainly because there are many regions where two mother-tongues are taught—Spanish and the local language (Catalan, Basque, Galician, etc.). The other languages spoken in Spain (Basque - already spoken before the arrival of the Romans -, Catalan and Galician) are, in a sense, also "Spanish" languages because they are spoken in Spain.

In Latin American countries, the language is typically called espanol, although some speakers prefer the name castellano because the word espanol can be interpreted as the nationality "Spanish" rather than the name of the language.

In English, however, the language is called "Spanish", and "Castilian" is the name for the dialect spoken in the Spanish region of Castile, or sometimes more broadly for all Spanish spoken in Spain.

History

The Spanish language was developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Basque and Arabic, in 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 of breve E/O from vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo); similar phenomena can be found in most Romance languages as well.

By the 16th century the consonantal system of Castilian Spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from some neighbouring Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Catalan):

• The initial /f/, that had evolved into a vacillating /h/, was lost in most words (although this etymological h- has been preserved in spelling)
• The voiced labiodental fricative /v/ (that was written 'u' or 'v') merged with the bilabial oclusive /b/ (written 'b'). Contemporary Spanish written 'b,v' do not correspond to different phonemes.
• The voiced alveolar fricative /z/ (that was written 's' between vowels) merged with the voiceless /s/ (that was written 's', or 'ss' between vowels), now written 's' everywhere.
• Voiced alveolar affricate /dz/ (that was written 'z') merged with the voiceless /ts/ (that was written 'ç,ce,ci'), and then /ts/ evolved into the interdental /T/, now written 'z,ce,ci'. But in Andalucia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with /s/ as well. Notice that the 'ç' or 'cedilla' was in its origin a Spanish letter.
• The voiced postalveolar fricative /Z/ (that was written 'j,ge,gi') merged with the voiceless /S/ (that was written 'x', as in 'Quixote'), and then /S/ evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound /x/, now written 'j,ge,gi'.

The language was brought to the Americas, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marianas, Palau and the Philippines, by the Spanish colonization since 16th century. It was used there by the Creole and Mestizo descendants of the Spaniards. The Catholic church preached the natives in selected local languages like Guarani, Quechua or Tagalog, rather than Spanish, to keep them apart of the direct influence of the Spaniards. After the independence processes, the new ruling elites extended their Spanish to the whole population to strengthen the national unity. In the Philippines, this process didn't happen because of the colonization of the United States of America after the Philippine-American War and English was declared the official language.

In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. In the Marianas, the Spanish language was retained until the Pacific War.

Classification

Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European.

Geographic distribution

Spanish is one of the official languages of the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations. Also, Spanish is an official language (and the most important language) in 20 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela .

Spanish is also spoken in Andorra, Belize, Canada, Gibraltar, Israel, northern Morocco, Netherlands Antilles, Philippines, United States of America, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey (as Judaeo-Spanish) and Western Sahara.

There are important variations in dialect among the various regions of Spain and Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the North Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or laismo of this dialect is deprecated).

In the Americas, the first Spaniards to settle brought some of their regionalisms with them. Today distinct accents are found in the different nations of the Americas. Typical of Latin America is seseo. The European Castilian phoneme /T/ (interdental voiceless fricative, SAMPA phonetic scheme used) (as in ciento, caza) does not exist in American Spanish; it combined with /s/ (as in siento, casa).

Traditionally Spanish had a phoneme /L/, a palatal lateral, written ll. It was lost in most of the Americas (with the exception of bilingual areas of Quechua and other indigenous languages that have this sound in their inventories), but now it is also being lost in Spain (also with the exception of bilingual areas of Catalan and other languages that have preserved this sound in their inventories). In many Spanish-speaking regions, the palatal lateral /L/ has merged with the palatal fricative /j\\/ (usually written y), and this merged phoneme is pronounced in a variety of ways. This phenomenon is called yeísmo. In the area around the Río de la Plata (Argentina, Uruguay) this phoneme is pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, voiceless or weakly voiced (similar to /S/ or /Z/); in other places it is pronounced like /j/ (although this is almost universally regarded as incorrect).

The different dialects and accentss do not severely block cross-understanding among the educated. The basilects have diverged more. As an example, early sound films, were dubbed into one version for the entire Spanish-speaking market. (Disney Pictures used educated Puerto-Rican speakers). Currently, non-Spanish (usually Hollywood) productions are dubbed separately into each of the major accents, but productions from another Spanish-language country are never dubbed. The popularity of telenovelas and Latin American music familiarize the speakers with other varieties of Spanish.

Many people think that Spanish is regulated by the RAE (Real Academia Española). Actually, languages cannot be regulated, but RAE, in association with twenty-one other national language academies, exercises a conservative influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar guides and style guides.

Grammar

The verb

Spanish verbs are conjugated in three moodss: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. Each verb has three non-finite forms: an infinitive, a gerund, and a passive participle. Verbs are divided into three declensions, which can be identified by looking at the infinitive ending, one of "-ar", "-er", "-ir".

The indicative mood is traditionally said to have seven tenses. Though it is sometimes difficult, each one can be more or less compared to one of the English tenses: hablar = to speak

• presente (present) -- "Hablo" = "I speak, I am speaking"
• preterito imperfecto (past progressive) -- "Hablaba" = "I used to speak, I was speaking"
• preterito indefinido (simple past) -- "Hable" = "I spoke"
• preterito perfecto (present perfect) -- "He hablado" = "I have spoken"
• preterito pluscuamperfecto (past perfect) -- "Habia hablado" = "I had spoken"
• preterito anterior (past perfect) -- "(cuando) hube hablado" = "(when) I had spoken"
• futuro (future) -- "Hablare" = "I will speak"
• condicional (conditional) -- "Hablaria" = "I would speak" (considered by some its own mood)

Some of the above are compound tenses; they are conjugated using the passive participle and a form of the verb haber (roughly like the use of auxiliary "have" in English). The compound progressive forms, which use the gerund or active participle with a form of estar (like English "to be" + "-ing": for example "Estoy hablando" = "I am speaking") are not considered part of the paradigm, but follow the same concept.

The subjunctive mood has a separate conjugation table with fewer tenses. It is used to express the speaker's opinion or judgement, such as, doubts, possibilities, emotions, and events which may or may not occur.

hablar = to speak

• presente del subjunctivo (present subjunctive) -- "Hable" = "I speak, I am speaking, I will speak"
• imperfecto del subjunctivo (imperfect subjunctive) -- "Hablara" or "Hablase" = "I used to speak, I was speaking, I spoke, I would speak"
• perfecto del subjunctivo (present perfect subjunctive) -- "Haya hablado" = "I have spoken, I spoke"
• pluscuamperfecto del subjunctivo (past perfect subjunctive) -- "Hubiera hablado" or "Hubiese hablado" = "I had spoken, I spoke"

The future tense of the subjunctive is found mostly in old literature or legalese and is even misused in conversations by confusing it with the past tense (often due to the similarity of its charataristic suffix, "-ere", as opposed to one of the suffixes of the past tense, "-era"). Most Spanish speakers go on without ever knowing or realizing the existence of the future subjunctive.

The imperative mood is formed mostly like the subjunctive, with the exception of the singular positive informal command: comer = to eat

• "¡come!" (tu) -- Eat! (informal singular)
• "¡coma!" (usted) -- Eat! (formal singular)
• "¡coman!" (ustedes) -- Eat! (formal & informal plural)
• "¡no comas!" (tu) -- Don't eat! (informal singular)
• "¡no coma!" (usted) -- Don't eat! (formal singular)
• "¡no coman!" (ustedes) -- Don't eat! (formal & informal plural)

Spanish verbs describing motion tend to emphasize direction instead of manner of motion. According to the pertinent classification, this makes Spanish a verb-framed language. This contrasts with English, where verbs tend to emphasize manner, and leave the direction of motion to helper particles or prepositions.

The noun

Gender

All Spanish nouns have one of two genders: masculine or inclusive and feminine or exclusive. Most adjectives, all pronouns, and all articles indicate the gender of the noun they reference.

Nouns can be grouped in the following categories:

1. Applied to persons and animals whose sex is known
   1. Declinable nouns: add "a" or replace final vowel by "a" to the masculine (or inclusive) to form the feminine (or exclusive). Examples: el profesor/la profesora, el nino/la nina, el perro/la perra.
   2. Invariant nouns (in Spanish "sustantivos de genero comun"): el artista/la artista, el testigo/la testigo.
   3. Nouns with gramatical gender, but that apply to both sexes: el personaje, la visita.
2. Applied to animals. In addition to declinable nouns we have epicene nouns: gender is fixed and sex is indicated by "macho" (male) or "hembra" (female). Examples: la jirafa macho, la jirafa hembra, el rinoceronte macho, el rinoceronte hembra.
3. Applied to things
   1. Masculine or inclusive: el pan.
   2. Feminine or exclusive: la leche.
   3. Vacillant (called "sustantivos ambiguos" in Spanish). El azucar/la azucar, el esperma/la esperma.
   4. In some cases the same word can take two genders. In that case it is better to say that we have two words. El capital = funds, la capital = capital city.

Number

There are two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. Plural is indicated adding "s" or "es".

• The inclusive (or masculine) gender includes both sexes in the plural: los ninos = the children.
• The feminine gender is exclusive in the plural: las ninas = the girls.

The adjective

The feminine gender in adjectives is formed in a different way to that in nouns. Most adjectives ending in a consonant remain unchanged: hombre superior, mujer superior (compare with el superior/la superiora). This is also true for adjectives ending in "e": hombre verde, mujer verde (compare with el presidente, la presidenta).

Sounds

Since Spanish has many allophones it is important here to differentiate between phonemes (written here /between slashes/) and allophones [between brackets].

(SAMPA phonetic scheme used)

Lexical stress

Spanish has a phonemic stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word camino (with penultimate stress) means "I walk" or "road" whereas camino (with final stress) means "he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish pronounces all syllables at a more or less constant tempo, it is said to be a syllable-timed language.

Writing system

Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with a few special letters: the vowels can be marked with an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) to mark stress when it doesn't follow the normal pattern, diaeresis u (ü) after g to indicate a [gw] pronunciation, and n with tilde (ñ) to indicate the palatal nasal. Traditionally, the digraphs ch, ll and rr were considered separate letters, but this is no longer the case.

Written Spanish precedes exclamatory and interrogative clauses with inverted question and exclamation marks, examples: ¿Que dices? (What do you mean?) ¡No es verdad! (That's not true!). It is one of the few languages whose written form does so.

Written Spanish also marks unequivocally stress though a series of othographic rules. The default stress is on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than "n" or "s" and on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, "n" or "s". Words that don't follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. Words that need a diacritical accent to tell them apart from words which would otherwise be spelt identically have an acute accent too (solo, solo; este, este).

A word with final stress is called aguda; a word with penultimate stress is called llana or grave; a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third last syllable) is called esdrujula; and a word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier is called sobresdrujula in which case there is a secondary stress towards the end of the word. All esdrujula and sobresdrujula words have written accent marks.

Spanish is nicknamed la lengua de Cervantes (the language of Cervantes, the author of the Quixote).

Examples of Spanish

• Spanish: castellano /kaste"Lano/ (kaah-stay-YAAH-no); espanol /espa"Jol/ (eh-spaahn-YOLE)
• hello: hola /"ola/ (OH-la)
• goodbye: adiós [a"Djos] (ah-THYOSE)
• please: por favor [por fa"Bor] ([pore faah-VORE)
• thank you: gracias /"grasjas/ (GRAAH-syahs)
• sorry: perdon [per"Don] (pare-THONE)
• that one: ése /"ese/ (essay) (masculine); ésa /"esa/ (essa) (feminine); eso /"eso/ (EH-sew) (object)
• how much?: cuánto /"kwanto/ (KWAHN-to)
• English: inglés [iN"gles] (ing-GLESS)
• yes: sí /"si/ (see)
• no: no /"no/ (no)
• I don't understand: No comprendo [nokom"prendo]; No entiendo [noen"tjendo]
• where's the bathroom?: ¿Donde esta el bano? ["dondes"tael"BaJo] (DOAN-day es-TAH el BA-nyo)
• generic toast: salud [sa"luD] (sah-LOOTHE)
• Do you speak English?: ¿Habla usted ingles? ["aBlaws"teDiN"gles] (AH-blah oos-TED ing-GLESS)

Reference

• Most Commonly Spoken Languages

See also

• Spanish Royal Academy of Language
• Spanish in the United States
• Spanish proverbs
• Spanish language poets
• Spanish Creole
• Common phrases in different languages
• Papiamento, Chavacano, Spanglish
• Rock en espanol
• Spanish verbs

External links

• Official page of the RAE (in Spanish)
• DRAE, Dictionary of the RAE (in Spanish, of course)
• Ethnologue report for Spanish
• Learn and study Spanish directory
• Spanish Language & Linguistics Website, by Ian Mackenzie
• Spanish Wikibook
• Reasons to Learn Spanish - Why Learn Spanish?
• Usage of Tenses
• PDF: A history of the Spanish language
• Basic Spanish Words + Translator
• Spanish - English Dictionary: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.