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125-626: Uruguayans ( Spanish : uruguayos ) are people identified with the country of Uruguay , through citizenship or descent. Uruguay is home to people of different ethnic origins. As a result, many Uruguayans do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship and their allegiance to Uruguay. Colloquially, primarily among other Spanish -speaking Latin American nations, Uruguayans are also referred to as " orientals [as in Easterners] " ( Spanish : orientales ). Uruguay is, along with much of
250-525: A mestiço to be classified as pardo or caboclo. In Brazil specifically, at least in modern times, all non-Indigenous people are considered to be a single ethnicity ( os brasileiros . Lines between ethnic groups are historically fluid); since the earliest years of the Brazilian colony, the mestiço group has been the most numerous among the free people. As explained above, the concept of mestiço should not be confused with mestizo as used in either
375-647: A Semite /Afro Asiatic. This term was first documented in English in 1582. Mestizo ( Spanish: [mesˈtiθo] or [mesˈtiso] ), mestiço ( Portuguese: [mɨʃˈtisu] or [mesˈtʃisu] ), métis ( French: [meti(s)] ), mestís ( Catalan: [məsˈtis] ), Mischling ( German: [ˈmɪʃlɪŋ] ), meticcio ( Italian: [meˈtittʃo] ), mestiezen ( Dutch: [mɛsˈtizə(n)] ), mestee ( Middle English: [məsˈtiː] ), and mixed are all cognates of
500-472: A castizo ; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard." O’Crouley states that
625-773: A Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. The local languages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived from Mexican Spanish , owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898. Mestizo Mestizo ( / m ɛ ˈ s t iː z oʊ , m ɪ ˈ -/ mest- EE -zoh, mist- , Spanish: [mesˈtiθo] or [mesˈtiso] ; fem. mestiza , literally 'mixed person')
750-551: A blanket term that not only refers to mixed Mexicans but includes all Mexican citizens who do not speak Indigenous languages Sometimes, particularly outside of Mexico, the word "mestizo" is used with the meaning of Mexican persons with mixed Indigenous and European blood. This usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure Indigenous ancestry would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his Indigenous culture or by not speaking an Indigenous language, and
875-588: A considerable number of words from Arabic , as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin , the form of Latin in use at that time. According to
1000-517: A dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants , known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes , which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ ). See History of Spanish (Modern development of
1125-476: A first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos ( Ilustrados ). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing. Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration after
1250-518: A god, but not belonging to any religion, while 14% were atheist or agnostic . Political observers consider Uruguay the most secular country in the Americas. Uruguay's secularization began with the relatively minor role of the church in the colonial era, compared with other parts of the Spanish Empire . The small numbers of Uruguay's indigenous peoples and their fierce resistance to proselytism reduced
1375-455: A half and two-thirds of the population, while others use the culture-based definition, and estimate the percentage of mestizos as high as 90% of the Mexican population, several others mix-up both due lack of knowledge in regards to the modern definition and assert that mixed ethnicity Mexicans are as much as 93% of Mexico's population. Paradoxically to its wide definition, the word mestizo has long been dropped off popular Mexican vocabulary, with
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#17328456154071500-443: A loanword from French, refers to persons of mixed French or European and Indigenous ancestry, who were part of a particular ethnic group. French-speaking Canadians, when using the word métis , are referring to Canadian Métis ethnicity, and all persons of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry. Many were involved in the fur trade with Canadian First Nations peoples (especially Cree and Anishinaabeg ). Over generations, they developed
1625-471: A long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century. In the wake of the 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty , hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States. The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce. According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of
1750-450: A number of local musical forms. The most distinctive ones are tango , murga , a form of musical theater, and candombe , an Afro-Uruguayan type of music which occur yearly during the Carnival period. There is also milonga , a folk guitar and song form deriving from Spanish traditions and related to similar forms found in many Hispanic-American countries. The famed tango singer Carlos Gardel
1875-508: A person with none or very low Indigenous ancestry would be considered Indigenous either by speaking an Indigenous language or by identifying with a particular Indigenous cultural heritage. In the Yucatán Peninsula , the word mestizo has a different meaning to the one used in the rest of Mexico, being used to refer to the Maya -speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during
2000-519: A person's life. Artwork created mainly in eighteenth-century Mexico, " casta paintings ," show groupings of racial types in hierarchical order, which has influenced the way that modern scholars have conceived of social difference in Spanish America. During the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, there were three chief categories of ethnicities: Spaniard ( español ), American Indian ( indio ), and African ( negro ). Throughout
2125-498: A primarily Hassaniya Arabic -speaking territory, Spanish was officially spoken as the language of the colonial administration during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Today, Spanish is present in the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as its secondary official language, and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf ( Algeria ), where the Spanish language is still taught as
2250-407: A report on a genomic study of 300 mestizos from those same states. The study found that the mestizo population of these Mexican states were on average 55% of Indigenous ancestry followed by 41.8% of European, 1.8% of African, and 1.2% of East Asian ancestry. The study also noted that whereas mestizo individuals from the southern state of Guerrero showed on average 66% of Indigenous ancestry, those from
2375-599: A second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system. While far from its heyday during the Spanish protectorate in Morocco , the Spanish language has some presence in northern Morocco , stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media. According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches 4.6% of
2500-518: A second language, largely by Cuban educators. The number of Spanish speakers is unknown. Spanish is also an official language of the African Union . Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization , it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as
2625-537: A separate culture of hunters and trappers, and were concentrated in the Red River Valley and speak the Michif language . In the Spanish colonial period , the Spanish developed a complex set of racial terms and ways to describe difference. Although this has been conceived of as a "system," and often called the sistema de castas or sociedad de castas , archival research shows that racial labels were not fixed throughout
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#17328456154072750-675: A synonym for miscegenation , but with positive connotations. In the modern era, particularly in Latin America, mestizo has become more of a cultural term, with the term indio being reserved exclusively for people who have maintained a separate Indigenous ethnic and cultural identity, language , tribal affiliation, community engagement, etc. In late 19th- and early 20th-century Peru , for instance, mestizaje denoted those peoples with evidence of Euro-indigenous ethno-racial "descent" and access—usually monetary access, but not always—to secondary educational institutions. Similarly, well before
2875-416: Is cognate to the root word of satisfacer ("to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho ("satisfied"). Compare the examples in the following table: Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table: In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent
3000-417: Is a Spanish word that derives from Latino . Ladino is an exonym dating to the colonial era to refer to those Spanish-speakers who were not colonial elites ( Peninsulares and Criollos ), or Indigenous peoples. As of 2012 , most Costa Ricans are primarily of Spanish or mestizo ancestry with minorities of German, Italian, Jamaican, and Greek ancestry. European migrants used Costa Rica to get across
3125-643: Is a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry in the former Spanish Empire . In certain regions such as Latin America , it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors were Indigenous. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire . It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses , parish registers , Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used
3250-448: Is a significant Arab population (of about 100,000), mostly from Palestine (especially from the area of Bethlehem), but also from Lebanon. Salvadorans of Palestinian descent numbered around 70,000 individuals, while Salvadorans of Lebanese descent is around 27,000. There is also a small community of Jews who came to El Salvador from France, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. Many of these Arab groups naturally mixed and contributed into
3375-563: Is also known as Castilian ( castellano ). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in
3500-518: Is especially high in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France. In the Americas, emigration is mostly to the United States , Canada , Argentina , and other nearby Latin American countries such as Brazil and Chile . In Oceania, emigration is mainly to Australia , and to a lesser extent, New Zealand . Spanish language Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano ) is a Romance language of
3625-449: Is estimated that about 486 million people speak Spanish as a native language , making it the second most spoken language by number of native speakers . An additional 75 million speak Spanish as a second or foreign language , making it the fourth most spoken language in the world overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi with a total number of 538 million speakers. Spanish is also
3750-740: Is heavily influenced by Venezuelan Spanish. In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation of Mercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching in Brazil . In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President , making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In September 2016 this law
3875-405: Is more commonly connected to language families in both urban and rural vernacular. During the colonial era of Mexico, the category Mestizo was used rather flexibly to register births in local parishes and its use did not follow any strict genealogical pattern. With Mexican independence, in academic circles created by the " mestizaje " or " Cosmic Race " ideology, scholars asserted that Mestizos are
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4000-721: Is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn, is usually assumed to be derived from castillo ('castle'). In the Middle Ages , the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as Romance and later also as Lengua vulgar . Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as Romance castellano ( romanz castellano , romanz de Castiella ), lenguaje de Castiella , and ultimately simply as castellano (noun). Different etymologies have been suggested for
4125-806: Is spoken by very small communities in Angola due to Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence. Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands , located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off
4250-804: Is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico . The language has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles , Miami , San Antonio , New York , San Francisco , Dallas , Tucson and Phoenix of the Arizona Sun Corridor , as well as more recently, Chicago , Las Vegas , Boston , Denver , Houston , Indianapolis , Philadelphia , Cleveland , Salt Lake City , Atlanta , Nashville , Orlando , Tampa , Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration. Although Spanish has no official recognition in
4375-459: Is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese ; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English , Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani ( Hindi - Urdu ); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which the language
4500-706: The Americas , a melting pot of different peoples, with the difference that it has traditionally maintained a model that promotes cultural assimilation , hence the different cultures have been absorbed by the mainstream. Uruguay has one of the most homogeneous populations in South America; the most common ethnic backgrounds by far being those from Spain, Italy, Germany and France i.e. Spanish Uruguayans , Italian Uruguayans , German Uruguayans , French Uruguayans and Polish Uruguayans . Most Uruguayans descend from colonial-era settlers and immigrants from Europe with almost 88% of
4625-521: The Araucanian ... In Chile, from the time the Spanish soldiers with Pedro de Valdivia entered northern Chile, a process of 'mestizaje' began where Spaniards began to intermarry and reproduce with the local bellicose Mapuche population of Indigenous Chileans to produce an overwhelmingly mestizo population during the first generation in all of the cities they founded. In Southern Chile, the Mapuche, were one of
4750-488: The Caste War of Yucatán of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos. In Chiapas, the term Ladino is used instead of Mestizo. Due to the extensiveness of the modern definition of mestizo, various publications offer different estimations of this group, some try to use a biological, racial perspective and calculate the mestizo population in contemporary Mexico as being around
4875-651: The Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe . Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain , and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Spanish
5000-585: The Latin word mixticius . The Portuguese cognate , mestiço , historically referred to any mixture of Portuguese and local populations in the Portuguese colonies . In colonial Brazil , most of the non-enslaved population was initially mestiço de indio , i.e. mixed Portuguese and Native Brazilian . There was no descent-based casta system, and children of upper-class Portuguese landlord males and enslaved females enjoyed privileges higher than those given to
5125-557: The Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. Spanish has historically had a significant presence on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba , Bonaire and Curaçao ( ABC Islands ) throughout the centuries and in present times. The majority of the populations of each island (especially Aruba) speaking Spanish at varying although often high degrees of fluency. The local language Papiamentu (Papiamento on Aruba)
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5250-508: The Spanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s. Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English and Filipino , a standardized version of Tagalog . Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under
5375-472: The working class line. Spanish is the de facto national language . The standard language, virtually spoken by the entire population is Uruguayan Spanish , which is a variant of Rioplatense Spanish . It has a strong influence of the Italian language and its different dialects due to the number of immigrants that the country received. French and Italian have great relevance in society, having been part of
5500-424: The 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. Alongside English and French , it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout
5625-643: The 2011 census. People with Amerindian ancestry can be found in the north of Uruguay, primarily in Tacuarembó Department , where the Amerindian ancestry accounts for 20% of the population. A 1996 census identified that 12,600 people in Uruguay were Amerindian descendants. In 2006, a census confirmed that there were 115,118 Uruguayans that descended from one Amerindian ethnic group, the Charrúas , reaching up to 4% of
5750-404: The 2021–2022 school year alone. The local business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects. Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population, a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely. Aside from standard Spanish,
5875-519: The 20th century, Euramerican "descent" did not necessarily denote Iberian American ancestry or solely Spanish American ancestry (distinct Portuguese administrative classification: mestiço ), especially in Andean regions re-infrastructured by Euramerican "modernities" and buffeted by mining labor practices. This conception changed by the 1920s, especially after the national advancement and cultural economics of indigenismo . To avoid confusion with
6000-574: The 20th century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara , and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City . For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language . Spanish is the primary language in 20 countries worldwide. As of 2023, it
6125-639: The Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business. Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish. The Instituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish. The proportion of proficient Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the proportion of proficient speakers in other West and Central African nations of their respective colonial languages. Spanish
6250-691: The Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Proto-Basque , Iberian , Lusitanian , Celtiberian and Gallaecian . The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era , the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages — Mozarabic ( Andalusi Romance ), Navarro-Aragonese , Leonese , Catalan/Valencian , Portuguese , Galician , Occitan , and later, French and Italian . Spanish also borrowed
6375-565: The Inquisition. The first sizable group of self-identified Jews immigrated from Poland, beginning in 1929. From the 1930s to the early 1950s, journalistic and official antisemitic campaigns fueled harassment of Jews; however, by the 1950s and 1960s, the immigrants won greater acceptance. Most of the 3,500 Costa Rican Jews today are not highly observant, but they remain largely endogamous. Costa Rica has four small minority groups: Mulattos , Afro , Indigenous Costa Ricas , and Asians . About 8% of
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#17328456154076500-529: The Old Spanish sibilants) for details. The Gramática de la lengua castellana , written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija , was the first grammar written for a modern European language. According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I , she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire. In his introduction to
6625-654: The Republic of Spaniards ( República de Españoles ) comprised the Spanish (Españoles) and all other non-Indian peoples. Indians were free vassals of the crown, whose commoners paid tribute while Indigenous elites were considered nobles and tribute exempt, as were Mestizos. Indians were nominally protected by the crown, with non-Indians (Mestizos, blacks, and mulattoes) forbidden to live in Indigenous communities. Mestizos and Indians in Mexico habitually held each other in mutual antipathy. This
6750-551: The Spanish-speaking world or the English-speaking one. It does not relate to being of Indigenous American ancestry, and is not used interchangeably with pardo , literally "brown people". (There are mestiços among all major groups of the country: Indigenous, Asian, pardo , and African, and they likely constitute the majority in the three latter groups.) In English-speaking Canada, Canadian Métis (capitalized), as
6875-424: The Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but also castellano (Castilian), the language from the Kingdom of Castile , contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician , Basque , Asturian , Catalan/Valencian , Aragonese , Occitan and other minor languages. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of
7000-502: The U.S. population were of Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin. In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population. Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico , where it is also an official language along with English. Spanish is by far the most common second language in the country, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included. While English
7125-451: The administration of Ferdinand Marcos two months later. It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language. Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of
7250-810: The average Mexican mestizo was predominantly European (64.9%), followed by Indigenous American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and Indigenous American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37–50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0–8.8%). The states that participated in this study were Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Yucatán. A study of 104 mestizos from Sonora, Yucatán, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Veracruz, and Guanajuato by Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine, reported that mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 31.05% Indigenous American, and 10.03% African. Sonora shows
7375-404: The child was raised in the Indigenous world of the mother if he did not. As early as 1533, Charles V mandated the high court ( Audiencia ) to take the children of Spanish men and Indigenous women from their mothers and educate them in the Spanish sphere. This mixed group born out of Christian wedlock increased in numbers, generally living in their mother's Indigenous communities. Mestizos were
7500-672: The classic hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin , as happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon). Like the other Romance languages , the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin , which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War , beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages )—some distantly related to Latin as Indo-European languages , and some that are not related at all—were previously spoken in
7625-437: The colonial period prior to 1810. More recent immigrants from Europe, largely from Italy, Germany and France, arrived in the great migratory wave during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Today, Uruguay's culture is influenced heavily by its European roots which is evident in its language, food and other aspects of everyday life. Up to 2.4% of the population are of Mestizo (European- Amerindian ) ancestry according to
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#17328456154077750-547: The colonial times, eventually came to mix and merged into the much larger and vaster Mestizo mixed European Spanish/Native Indigenous population creating Pardo or Afromestizos who cluster with Mestizo people, contributing into the modern day Mestizo population in El Salvador, thus, there remains no significant extremes of African physiognomy among Salvadorans like there is in the other countries of Central America. Today, many Salvadorans identify themselves as being culturally part of
7875-495: The consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v . Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboring Gascon extending as far north as the Gironde estuary , and found in a small area of Calabria ), attributed by some scholars to a Basque substratum was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it
8000-549: The contemporary sense has been the closest to the historical usage from the Middle Ages. Because of important linguistic and historical differences, mestiço (mixed, mixed-ethnicity, miscegenation, etc.) is separated altogether from pardo (which refers to any kind of brown people) and caboclo (brown people originally of European–Indigenous American admixture, or assimilated Indigenous American). The term mestiços can also refer to fully African or East Asian in their full definition (thus not brown). One does not need to be
8125-500: The contribution of its alternating early settlers from Spain and Portugal, and important influence of European immigrants – Italians, French, Portuguese, Romanians, and Greeks, among others- and traditions blended with Amerindian and African elements. Uruguay has Portuguese and Spanish colonial architectural heritage and many writers, artists, and musicians. Candombe is the most important example of African influence by slaves . Charrua and Guaraní traditions can be seen in mate ,
8250-404: The country's constitution. In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language, and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system, with over 7,000 students studying the language in
8375-643: The country's population. In 2005, Sinthia Pagano, M.D conducted a genetic study, detecting that 38% of Uruguayans may have expressed partial genetic influence from the Amerindian population. Another study found that 34% of the population has Amerindian admixture. Africans , Blacks and Mulattos in Uruguay are more or less 209,662 and they are mostly found in Montevideo , Rivera Department , Artigas Department , Salto Department and Cerro Largo Department . A 2011 census marked that there are more than 300,000 African descendants and that 80% of Afro-Uruguayans are under
8500-652: The department of Río Negro . Also there are Mennonite colonies in the department of Río Negro like Gartental and El Ombú, in Canelones Department called Colonia Nicolich, and in San José Department called Colonia Delta. El Ombú, is famous for its well-known Dulce de Leche "Claldy", and is located near the city of Young. European immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries heavily influenced Uruguayan culture and lifestyle. The large cities, including its capital Montevideo , have preserved European architecture,
8625-651: The distinctly Uruguayan sounds mentioned above. The group Los Shakers , similar to the Beatles , deserve a special mention as the band that kickstarted the Uruguayan rock scene. The gaucho is a national symbol in Uruguay and Argentina but is also a strong culture in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Gauchos became greatly admired and renowned in legends, folklore and literature and became an important part of their regional cultural tradition. The rate of Uruguayan emigration to Europe
8750-457: The educational curriculum until the 2000s. On the other hand, in the north-east of the country, the fronteiriço dialect is spoken, a mixture between Uruguayan Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese originated due to cultural exchange between the areas on both sides of the border. English is the most widespread foreign language among the Uruguayan people. Contemporary Uruguayan culture comes from
8875-699: The first group in the colonial era to be designated as a separate category from the Spanish (Españoles) and enslaved African blacks ( Negros ) and were included in the designation of "vagabonds" ( vagabundos ) in 1543 in Mexico. Although Mestizos were often classified as castas , they had a higher standing than any mixed-race person since they did not have to pay tribute, the men could be ordained as priests, and they could be licensed to carry weapons, in contrast to negros , mulattoes, and other castas. Unlike Blacks and mulattoes, Mestizos had no African ancestors. Intermarriage between Españoles and Mestizos resulted in offspring designated Castizos ("three-quarters white"), and
9000-423: The following definition: "The Ladino population has been characterized as a heterogeneous population which expresses itself in the Spanish language as a maternal language, which possesses specific cultural traits of Hispanic origin mixed with Indigenous cultural elements, and dresses in a style commonly considered as western." Initially colonial Argentina and Uruguay had a predominantly mestizo population like
9125-661: The following table: Spanish is marked by palatalization of the Latin double consonants ( geminates ) nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año , and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo ). The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably " fortified " to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with
9250-466: The former British colony of Belize (known until 1973 as British Honduras ) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2022 census, 54% of the total population are able to speak the language. Due to its proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existing native Spanish speaking minority, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government launched
9375-584: The grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire." From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America . Miguel de Cervantes , author of Don Quixote , is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). In
9500-518: The highest European contribution (70.63%) and Guerrero the lowest (51.98%) which also has the highest Indigenous American contribution (37.17%). African contribution ranges from 2.8% in Sonora to 11.13% in Veracruz . 80% of the Mexican population was classed as mestizo (defined as "being racially mixed in some degree"). In May 2009, the same institution (Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine) issued
9625-575: The idea of "(racism) not existing here (in Mexico), as everybody is mestizo." Anthropologist Federico Navarrete concludes that reintroducing racial classification, and accepting itself as a multicultural country, as opposed to a monolithic mestizo country, would bring benefits to Mexican society as a whole. A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of
9750-548: The important Indigenous male mortality during the conquest. The genetics thus suggests the Native men were sharply reduced in numbers due to the war and disease. Large numbers of Spaniard men settled in the region and married or forced themselves with the local women. The Natives were forced to adopt Spanish names, language, and religion, and in this way, the Lencas and Pipil women and children were Hispanicized. This has made El Salvador one of
9875-410: The influence of the ecclesiastical authorities. In 1837 civil marriage was recognized, and in 1861 the state took over the running of public cemeteries. In 1907 divorce was legalized and, in 1909 all religious instruction was banned from state schools. Under the influence of the innovative Colorado reformer José Batlle y Ordóñez (1903–1911), complete separation of church and state was introduced with
10000-637: The isthmus of Central America as well to reach the U.S. West Coast ( California ) in the late 19th century and until the 1910s (before the Panama Canal opened). Other ethnic groups known to live in Costa Rica include Nicaraguan, Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvian, Brazilians, Portuguese, Palestinians , Caribbeans, Turks, Armenians, and Georgians. Many of the first Spanish colonists in Costa Rica may have been Jewish converts to Christianity who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to colonial backwaters to avoid
10125-535: The language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward. Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken include Gibraltar and Andorra . Spanish is also spoken by immigrant communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and Germany . Spanish is an official language of the European Union . Today,
10250-544: The latter being considered one of the greatest exponents of the art deco style. The majority of Uruguayans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries, with the exception of the Native American population. People of total or partial European ancestry comprise 87.7% of Uruguay's population according to the 2011 official census and chose "white" as their principal or main ancestry. Early Uruguayans are descendants of colonists from Spain and Portugal during
10375-530: The lower classes, such as formal education. Such cases were not so common and the children of enslaved women tended not to be allowed to inherit property. This right of inheritance was generally given to children of free women, who tended to be legitimate offspring in cases of concubinage (this was a common practice in certain Indigenous American and African cultures). In the Portuguese-speaking world,
10500-517: The majority Salvadoran mestizo population, even if they are racially European (especially Mediterranean), as well as Indigenous people in El Salvador who do not speak Indigenous languages nor have an Indigenous culture, and tri-racial/pardo Salvadorans or Arab Salvadorans. The Ladino population in Guatemala is officially recognized as a distinct ethnic group, and the Ministry of Education of Guatemala uses
10625-586: The majority are tri-racial Pardo Salvadorans who largely cluster with the Mestizo population. They have been mixed into and were naturally bred out by the general Mestizo population, which is a combination of a Mestizo majority and the minority of Pardo people, both of whom are racially mixed populations. A total of only 10,000 enslaved Africans were brought to El Salvador over the span of 75 years, starting around 1548, about 25 years after El Salvador's colonization. The enslaved Africans that were brought to El Salvador during
10750-686: The majority of the Spanish speakers live in Hispanic America . Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure —of Argentina , Bolivia (co-official with 36 indigenous languages), Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , Cuba , Dominican Republic , Ecuador , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua , Panama , Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní ), Peru (co-official with Quechua , Aymara , and "the other indigenous languages"), Puerto Rico (co-official with English), Uruguay , and Venezuela . Spanish language has
10875-404: The marriage of a castizo/a to an Español/a resulted in the restoration of Español/a status to the offspring. Don Alonso O’Crouley observed in Mexico (1774), "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo ; a mestizo and a Spaniard,
11000-477: The mestizo process or diseases brought by the Spaniards. Mestizo culture quickly became the most successful and dominant culture in El Salvador. The majority of Salvadorans in modern El Salvador identify themselves as 86.3% Mestizo roots. Historical evidence and census supports the explanation of "strong sexual asymmetry", as a result of a strong bias favoring children born to European man and Indigenous women, and to
11125-658: The modern Salvadoran Mestizo population. Pardo is the term that was used in colonial El Salvador to describe a person of tri-racial or Indigenous, European, and African descent. El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not have a significant African population due to many factors including El Salvador not having a Caribbean coast, and because of president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez , who passed racial laws to keep people of African descent and others out of El Salvador, though Salvadorans with African ancestry , called Pardos, were already present in El Salvador,
11250-516: The nation. In Central America , intermarriage by European men with Indigenous women, typically of Lenca , Cacaopera and Pipil backgrounds in what is now El Salvador happened almost immediately after the arrival of the Spaniards led by Pedro de Alvarado . Other Indigenous groups in the country such as Maya Poqomam people , Maya Ch'orti' people , Alaguilac , Xinca people , Mixe and Mangue language people became culturally extinct due to
11375-591: The national drink. Both Uruguay and Argentina share its traditional gaúcho roots (which originated in Andalusia ). Uruguay has no official religion; church and state are officially separated, and religious freedom is guaranteed. A 2008 survey by the INE of Uruguay showed Catholicism as the main religion, with 45.7% of the population; 9.0% are non-Catholic Christians, 0.6% are Animists or Umbandists (an Afro-Brazilian religion), and 0.4% Jewish. 30.1% reported believing in
11500-506: The nationalization of Quechuan languages and Aymaran languages as "official languages of the State...wherever they predominate" has increasingly severed these languages from mestizaje as an exonym (and, in certain cases, indio ), with indigenous languages tied to linguistic areas as well as topographical and geographical contexts. La sierra from the Altiplano to Huascarán , for instance,
11625-449: The new constitution of 1917 . Uruguay's capital has 12 synagogues, and a community of 20,000 Jews by 2011. With a peak of 50,000 during the mid-1960s, Uruguay has the world's highest rate of aliyah as a percentage of the Jewish population. The Baháʼí Faith is also practiced, along with Afro-Brazilian religions such as Quimbanda , Candomblé , and Umbanda . Music of Uruguay includes
11750-664: The northern state of Sonora displayed about 61.6% European ancestry. The study found that there was an increase in Indigenous ancestry as one traveled towards to the Southern states in Mexico, while the Indigenous ancestry declined as one traveled to the Northern states in the country, such as Sonora. The Ladino people are a mix of Mestizo or Hispanicized peoples in Latin America , principally in Central America . The demonym Ladino
11875-661: The northwest of the African mainland. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands traces its origins back to the Castilian conquest in the 15th century , and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas, which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish. The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as
12000-463: The offspring of a castizo/a [mixed Spanish - Mestizo] and an Español/a could be considered Español/a, or "returned" to that status. Racial labels in a set of eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings by Miguel Cabrera : In the early colonial period, the children of Spaniards and American Indians were raised either in the Hispanic world, if the father recognized the offspring as his natural child; or
12125-478: The only Indigenous tribes in the Americas that were in continuous conflict with the Spanish Empire and did not submit to a European power. But because Southern Chile was settled by German settlers in 1848, many mestizos include descendants of Mapuche and German settlers. A public health book from the University of Chile states that 60% of the population is of only European origin; mestizos are estimated to amount to
12250-528: The original usage of the term mestizo , mixed people started to be referred to collectively as castas . In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico , the concept of the Mestizo became central to the formation of a new independent identity that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly Indigenous. The word mestizo acquired another meaning in the 1930 census, being used by the government to refer to all Mexicans who did not speak Indigenous languages regardless of ancestry. In 20th- and 21st-century Peru,
12375-636: The other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the language castellano . The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms— español and castellano —are regarded as synonymous and equally valid. The term castellano
12500-646: The population being of European descent . The majority of these are Spaniards and Italians , followed by the French , Portuguese , Germans , Romanians, Greeks , British ( English or Scots ), Irish , Poles , Swiss , Russians , Bulgarians , Arab (mainly Lebanese and Syrians ), Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians . There are also smaller numbers of Japanese , as well as Amerindians, mainly Charrúa , Minuán , Chaná, Güenoa and Guaraní . Montevideo, like Buenos Aires in Argentina and Santos in Brazil ,
12625-431: The population is of African descent or mulatto (mix of European and African) who are called Afro-Costa Ricans , English-speaking descendants of 19th century Afro- Jamaican immigrant workers. By the late 20th century, allusions in textbooks and political discourse to "whiteness," or to Spain as the "mother country" of all Costa Ricans, were diminishing, replaced with a recognition of the multiplicity of peoples that make up
12750-529: The population. Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla. Spanish also has a presence in the education system of the country (through either selected education centers implementing Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, or the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education). In Western Sahara , formerly Spanish Sahara ,
12875-439: The rest of the Spanish colonies, but due to a flood of European migration in the 19th century and the repeated intermarriage with Europeans, the mestizo population became a so-called Castizo population. With more Europeans arriving in the early 20th century, the majority of these immigrants coming from Italy and Spain , the face of Argentina and Uruguay has overwhelmingly become European in culture and tradition. Because of this,
13000-469: The result of the mixing of all the races. After the Mexican Revolution the government, in its attempts to create an unified Mexican identity with no racial distinctions, adopted and actively promoted the "mestizaje" ideology. The Spanish word mestizo is from Latin mixticius , meaning mixed. Its usage was documented as early as 1275, to refer to the offspring of an Egyptian/ Afro Hamite and
13125-554: The same juncture, after almost a century as a genre. Because the term had taken on a myriad of meanings, the designation "Mestizo" was actively removed from census counts in Mexico and is no longer in official nor governmental use. Around 50–90% of Mexicans can be classified as "mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they identify fully neither with any European heritage nor with an Indigenous ethnic group, but rather identify as having cultural traits incorporating both European and Indigenous elements. In Mexico, mestizo has become
13250-402: The same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. "From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato." The Spanish colonial regime divided groups into two basic legal categories, the Republic of Indians ( República de Indios ) and
13375-528: The term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Occitan word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin * hispaniolus ('of Hispania'). Hispania was the Roman name for the entire Iberian Peninsula . There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal suggested that
13500-462: The term Mestizo has fallen into disuse. Nevertheless, the cultural practice of the region is commonly centred on the figure of the Gaucho , which intrinsically mixes European and native traditions. Argentine Northwest still has a important mestizo population, especially in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta . The Chilean race, as everybody knows, is a Mestizo race made of Spanish conquistadors and
13625-487: The term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the caste system disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity. The noun mestizaje , derived from the adjective mestizo , is a term for racial mixing that did not come into usage until the 20th century; it was not a colonial-era term. In the modern era, mestizaje is used by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa as
13750-409: The territories of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, ways of differentiating individuals in a racial hierarchy, often called in the modern era the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas , developed where society was divided based on color, calidad (status), and other factors. The main divisions were as follows: In theory, and as depicted in some eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings,
13875-444: The theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal , local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos , and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo , where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century. In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese , and, according to some authors,
14000-623: The third most used language on the Internet , after English and Chinese. Spanish is the official language of Spain . Upon the emergence of the Castilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred. Hard policies imposing
14125-533: The whole of Spain, in contrast 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... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on
14250-406: The word sometimes having pejorative connotations, which further complicates attempts to quantify mestizos via self-identification. While for most of its history the concept of mestizo and mestizaje has been lauded by Mexico's intellectual circles, in recent times the concept has been a target of criticism, with its detractors claiming that it delegitimizes the importance of ethnicity in Mexico under
14375-582: The world. Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences . Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese and the second most used language by number of websites after English. Spanish is used as an official language by many international organizations , including the United Nations , European Union , Organization of American States , Union of South American Nations , Community of Latin American and Caribbean States , African Union , among others. In Spain and some other parts of
14500-538: The worlds most highly mixed race nations. In 1932, ruthless dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez was responsible for La Matanza ("The Slaughter"), known as the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre in which the Indigenous people were murdered in an effort to wipe out the Indigenous people in El Salvador during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising. Indigenous peoples, mostly of Lenca, Cacaopera, and Pipil descent are still present in El Salvador in several communities, conserving their languages, customs, and traditions. There
14625-483: Was a major seaport to dock ships coming from Europe and elsewhere and European settlement greatly affected Uruguay to have a more western oriented culture. Many colonies such as Nueva Helvecia-Colonia Suiza , a Swiss colony and Colonia Valdense, a Piedmontese Waldensian colony, are located in the department of Colonia . Also, there are towns founded by British settlers, like Conchillas and Barker . Two Russian colonies called San Javier and Colonia Ofir , are found in
14750-691: Was born in Toulouse , France, then raised in Buenos Aires , but as an adult he obtained legal papers saying he was born in Tacuarembó , probably to avoid French military authorities. " La cumparsita " (little street procession, a grammatical diminutive of la comparsa) is a tango written in 1916 by the Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodríguez , It is among the most famous and recognizable tangos of all time. The popular music of Uruguay, which focuses on rock , jazz , and many other forms, frequently makes reference to
14875-451: Was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture, and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many Indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as Mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish. Many Indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as Mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as Mestizos. In colonial Venezuela , pardo
15000-630: Was developed in the cities of Toledo , in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid , from the 1570s. The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages , including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida ). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o —which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in
15125-604: Was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages ). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista , and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus , much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic -derived words, make up around 8% of the language today). The written standard for this new language
15250-713: Was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h- , still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects, it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and neighboring Romance languages, there are many f -/ h - doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, though fondo means "bottom", while hondo means "deep"); additionally, hacer ("to make")
15375-514: Was more commonly used instead of mestizo . Pardo means being mixed without specifying which mixture; it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Native American, and African. When the First Mexican Republic was established in 1824, legal racial categories ceased to exist. The production of casta paintings in New Spain ceased at
15500-539: Was particularly the case with commoner American Indians against Mestizos, some of whom infiltrated their communities and became part of the ruling elite. Spanish authorities turned a blind eye to the Mestizos' presence, since they collected commoners' tribute for the crown and came to hold offices. They were useful intermediaries for the colonial state between the Republic of Spaniards and the Republic of Indians. A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America
15625-462: Was revoked by Michel Temer after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff . In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during the Spanish colonial period . Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in
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