This is an accepted version of this page
124-528: Mexican Spanish ( Spanish : español mexicano ) is the variety of dialects and sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in the United Mexican States . Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, more than double any other country in the world. Spanish is spoken by over 99% of the population, being the mother tongue of 93.8%, and the second language of 5.4%. The territory of contemporary Mexico
248-469: A consonant cluster , consonant sequence or consonant compound , is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel . In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the word splits . In the education field it is variously called a consonant cluster or a consonant blend . Some linguists argue that the term can be properly applied only to those consonant clusters that occur within one syllable . Others claim that
372-493: A linguistic substrate . Particularly significant has been the influence of Nahuatl , especially in the lexicon . However, while in the vocabulary its influence is undeniable, it is hardly felt in the grammar field. In the lexicon, in addition to the words that originated from Mexico with which the Spanish language has been enriched, such as tomate "tomato", hule "rubber", tiza "chalk", chocolate "chocolate", coyote "coyote", petaca "flask", et cetera;
496-725: A Mexican Spanish "macro-dialect". The small amount of Philippine Spanish has traditionally been influenced by Mexican Spanish, as the colony was initially administered from Mexico City before being administered directly from Madrid . Chavacano , a Spanish-based creole language in the Philippines, is based on Mexican Spanish. To outsiders, the accents of nearby Spanish-speaking countries in northern Central America, such as El Salvador and Guatemala , might sound similar to those spoken in Mexico, especially in central and southern Mexico. The Spanish of Mexico has had various indigenous languages as
620-538: 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. Consonant cluster In linguistics ,
744-448: A cluster of two consonants: /ŋθ/ (although it may be pronounced /ŋkθ/ instead, as ⟨ng⟩ followed by a voiceless consonant in the same syllable often does); lights with a silent digraph ⟨gh⟩ followed by a cluster ⟨t⟩ , ⟨s⟩ : /ts/ ; and compound words such as sightscreen /ˈsaɪtskriːn/ or catchphrase /ˈkætʃfreɪz/ . Not all consonant clusters are distributed equally among
868-588: 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
992-517: 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
1116-456: A female with large feet ( patas ). It is common to replace /s/ with /tʃ/ to form diminutives, e.g. I sabel → Chabela , Jo sé Ma ría → Chema , Ce r ve za ("beer") → Chela / Cheve , Conc epción → Conchita , Sin Muela s ("without molars") → Chimuela ("toothless"). This is common in, but not exclusive to, Mexican Spanish. Typical of Mexican Spanish
1240-476: 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
1364-471: 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
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#17328836667571488-414: A post-coda sibilant, "s". Clusters of -ps, -ts, -ks, were then formed at the end of syllables. These clusters eventually collapsed into "-ts" or "-s", before disappearing altogether, leaving elements of diphthongisation in more modern varieties. Old Vietnamese also had a rich inventory of initial clusters, but these were slowly merged with plain initials during Middle Vietnamese, and some have developed into
1612-498: 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
1736-602: A row per syllable. Finnish has initial consonant clusters natively only on South-Western dialects and on foreign loans, and only clusters of three inside the word are allowed. Most spoken languages and dialects, however, are more permissive. In Burmese , consonant clusters of only up to three consonants (the initial and two medials—two written forms of /-j-/ , /-w-/ ) at the initial onset are allowed in writing and only two (the initial and one medial) are pronounced; these clusters are restricted to certain letters. Some Burmese dialects allow for clusters of up to four consonants (with
1860-550: 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
1984-518: 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
2108-465: Is vivemos instead of vivimos , verb roots other than haiga (instead of haya ) with non-standard /g/ such as creigo 'I believe' for creo , an accent shift in the first person plural subjunctive forms váyamos instead of vayamos 'we go', and a shift from -mos to -nos in proparoxytonic third person singular verb forms ( cantaríanos instead of cantaríamos 'we sing'). These same verb forms are also found in
2232-530: Is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which the language 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
2356-416: 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
2480-400: Is a defective dative clitic; instead of working as an indirect object pronoun, it modifies the verb. An effect of the modification is the intransitive of the transitive verbs that appear with this -le defective (ex. moverle "to move" it is not mover algo para alguien "to move something for someone" but hacer la acción de mover "to make the action of moving"). This intensifier use
2604-473: Is a particular grammatical feature of the Mexican Spanish variant. In any case, it should not be confused the use of -le as verbal modifier, with the different uses of the pronouns of indirect object (dative) in the classical Spanish, as these are thoroughly used to indicate in particular the case genitive and the ethical dative. In what is considered one of the founding documents of the Spanish language,
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#17328836667572728-417: Is a root meaning 'to shine, to be bright' and is also present in ⟨glee⟩ , ⟨gleam⟩ , and ⟨glade⟩ . Consonant clusters can also originate from assimilation of a consonant with a vowel. In many Slavic languages, the combination mji, mje, mja etc. regularly gave mlji, mlje, mlja etc. Compare Russian zemlyá , which had this change, with Polish ziemia , which lacks
2852-948: Is almost as strict, but allows a sequence of a nasal consonant plus another consonant, as in Honshū [hoꜜɰ̃ɕɯː] (the name of the largest island of Japan). (Palatalized consonants, such as [kʲ] in Tōkyō [toːkʲoː] , are single consonants.) It also permits a syllable to end in a consonant as long as the next syllable begins with the same consonant. Standard Arabic forbids initial consonant clusters and more than two consecutive consonants in other positions, as do most other Semitic languages , although Modern Israeli Hebrew permits initial two-consonant clusters (e.g. pkak "cap"; dlaat "pumpkin"), and Moroccan Arabic , under Berber influence, allows strings of several consonants. Like most Mon–Khmer languages , Khmer permits only initial consonant clusters with up to three consonants in
2976-413: Is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout 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
3100-732: Is also used, as in other Spanish-speaking countries); papalote "kite" < Nahuatl pāpālōtl [paːˈpaːloːt͡ɬ] "butterfly"; and jitomate "tomato" < Nahuatl xītomatl [ʃiːˈtomat͡ɬ] . For a more complete list see List of Spanish words of Nahuatl origin . Other expressions that are common in colloquial Mexican Spanish include: Most of the words above are considered informal (e.g. chavo(a) , padre , güero , etc.), rude ( güey , naco , ¿cómo (la) ves? , etc.) or vulgar (e.g. chingadera , pinche , pedo ) and are limited to slang use among friends or in informal settings; foreigners need to exercise caution in their use. In 2009, at an audience for
3224-647: Is an accepted version of this page Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano ) is a Romance language of 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
3348-425: Is an ellipsis of the negative particle no in a main clause introduced by an adverbial clause with hasta que : In this kind of construction, the main verb is implicitly understood as being negated. Mexico shares with many other areas of Spanish America the use of interrogative qué in conjunction with the quantifier tan(to) : It has been suggested that there is influence of indigenous languages on
3472-497: Is analysed as CCCCCCCCVC. Many Slavic languages may manifest almost as formidable numbers of consecutive consonants, such as in the Czech tongue twister Strč prst skrz krk ( pronounced [str̩tʃ pr̩st skr̩s kr̩k] ), meaning 'stick a finger through the neck', the Slovak words štvrť /ʃtvr̩c/ ("quarter"), and žblnknutie /ʒbl̩ŋknucɪɛ̯/ ("clunk"; "flop"), and
3596-449: 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
3720-529: Is great variation in intonation patterns from region to region within Mexico. For instance, the Spanish of northern Mexico, including the traditional Spanish of New Mexico, is characterized by its own distinct set of intonation patterns. Regarding the evolution of the Spanish spoken in Mexico, the Swedish linguist Bertil Malmberg points out that in Central Mexican Spanish—unlike most varieties in
3844-740: 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
Mexican Spanish - Misplaced Pages Continue
3968-524: Is no Spanish word; mezquite "mesquite", zapote "sapota", jícama "jicama", ixtle "ixtle", cenzontle "mockingbird", tuza "husk", pozole , tamales , huacal "crate", comal "hotplate", huipil "embroidered blouse", metate "stone for grinding", etc. The strength of the Nahuatl substrate influence is felt less each day, since there are no new contributions. The influence of Nahuatl on phonology seems restricted to
4092-466: Is not a real pronoun of indirect object, since it is still used in non-verbal constructions, such as hijo "son" -> híjo le "damn", ahora "now" -> óra le "wow"," ¿que hubo? " "what's up?" -> quihúbo le "how's it going?", etc. Although the suffix -le hypothesis as influence of Nahuatl has been widely questioned; Navarro Ibarra (2009) finds another explanation about -le intensifying character. The author warns that it
4216-557: Is not coextensive with what might be termed Mexican Spanish, since linguistic boundaries rarely coincide with political ones. The Spanish spoken in the southernmost state of Chiapas , bordering Guatemala , resembles the variety of Central American Spanish spoken in that country, where voseo is used. Meanwhile, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo led to a large number of Mexicans residing in what had become US territory, and many of their descendants have continued to speak Spanish. In addition,
4340-420: Is not distinguished from /s/ . Thus, casa 'house' and caza 'hunt' are homophones. Present in most of the interior of Mexico is the preservation, or absence of debuccalization , of syllable-final /s/ . The fact that the areas with the strongest preservation of final /s/ are also those with the most frequent unstressed vowel reduction gives the sibilant /s/ a special prominence in these dialects. On
4464-502: Is often assimilated to /w/ . Speakers from the Yucatán, especially men or those who are older, often pronounce the voiceless stops /p, t, k/ with aspiration . Like most Spanish dialects and varieties, Mexican Spanish has five vowels: close unrounded front /i/ , close rounded back /u/ , mid unrounded front /e/ , mid rounded back /o/ , and open unrounded /a/ . A striking feature of Mexican Spanish, particularly that of central Mexico,
4588-407: Is pronounced without the /k/ . Final clusters of four consonants, as in angsts in other dialects ( /ˈæŋsts/ ), twelfths /ˈtwɛlfθs/ , sixths /ˈsɪksθs/ , bursts /ˈbɜːrsts/ (in rhotic accents ) and glimpsed /ˈɡlɪmpst/ , are more common. Within compound words, clusters of five consonants or more are possible (if cross-syllabic clusters are accepted), as in handspring /ˈhændsprɪŋ/ and in
4712-806: 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
4836-804: 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
4960-462: Is the high rate of reduction , which can involve shortening and centralization , devoicing , or both, and even elision of unstressed vowels, as in [ˈtɾasts] ( trastes , 'cooking utensils'). This process is most frequent when a vowel is in contact with the phoneme /s/ , so that /s/ + vowel + /s/ is the construction when the vowel is most frequently affected. It can be the case that the words pesos , pesas , and peces are pronounced
5084-491: Is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Spanish 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
Mexican Spanish - Misplaced Pages Continue
5208-475: Is used in many Spanish-language Bibles throughout the country, most Mexicans are familiar with the form and understand it. An instance of it is found in the national anthem , which all Mexicans learn to sing: Mexicanos, al grito de guerra / el acero aprestad y el bridón . Mexicans tend to use the polite personal pronoun usted in the majority of social situations, especially in Northern Mexico . In
5332-567: 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
5456-422: The ⟨lj⟩ and ⟨nj⟩ are digraphs representing single consonants: [ʎ] and [ɲ] , respectively. In Dutch , clusters of six or even seven consonants are possible (e.g. angstschreeuw ("a scream of fear"), slechtstschrijvend ("writing the worst") and zachtstschrijdend ("treading the most softly")). Some Salishan languages exhibit long words with no vowels at all, such as
5580-697: The /t/ and /l/ in such a sequence in the same syllable, a trait shared with the Spanish of the rest of Latin America, that of the Canary Islands, and the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, including Bilbao and Galicia. This includes words of Greek and Latin origin with ⟨tl⟩ such as Atlántico and atleta . In contrast, in most of Spain, the /t/ would form part of the previous syllable's coda, and be subject to weakening, as in [aðˈlantiko] , [aðˈleta] . Some claim that in Mexican Spanish,
5704-547: The Mexico City Metro ). The spelling ⟨x⟩ can additionally represent the phoneme /x/ (also mostly in place names), as in México itself ( /ˈmexiko/ ); or /s/ , as in the place name Xochimilco —as well as the /ks/ sequence (in words of Greco-Latin origin, such as anexar /anekˈsar/ ), which is common to all varieties of Spanish. In many Nahuatl words in which ⟨x⟩ originally represented [ʃ] ,
5828-544: The Nuxálk word /xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ/ : he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant . It is extremely difficult to accurately classify which of these consonants may be acting as the syllable nucleus, and these languages challenge classical notions of exactly what constitutes a syllable . The same problem is encountered in the Northern Berber languages . There has been a trend to reduce and simplify consonant clusters in
5952-613: The Slovene word skrbstvo /skrbstʋo/ ("welfare"). However, the liquid consonants /r/ and /l/ can form syllable nuclei in West and South Slavic languages and behave phonologically as vowels in this case. An example of a true initial cluster is the Polish word wszczniesz ( /fʂt͡ʂɲɛʂ/ ("you will initiate"). In the Serbo-Croatian word opskrbljivanje /ɔpskr̩bʎiʋaɲɛ/ ("victualling")
6076-557: 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)
6200-508: 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
6324-798: 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 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
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#17328836667576448-538: The poem of Mio Cid written around the year 1200, you can already find various examples of dative possessive or ethical. Mexico has a border of more than 2,500 kilometers with the United States , and receives major influxes of American and Canadian tourists every year. More than 63% of the 57 million Latinos in the United States are assumed as of Mexican origin. English is the most studied foreign language in Mexico , and
6572-449: The subjunctive , as indicated by a study finding that, among residents of Reynosa , greater contact with the American side correlated with lower use of the subjunctive. This parallels a greater reduction in the use of the subjunctive among Mexican-Americans. The center of Hispanic Linguistics of UNAM carried out a number of surveys in the project of coordinated study of the cultured linguistic norms of major cities of Ibero-America and of
6696-404: 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,
6820-574: 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
6944-639: 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
7068-416: The Iberian Peninsula. The total number of anglicisms was about 4% among Mexican speakers of urban norms. However, this figure includes anglicisms that permeated general Spanish long ago and which are not particular to Mexico, such as buffete, náilon "nylon", dólar "dollar", hockey, rimel , ron "rum", vagón "railroad car", búfer "buffer", and others. Spanish language This
7192-631: 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
7316-1068: The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area , such as Chinese and Vietnamese . Old Chinese was known to contain additional medials such as /r/ and/or /l/ , which yielded retroflexion in Middle Chinese and today's Mandarin Chinese . The word 江 , read /tɕiɑŋ˥/ in Mandarin and /kɔːŋ˥⁻˥˧/ in Cantonese , is reconstructed as *klong or *krung in Old Chinese by Sinologists like Zhengzhang Shangfang , William H. Baxter , and Laurent Sagart . Additionally, initial clusters such as "tk" and "sn" were analysed in recent reconstructions of Old Chinese, and some were developed as palatalised sibilants . Similarly, in Thai , words with initial consonant clusters are commonly reduced in colloquial speech to pronounce only
7440-529: 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
7564-602: The Pacific Coast, the Canary Islands , and most of Andalusia and Extremadura in Spain). Thus, in these dialects, México, Jalapa , and caja are respectively pronounced [ˈmehiko] , [haˈlapa] , and [ˈkaha] . In northwestern Mexico and rural Michoacan, [tʃ] , represented by ⟨ch⟩ , tends to be deaffricated to [ʃ] , a phonetic feature also typical of southwestern Andalusian Spanish dialects. All varieties of Mexican Spanish are characterized by yeísmo :
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#17328836667577688-571: 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 is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn,
7812-468: The SSP such as Proto-Indo-European /st/ and /spl/ (which many of its descendants have, including English). Certain consonants are more or less likely to appear in consonant clusters, especially in certain positions. The Tsou language of Taiwan has initial clusters such as /tf/ , which doesn't violate the SSP, but nonetheless is unusual in having the labio-dental /f/ in the second position. The cluster /mx/
7936-473: The Spanish of Mexico has many Nahuatlismos that confer a lexical personality of its own. It can happen that the Nahuatl word coexists with the Spanish word, as in the cases of cuate "buddy" and amigo "friend", guajolote "turkey" and pavo "turkey", chamaco "kid" and niño "boy", mecate "rope" and reata "rope", etc. On other occasions, the indigenous word differs slightly from
8060-501: The Spanish, as in the case of huarache , which is another type of sandal; tlapalería , hardware store, molcajete , a stone mortar, etc. Other times, the Nahuatl word has almost completely displaced the Spanish, tecolote "owl", atole "cornflour drink", popote "straw", milpa "cornfield", ejote "green bean", jacal "shack", papalote "kite", etc. There are many indigenismos "words of indigenous origin" who designate Mexican realities for which there
8184-448: The State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on 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
8308-502: 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
8432-451: The Yorkshire place-name of Hampsthwaite /hæmpsθweɪt/ . It is important to distinguish clusters and digraphs . Clusters are made of two or more consonant sounds , while a digraph is a group of two consonant letters standing for a single sound. For example, in the word ship , the two letters of the digraph ⟨sh⟩ together represent the single consonant [ʃ] . Conversely,
8556-760: The addition of the /-l-/ medial, which can combine with the above-mentioned medials). At the other end of the scale, the Kartvelian languages of Georgia are drastically more permissive of consonant clustering. Clusters in Georgian of four, five or six consonants are not unusual—for instance, /brtʼqʼɛli/ ( flat ), /mt͡sʼvrtnɛli/ ( trainer ) and /prt͡skvna/ ( peeling )—and if grammatical affixes are used, it allows an eight-consonant cluster: /ɡvbrdɣvnis/ ( he's plucking us ), /gvprt͡skvni/ ( you peel us ). Consonants cannot appear as syllable nuclei in Georgian, so this syllable
8680-451: 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
8804-436: The change, both from Proto-Balto-Slavic *źemē. See Proto-Slavic language and History of Proto-Slavic for more information about this change. All languages differ in syllable structure and cluster template. A loanword from Adyghe in the extinct Ubykh language , psta ('to well up'), violates Ubykh's limit of two initial consonants. The English words sphere /ˈsfɪər/ and sphinx /ˈsfɪŋks/ , Greek loanwords, break
8928-672: 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
9052-680: The concept is more useful when it includes consonant sequences across syllable boundaries. According to the former definition, the longest consonant clusters in the word extra would be /ks/ and /tr/ , whereas the latter allows /kstr/ , which is phonetically [kst̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷ] in some accents. Each language has an associated set of phonotactic constraints . Languages' phonotactics differ as to what consonant clusters they permit. Many languages are more restrictive than English in terms of consonant clusters, and some forbid consonant clusters entirely. For example, Hawaiian , like most Malayo-Polynesian languages, forbid consonant clusters entirely. Japanese
9176-495: 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
9300-404: 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
9424-566: The diminutive does not necessarily denote small size, but rather often implies an affectionate attitude; thus one may speak of " una casita grande " ('a nice, big house'). When the diminutive suffix is applied to an adjective, often a near-equivalent idea can be expressed in English by "nice and [adjective]". So, for example, a mattress ( Spanish : un colchón ) described as blandito might be "nice and soft", while calling it blando might be heard to mean "too soft". In some regions of Mexico,
9548-402: The diminutive is found across all socioeconomic classes, but its "excessive" use is commonly associated with lower-class speech. The augmentative suffix -(z)ote is typically used in Mexico to make nouns larger, more powerful, etc. For example, the word camión , in Mexico, means bus ; the suffixed form camionzote means "big or long bus". It can be repeated just as in the case of
9672-535: The diminutive suffix -ito is also used to form affectives to express politeness or submission ( cafecito , literally "little coffee"; cabecita , literally "little head"; chavito "little boy"), and is attached to names ( Marquitos , from Marcos ; Juanito , from Juan —cf. Eng. Johnny ) denoting affection. In the northern parts of the country, the suffix -ito is often replaced in informal situations by -illo ( cafecillo , cabecilla , morrillo , Juanillo ). Frequent use of
9796-442: The familiar Mexican proverb " Camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente " (A sleeping shrimp is carried away by the tide), without realizing the vulgarity associated with the word in Mexico. The prince, also unaware of the differences, proceeded to say the word, to the bemusement and offense of some of the attendees. New Mexico Spanish has many similarities with an older version of Mexican Spanish, and can be considered part of
9920-661: 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
10044-466: 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
10168-531: The general lack of s-aspiration in the center of the country, /s/ is often elided before /r/ or /l/ , and the phrase buenas noches is often pronounced without the first /s/ . There is a set of voiced obstruents — /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ , and sometimes /ʝ/ —which alternate between approximant and plosive allophones depending on the environment. /bw/ often becomes /gw/ , especially in more rural speech, such that abuelo and bueno may be pronounced as agüelo and güeno . In addition, /gw/
10292-584: 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
10416-523: The initial consonant, such as the pronunciation of the word ครับ reducing from /kʰrap̚˦˥/ to /kʰap̚˦˥/ . Another element of consonant clusters in Old Chinese was analysed in coda and post-coda position. Some "departing tone" syllables have cognates in the "entering tone" syllables, which feature a -p, -t, -k in Middle Chinese and Southern Chinese varieties. The departing tone was analysed to feature
10540-547: The language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in 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
10664-535: 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,
10788-608: The language. Other factors that affect clusters when loaned to other languages include speech rate, articulatory factors, and speech perceptivity. Bayley has added that social factors such as age, gender, and geographical locations of speakers can determine clusters when they are loaned crosslinguistically. In English , the longest possible initial cluster is three consonants, as in split /ˈsplɪt/ , strudel /ˈstruːdəl/ , strengths /ˈstrɛŋkθs/ , and "squirrel" /ˈskwɪrəl/ , all beginning with /s/ or /ʃ/ , containing /p/ , /t/ , or /k/ , and ending with /l/ , /r/ , or /w/ ;
10912-536: The languages of the world. Consonant clusters have a tendency to fall under patterns such as the sonority sequencing principle (SSP); the closer a consonant in a cluster is to the syllable's vowel, the more sonorous the consonant is. Among the most common types of clusters are initial stop- liquid sequences, such as in Thai (e.g. /pʰl/ , /tr/ , and /kl/ ). Other common ones include initial stop-approximant (e.g. Thai /kw/ ) and initial fricative-liquid (e.g. English /sl/ ) sequences. More rare are sequences which defy
11036-514: The letter ⟨x⟩ can produce the consonant clusters /ks/ (annex), /gz/ (exist), /kʃ/ (sexual), or /gʒ/ (some pronunciations of "luxury"). It is worth noting that ⟨x⟩ often produces sounds in two different syllables (following the general principle of saturating the subsequent syllable before assigning sounds to the preceding syllable). Also note a combination digraph and cluster as seen in length with two digraphs ⟨ng⟩ , ⟨th⟩ representing
11160-651: The letters ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨y⟩ correspond to the same phoneme, /ʝ/ . That phoneme, in most variants of Mexican Spanish, is pronounced as either a palatal fricative [ ʝ ] or an approximant [ ʝ˕ ] in most cases, although after a pause it is instead realized as an affricate [ ɟʝ ] . In the north and in rural Michoacan, /ʝ/ is consistently rendered as an approximant and may even be elided when between vowels and in contact with /i/ or /e/ , as in gallina 'hen', silla 'chair', and sella 'seal'. As in all American dialects of Spanish, Mexican Spanish has seseo , so /θ/
11284-407: The longest possible final cluster is five consonants, as in angsts ( /ˈæŋksts/ ), though this is rare (perhaps owing to being derived from a recent German loanword ). However, the /k/ in angsts may also be considered epenthetic ; for many speakers , nasal-sibilant sequences in the coda require insertion of a voiceless stop homorganic to the nasal. For speakers without this feature, the word
11408-686: 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
11532-499: The monosyllabic pronunciation of digraphs -tz- and -tl- (Mexico: [aˈt͡ɬantiko] / Spain : [aðˈlantiko] ), and to the various pronunciations of the letter -x- , coming to represent the sounds [ks] , [gz] , [s] , [x] and [ʃ] . In the grammar, one can cite as influence of Nahuatl the extensive use of diminutives: The most common Spanish diminutive suffix is -ito/-ita . English examples are –y in doggy or -let in booklet. It can also be cited as influence of Nahuatl
11656-443: The north, children even address their parents with usted . In rural areas of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Tlaxcala, many people use a number of distinct non-standard morphological forms: 2nd person preterite verb forms ending in -ates, ites , imperfect forms such as traiba, creiba instead of traía, creía 'brought, believed', a merger of -ir and -er verb conjugations such that 'we live'
11780-654: 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
11904-503: The other Spanish-speaking countries—the vowels lose strength, while consonants are fully pronounced. Malmberg attributes this to a Nahuatl substratum , as part of a broader cultural phenomenon that preserves aspects of indigenous culture through place names of Nahuatl origin, statues that commemorate Aztec rulers, etc. The Mexican linguist Juan M. Lope Blanch , however, finds similar weakening of vowels in regions of several other Spanish-speaking countries; he also finds no similarity between
12028-413: The other clusters. In addition to the usual voiceless fricatives of other American Spanish dialects ( /f/ , /s/ , /x/ ), Mexican Spanish also has the palatal sibilant /ʃ/ , mostly in words from indigenous languages—especially place names. The /ʃ/ , represented orthographically as ⟨x⟩ , is commonly found in words of Nahuatl or Mayan origin, such as Xola [ˈʃola] (a station in
12152-508: The other hand, /s/ -weakening is very frequent on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, and is also fairly frequent in northern and northwestern Mexico, and in parts of Oaxaca and the Yucatán peninsula. In all these regions, /s/ -weakening acts as a sociolinguistic marker, being more prevalent in rural areas and among the lower classes. The prevalence of a weakened syllable-final /s/ in so many peripheral areas of Mexico suggests that such weakening
12276-432: The palatal nasal. Some consonant clusters originate from the loss of a vowel in between two consonants, usually (but not always) due to vowel reduction caused by lack of stress. This is also the origin of most consonant clusters in English, some of which go back to Proto-Indo-European times. For example, ⟨glow⟩ comes from Proto-Germanic *glo-, which in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel-ó, where *gʰel-
12400-529: 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 ,
12524-454: The pronunciation has changed to [x] (or [h] )—e.g. Jalapa/Xalapa [xaˈlapa] . Regarding the pronunciation of the phoneme /x/ , the articulation in most of Mexico is velar [x] , as in caja [ˈkaxa] ('box'). However, in some (but not all) dialects of southern Mexico, the normal articulation is glottal [ h ] (as it is in most dialects of the Caribbean,
12648-637: The rule that two fricatives may not appear adjacently word-initially. Some English words, including thrash, three, throat, and throw, start with the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, the liquid /r/, or the /r/ cluster (/θ/+/r/). This cluster example in Proto-Germanic has a counterpart in which /θ/ was followed by /l/. In early North and West Germanic, the /l/ cluster disappeared. This suggests that clusters are affected as words are loaned to other languages. The examples show that every language has syllable preference based on syllable structure and segment harmony of
12772-635: The same [ˈpesəs] . The vowels are slightly less frequently reduced or eliminated in the constructions /t, p, k, d/ + vowel + /s/ , so that the words pastas , pastes , and pastos may also be pronounced the same [ˈpasts] . Mexican Spanish is a tuteante form of the language (i.e. using tú and its traditional verb forms for the familiar second person singular). The traditional familiar second person plural pronoun vosotros —in colloquial use only in Spain—is found in Mexico only in certain archaic texts and ceremonial language. However, since it
12896-430: The sequence /tl/ is really a single phoneme , the same as the lateral affricate of Nahuatl. On the other hand, José Ignacio Hualde and Patricio Carrasco argue that /tl/ is best analyzed as an onset cluster on the basis that Mexicans take the same amount of time to pronounce /tl/ as they do to pronounce /pl/ and /kl/ . They predicted that if /tl/ were a single segment, it would have been pronounced quicker than
13020-416: The sequences ⟨tz⟩ and ⟨tl⟩ , corresponding to the voiceless alveolar affricate [t͡s] and the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate [t͡ɬ] , present in many indigenous languages of Mexico, as in the words tlapalería [t͡ɬapaleˈɾia] ('hardware store') and coatzacoalquense [koat͡sakoalˈkense] ('from [the city of] Coatzacoalcos '). Mexican Spanish always pronounces
13144-455: The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Mexico and the Netherlands, the then Crown Prince of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander , made a statement to the audience with a word that, in Mexican Spanish, is considered very vulgar. Evidently oblivious to the word's different connotations in different countries, the prince's Argentine interpreter used the word chingada as the ending to
13268-839: The speech of central Mexico, having its apparent origin in the State of Mexico , is the use of negation in an unmarked yes/no question . Thus, in place of " ¿Quieres...? " (Would you like...?), there is a tendency to ask " ¿No quieres...? " (Wouldn't you like...?). Mexican Spanish retains a number of words that are considered archaic in Spain. Also, there are a number of words widely used in Mexico which have Nahuatl, Mayan or other native origins, in particular names for flora, fauna and toponyms . Some of these words are used in most, or all, Spanish-speaking countries, like chocolate and aguacate ("avocado"), and some are only used in Mexico. The latter include guajolote "turkey" < Nahuatl huaxōlōtl [waˈʃoːloːt͡ɬ] (although pavo
13392-433: The suffixes -ito and -ísimo ; therefore camionzotototote means very, very, very big bus . The suffix -uco or -ucho and its feminine counterparts -uca and -ucha respectively, are used as a disparaging form of a noun; for example, the word casa , meaning "house", can be modified with that suffix ( casucha ) to change the word's meaning to make it disparaging, and sometimes offensive; so
13516-547: The syntax of Mexican Spanish (as well as that of other areas in the Americas), manifested, for example, in the redundant use of verbal clitics , particularly lo . This is more common among bilinguals or in isolated rural areas. Mucho muy can be used colloquially in place of the superlative -ísimo , as in: Mexican Spanish, like that of many other parts of the Americas, prefers the preposition por in expressions of time spans, as in A more or less recent phenomenon in
13640-415: The term castellano to define the official language of 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
13764-528: 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
13888-444: 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,
14012-623: 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
14136-807: The third most spoken after Spanish and the native languages taken together. Given these circumstances, anglicisms in Mexican Spanish are continuously increasing (as they are also in the rest of the Americas and Spain), including filmar "to film", béisbol "baseball", club "club", coctel "cocktail", líder "leader", cheque "check", sándwich "sandwich", etc. Mexican Spanish also uses other anglicisms that are not used in all Spanish-speaking countries, including bye , ok , nice , cool , checar "to check", fólder "folder", overol "overalls", réferi "referee", lonchera "lunch bag", clóset "closet", maple "maple syrup", baby shower , etc. English influence, at least in border cities, may result in lower use of
14260-410: The traditional Spanish of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Central Mexico is noted for the frequent use of diminutive suffixes with many nouns, adverbs, and adjectives, even where no semantic diminution of size or intensity is implied. Most frequent is the -ito/ita suffix, which replaces the final vowel on words that have one. Words ending with -n use the suffix -cito/cita . Use of
14384-476: The use of the suffix -Le to give an emphatic character to the imperative . For example: brinca "jump" -> brínca le "jump", come "eat" -> cóme le "eat", pasa "go/proceed" -> pása le "go/proceed", etc. This suffix is considered to be a crossover of the Spanish indirect object pronoun -le with the Nahua excitable interjections, such as cuele "strain." However, this suffix
14508-405: The vowel behavior of Nahuatl and that of Central Mexican Spanish; and thirdly, he finds Nahuatl syllable structure no more complex than that of Spanish. Furthermore, Nahuatl is not alone as a possible influence, as there are currently more than 90 native languages spoken in Mexico. Due to influence from indigenous languages , such as Nahuatl , Mexican Spanish has incorporated many words containing
14632-580: The waves of 19th- and 20th-century migration from Mexico to the United States , have contributed greatly to making Mexican Spanish the most widely spoken variety of Spanish in the United States. Finally, the Spanish spoken in coastal areas often exhibits certain phonetic traits in common with the Caribbean rather than with that of central Mexico, and the Spanish of the Yucatán Peninsula is quite distinct from other varieties. It should also be noted that there
14756-428: The word casucha often refers to a shanty, hut or hovel. The word madera ("wood") can take the suffix -uca ( maderuca ) to mean "rotten, ugly wood". Other suffixes include, but are not limited to: -azo as in carrazo , which refers to a very impressive car ( carro ) such as a Ferrari or Mercedes-Benz; -ón , for example narizón , meaning "big-nosed" ( nariz = "nose"), or patona ,
14880-642: Was at one point more prevalent in peripheral areas, but that the influence of Mexico City has led to the diffusion of a style of pronunciation without /s/ -weakening, especially among the urban middle classes. /s/ -weakening on both the Pacific and the Gulf Coast was strengthened by influences from Andalusian , Canarian , and Caribbean Spanish dialects. Also, the dialects spoken in rural Chihuahua , Sonora , and Sinaloa , like that of New Mexico , have developed aspiration of syllable-initial /s/ , as in words like pasar 'to pass' and señor 'sir'. Despite
15004-630: 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
15128-604: 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
15252-713: 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")
15376-462: 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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