Spanish is a Romance language descended from Vulgar Latin as spoken on the Iberian peninsula, spread worldwide from the sixteenth century onward by Spanish colonization and today the official language of twenty countries, more than any other language. It is written in the Latin alphabet and is notable among major world languages for an unusually regular relationship between spelling and pronunciation. Its closest relatives are the other Ibero-Romance languages, Portuguese, Catalan and Galician, all descended from the same Vulgar Latin base.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker Count Attested From (Year)9th century; the earliest documents showing traces of the precursor of modern Spanish date to this century. RegionSpain; Hispanic America including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico; Equatorial Guinea; Puerto Rico; significant presence in the United States 3 Classification
Official Status Connections
Ancestor Of
Source Wikipedia: Andalusian Spanish
Source Wikipedia: Mexican Spanish
Source Wikipedia: Rioplatense Spanish
Associated With
This source names Spanish directly: "the ancestor of the Romance languages, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and others."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
This source names Latin directly: "Romance language descended from Vulgar Latin as spoken on the Iberian peninsula, spread worldwide from the sixteenth century onward by Spanish colonization and today the official language of twenty..."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
In Family
Written In
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Sources
1. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010Official status, Spanish entity pageQuote, Official status, Spanish entity page
Spanish is a Romance language descended from Vulgar Latin as spoken on the Iberian peninsula, spread worldwide from the sixteenth century onward by Spanish colonization and today the official language of twenty countries, more than any other language.
2. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
3. Wikipedia: Spanish Language
Wikimedia Foundationlead section
Spain and Hispanic America
Quote
first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century
View the Source Glottolog
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyIn Family: Indo-EuropeanView the Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Wikipedia: Andalusian Spanish
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Andalusian Spanish, Lead sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Andalusian Spanish, Lead section
They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varieties in a number of phonological, morphological and lexical features.
Wikipedia: Rioplatense Spanish
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Rioplatense Spanish, Introduction sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Rioplatense Spanish, Introduction section
This dialect is widely recognized throughout the Hispanosphere due to its strong influence from Italian languages, a result of significant historical Italian immigration to the region.
Wikipedia: Mexican Spanish
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Mexican Spanish, Opening section, Variation areaQuote, Ancestor Of: Mexican Spanish, Opening section, Variation area
Mexico has the world's largest number of Spanish speakers, more than double any other country.
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