Spanish Language: Global Presence and Linguistic Unity
The Global Reach of the Spanish Language
The number of people who speak Spanish as their first language is estimated at 450 million. In South America, it is the official language in eighteen republics, is co-official in Puerto Rico, and is increasingly spoken in the southern and large U.S. cities. Spanish gained dominance in America, a region where more than a hundred indigenous languages were spoken. These languages coexisted with Castilian for a time. The final implementation process took place after the independence of the colonies, starting in 1810.
The Spanish of America has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from mainland achievements, so that one can speak of a fully differentiated geographical range, although there is not uniformity within it, and a number of areas with some distinctive features can be identified. These differences are due, firstly, to the influence of indigenous languages, and secondly, to the geographical origin of the Spanish colonizers.
The main features of Spanish in America, at the phonetic level, show some Andalusian influence: lisp, yeísmo, confusion of l and r implosive, aspiration of initial h, etc. At morphological and syntactic levels, the following stand out: voseo, employment of ustedes instead of vosotros, unique forms in the present tense and imperative, use of the adjective as an adverb, etc. Although the main differences between peninsular and American dominion are given at the lexical level, on the whole, most of the vocabulary is common to both areas, as geographical variations exist in all languages and do not prevent the unity of the language.
Spanish Beyond Spanish-Speaking Republics
Spanish is not only spoken in the Spanish-American republics in which it is an official language; Spanish-speaking communities are also found in many other places. If any of them are in decline, others increase every day in the number of people who are native speakers and, above all, those who study it as their first foreign language.
- Philippines: Until the first third of the twentieth century, Spanish was the official language in the Philippines. Currently, it is not required to be studied in formal education.
- Equatorial Guinea: There are fewer than half a million Spanish speakers.
- United States: The number of those who use it as their first language has gradually increased to around 40 million, and it is the most studied foreign language in universities.
- Morocco: There are also some speakers in the areas of Morocco that were Spanish protectorates.
- Sahara: About 200,000 people have it as an official and teaching language.
- Sephardic Jews: Finally, the descendants of Jews expelled by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, or Sephardic Jews, speak Judeo-Spanish, a form of Castilian very similar to that spoken in the late fifteenth century. This language is spoken in locations around the world but especially in areas of Romania, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and Israel.
The Unity of the Spanish Language
Many authors have raised the problem of the unity of our language. However, most reviews seem to think that this unit is not in danger, based on increasingly strong cultural exchanges and joint actions of educational systems, where communications are established each day with more ease between different countries, and that Spanish-language literature uses the same idiomatic model.
However, the obvious differences call for a single pan-Hispanic standard to avoid the dangers of possible fragmentation. In this sense, the Association of Spanish Language Academies has done important work in defense of our language unit. The holding of international conferences and the joint publication of fundamental works seem to guarantee the continuity and unity of the Spanish language.