Two major speeches influenced the creation of Spanish: the Medieval Romance language of the Kingdom of Castile and the Mozarabic dialect of the Muslim Kingdom of Toledo. As the Spanish Empire spread across the world in the 16th century, so too did their language. Today, hundreds of millions of people speak Spanish as their first language. Co-official regional languages include Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Occitan.
Basque is the only non-Romance language with official status in the country and is in fact, not related to any other language. It is spoken by the inhabitants of Basque Country and northern Navarre. Catalan is spoken in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia autonomous communities. Galician: It is the official language of the region of Galicia which lies in the north-west corner of Spain.
It is also a Romance language, but differs from other Spanish languages in that it is mutually intelligible with Portuguese, because Galicia and Portugal were united during medieval times. Galician is the mother tongue of 2. Basque: It is the official language of the Basque Country, which is the area located in the northern border of Spain. It is sometimes referred to as Euskara and is the only language in Spain that does not have any ties with Romance languages.
In fact, Euskara has no generic relation to any other language and is one of the oldest in Europe, even more ancient than Latin. Basque is estimated to be the mother tongue of around , people. Aranese: It is spoken in the Val d'Aran region in the northeast of Spain and derives from the Gascon dialect of Occitan. Conclusions The Spanish language has a rich heritage that dates back to thousands of years when several previously independent kingdoms were all merged into the Kingdom of Spain.
Related post. Recent Post. Catalan is by far the most widely spoken regional language in Spain. With around 11 million speakers in four countries, Catalan is also the most spoken regional language within the European Union. Another widely spoken regional language in Spain is Galician, which, like Spanish and Catalan, belongs to the romance family of languages and can similarly trace its heritage back to Latin.
In Galicia, it is spoken by around 3 million people, and the language has incredibly close ties to the Portuguese language. But beware to not confuse Galicia, the region in Spain, with the Galicia that straddles the border between Poland and Ukraine!
In the Basque country you will encounter another fascinating language. Basque is a so-called isolated language, which, according to current research, is not related to any other living language, making it unique in Europe. It is estimated that Basque is spoken by , people in the Basque region, an area along the Spanish and French border at the western end of the Pyrenees. The majority of Basques count both Basque and Spanish as their mother tongue, and the use of Basque in schools, the media, and other forms of public life varies from region to region.
Alongside these three well-known regional languages, there are a few others in Spain, some of which are only spoken by a few thousand people. The one thing that all regional languages in Spain have in common is that they have experienced an extremely turbulent history, and the usage of these languages is still a contentious political issue.
Under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, which lasted from till , regional languages were marginalized and even banned in public places. Be it in schools, in the media, in theaters or in the church — in all public spaces, only Spanish castellano was allowed to be spoken, a tactic designed to encourage unity in the Spanish nation.
0コメント