In which countries is Spanish the main language? In which countries do they speak Spanish? Spanish speaking countries

Spanish is widely spoken throughout the world. 21 states have given it official status. About half a billion people consider Spanish their native language. Spanish is one of the six languages of the UN international organization. Thanks to the conquistadors and Spanish sailors, Spanish spread far beyond the country's borders. In Latin America, Africa and Asia they began to speak Spanish, only with some peculiarities.

The Spanish language began to emerge in medieval Castile. In the modern Spanish-speaking world, they like to call it castellano or Castilian. Spanish belongs to the Romance language group, but has been greatly influenced by Arabic. Spanish is the second most widely spoken language on the planet. Only Chinese is ahead of it.

There are dialectal varieties of the language in Latin America and Spain. In Spain, there are traditionally two groups of dialects: northern and southern. The northern ones include Casitilla, Catalan, Galician and other dialects, the southern ones include Madrid, Valencian, Extremaduran and others.

A number of scientists consider some of the above dialects to be languages. This is because many language varieties are officially recognized in the regions where they are used. The Castilian dialect (castellano) is common in several central and northern regions of Spain. It is the Castilian pronunciation that is the norm in the Spanish language.

Catalan (or Catalan) is spoken in Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia. It is in second place in popularity among Spaniards. About 10 million people communicate on it.

The Galician dialect (not to be confused with the Galician language!) emerged as a result of mixing castellano and the Galician language. Distributed in Galicia. The Galician language itself (galego) is considered close to Spanish and Portuguese. In Galicia, Galician, along with Spanish, is considered an official language.

In Spain they also speak Basque (euskara). This language is spoken in some northern regions of Spain. These territories bear the historical name of the Basque Country - after the name of the people living there. Interestingly, it is not part of the foreign European family of languages (unlike Spanish, Galician, etc.); the history of its origin is still unclear.

In the province of Asturias, in northern Spain, locals speak the Asturian dialect. Official recognition this adverb did not receive. However, this dialect is considered the fifth most popular among the population in Spain.

Linguists agree that such a wide variety of languages and dialects arose due to the geographical isolation of the Iberian Peninsula. After the discovery of America, the conquest of the lands of the New World began by the Spanish conquistadors. Thanks to this, the Spanish language became widespread in Latin America. The Spaniards discover new territories and conquer local tribes. The Spanish language is undergoing changes due to mixing with the spoken language of the natives.

Thus, a huge number of variants of the Spanish language have emerged in Latin America. Based on similar characteristics and characteristics, they are grouped into five main groups:

Caribbean group. This version of the Spanish language has spread to some regions of Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. It can also be heard in regions of Mexico close to the Caribbean Sea.
South American Pacific region. Some residents of Peru, Chile, and Ecuador speak a specific language.
Central American group. This includes El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica.
Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina.
The fifth group includes Latin American Spanish. It is used by residents of Guatemala, Mexico, and Colombia.

The Spanish language in Latin America is different in each country. A Mexican may not understand an Argentine, a Cuban a Peruvian, or a Guatemalan a Chilean. This is quite normal, because each country has its own cultural characteristics. Based on the generally accepted Castilian pronunciation, new phonetic forms appear. On the basis of new national variants, culture develops, its own literature, poetry and folklore appear.

The difference between different options from each other lies in intonation, pronunciation, as well as the use of certain expressions and words. If you pay attention to the features of the Spanish language in Latin America, you can see differences in the choice of pronouns in comparison with classical Spanish. Traditionally in Spanish the pronoun “tu” is used to denote the second person. In Argentina, "vos" is used for this. These pronouns are used in colloquial and informal speech. As for the official, both in Spain and in Latin American countries it is customary to use the pronoun “usted”.

Latin American varieties of Spanish tend to simplify some grammatical phenomena. For example, individual forms of tense formation are greatly simplified. Lexical changes are caused by the addition of the synonymous series. Changes in phonetics are expressed in different pronunciations of the same word. Intonation may also change.

Numerous teaching aids They propose to learn the Spanish language in its highest literary form, that is, the Castilian dialect. Those who want to learn Spanish from scratch should really start with the standardized version. This will help form the correct classical pronunciation and facilitate the acquisition of the language as a whole.

Spain amazes not only with its bright sun, magnificent beaches, delicious food, passionate dancing, incredible architecture and emotional beautiful people. Spain also surprises with the number of languages and dialects.

Just imagine, there are four official languages in Spain (!), not to mention the dialects. The languages, of course, have some similarities, but the differences are so great that each of them has acquired the status of an independent language.

Castilian language

Castilian is the very official Spanish, which received its name from the kingdom of Castile, where it, in fact, was formed. The country's culture was so multinational that a language that everyone could understand was simply necessary. Therefore, Castilian became the official language. The Spaniards call it castellano, and if the conversation turns to other countries, then español. Castilian is spoken mainly in the north and center of Spain. Castilian is spoken by more than 40 million people throughout the country and is the most widely spoken Spanish language. Castilian dialects can be found in areas near borders where the two languages are mixed. Among them are: Madrid, Aragonese, Galician, Rioja, Murcian and Churro.

Catalan

Catalan (catala) is spoken in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. In these areas, like Spanish, it is an official language. In addition, Catalan is used in Andorra, where it has been recognized as an official language, in the south of France and Sardinia. In terms of the number of people speaking it in Spain, it takes an honorable second place - 10 million people. There is also a Valencian version of the Catalan language, which differs in phonetics, but until now it has not been isolated as a separate language or dialect. But Mallorquin, spoken in the Balearic Islands, was fully recognized as a dialect of Catalan.

Galician language

The Galician language (galego) is spoken in the Spanish province of Galicia, which borders Portugal. Along with Spanish, Galician was recognized as an official language in this territory. As you might guess, it ranks third in terms of the number of users in Spain: it is native to 3 million people. Due to territorial factors, Galician is considered close to both Spanish and Portuguese. It has three dialects: Western, which is common in the Rias Bajas, approximately to Santiago de Compostela; eastern, which is spoken in the eastern part of Galicia and in the borderlands of Zamora and Leon, and central, which occupies most of the province.

Basque

Basque (euskara) is the fourth most spoken language in Spain, with approximately 800 thousand users. It is spoken in a very limited area. This is the north of Spain: Navarre, Gipuzkoa and part of Vizcaya. Historically, this territory is called the Basque country. Along with Spanish, Basque is an official language in this area, but it does not have the features of Spanish, like Galician. Mysterious Basque cannot be attributed to any language family; it is a so-called isolated language. Its complexity and limited area led to its use as a cipher during World War II.

Asturian dialect

The Asturian language (asturianu), spoken in the northern Spanish province of Asturias, despite its audience of 500 thousand people, has not yet received the status of an official language and continues to be considered a dialect of Spanish, but by law the authorities are obliged to support its study in order to preserve it. Other dialects that are either similar to Asturian or even variants of it are Lena, Cantabrian and Extremaduran.

Madrid. - Spanish, spoken by more than 495 million people, has become the second most widely spoken language in the world after Chinese. The number of people speaking Spanish continued to rise in 2012, while the number of people speaking English and Chinese declined.

These data are contained in the annual report “Spanish in the World” (El español en el mundo), which has been published by the Cervantes Institute since 1998. The current edition was presented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interaction, José Manuel García-Margallo, and the Director of the Cervantes Institute, Victor García de la Concha.

Spanish is also the second language of international communication after English. According to some estimates, by 2030, 7.5% of the world's population will speak Spanish (535 million people). In terms of prevalence, it is surpassed only by Chinese, Garcia de la Concha noted at a presentation held in the main building of the Instituto Cervantes. In three or four generations, 10% of the world's population will communicate in Spanish, and greatest number Hispanics will reside in the United States. In the United States there will be even more of them than in Mexico, the authors of the report believe.

Spanish is already number two on Twitter

On the World Wide Web, Spanish is already the third most used language after English and Chinese. Over the past 10 years, its presence on the Internet has grown by 800%, with the difference between the use of Spanish on the one hand and Japanese, Portuguese and German constantly increasing. IN social network On Twitter, Spanish is already the second most widely spoken language, ahead of Arabic, Russian, Italian, French and German. On Facebook, Spanish is also one of the most used languages. More than 80 million people communicate with each other on it.

The report indicates that approximately 18 million students are learning Spanish as a foreign language. Last year, the Cervantes Institute enrolled 8% more people wanting to study Spanish. The Institute's branches are located in 77 cities in 44 countries, mainly America and Asia.

Garcia de la Concha praised the agreement signed in 2012 with Mexico, which will allow Spain to use Mexican offices in the United States, and reported on the progress of negotiations to create an Observatory of the Spanish Language in the United States. At the same time, he drew attention to the lack of qualified Spanish teachers in countries such as Brazil and China, whose universities in 2010 were able to satisfy only 30% of applications submitted to study Spanish (about 25 thousand Chinese students).

Foreign Minister García-Margallo described the Instituto Cervantes as the jewel in the crown of Spanish foreign policy and warned of the dangers that globalization poses to a world culture dominated by Anglo-American approaches.

Spanish: How many "Spanish languages" are there really?

In terms of the number of native speakers (people who speak the language), Spanish ranks second in the world. Only Chinese is ahead of it. more than half a million inhabitants of the earth consider Spanish their native language, in twenty-one states it is recognized as official: in Spain, in most countries of Latin America, in some states of the USA and even in several countries in Asia and Africa (former Spanish colonies: Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, in the Philippines). In the United States, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language after English. Most US government agencies (White House, Government, etc.) conduct business in both English and Spanish.

Peoples and states for which Spanish is their native and official language consider themselves a multinational community and are called Hispanidad. The understanding of Spanish-speaking peoples as a cultural community began in the 18th century: in 1713, the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language was created, whose task was to standardize the Spanish language used throughout the world. In the 19th century, most Spanish colonies gained independence or came under the control of other states, but the self-perception of Spanish speakers as a community did not disappear and still exists today. In some Spanish-speaking countries, Spanish Unity Day, Día de la Hispanidad, is celebrated as a national holiday.

Official language Spain is considered a Castilian dialect. This type of Spanish is spoken by more than forty million people. In addition to the official one, Spain has three semi-official languages - Catalan, Basque and Galician - and many unrecognized dialects, the most popular of which is the Asturian dialect of Spanish.

About ten million people speak Catalan: residents of Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia. The Galician dialect of Spanish is common in regions neighboring Portugal and is the result of a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. The grammatical structure of Galician is close to Portuguese, and its phonetics are similar to Spanish. Galician is spoken by over 3 million people in Galicia and Galician communities around the world.

The language of the Basques, a people living in the northern part of Spain and the adjacent southern regions of France, has a mysterious theory of origin. This type of Spanish is not related to Indo-European or any other known language families, and is a so-called isolated language. The genetic connections of the language have not been established, but Basque has traditionally been included by scientists in the so-called Paleo-Spanish languages, and more broadly in the unclassified and probably heterogeneous group of Mediterranean languages. The Basque dialect is spoken by about 800,000 people, most of whom live in the Spanish-speaking part of the Basque Country region.

The many dialects of Spanish in Latin America are grouped into five main groups. The dialects of the first, Caribbean group, are spoken by speakers of Spanish in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Caribbean part of Colombia and the Caribbean parts of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Mexico. In the dialects of the second group - in the South American Pacific region - Peru, Chile and Guayaquil, Ecuador. The third, Central American group, includes the Spanish dialects of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The fourth group is the Argentine-Uruguayan-Paraguayan variant, which includes Eastern Bolivia (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando). The fifth group is conventionally called Mountain Latin American Spanish. This language is spoken by the inhabitants of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela, Quito (the capital of Ecuador located at an altitude of 2800 m), the Peruvian mountain range and Bolivia.

Latin dialects of Spanish are characterized by simplification of some grammatical forms. For example, compared to the Castilian dialect, the forms of tense formation are significantly simplified. The vocabulary and pronunciation of the Latin dialects of the Spanish language are also quite different.

Learning Spanish as a foreign language is becoming more and more popular every year. Spanish is needed in many areas today, from business and business collaboration to travel and personal communication. And how could it be otherwise with a language spoken by half a million people? When teachers of leading humanitarian universities in Russia were asked to choose the most promising languages for studying, they answered that in the next ten years it is necessary to learn, first of all, English, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic languages. Every year these languages will become more and more in demand.

And, of course, any school foreign languages today offers huge amount Spanish language courses based on a variety of techniques. Professionals consider communicative methods to be one of the most effective and popular methods of learning Spanish. It is based on the fact that classes are held exclusively in Spanish. This promotes complete immersion in language environment and students overcoming the language barrier. A faster and more significant result can be achieved by learning Spanish with a native speaker. But whatever method of learning you choose - Spanish courses or Spanish classes with a native speaker - first of all, everything depends on you, your willingness to learn the language and your love for it.

Spanish belongs to the group Romance languages and is the most common of them. By the beginning of the 21st century, according to experts, the number of inhabitants of our planet who speak Spanish exceeded 420 million people. Spanish is the native language of the residents Spain And 18 Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador. It is spoken by over 25 million people living in the United States, as well as in the Philippines and parts of North Africa.

The Spanish language, like other Romance languages (French, Portuguese, Italian, etc.), was formed from the spoken Latin language, folk Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Roman conquerors at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes entered the peninsula and had little influence on the Spanish language. At the beginning of the 8th century, the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Arabs began, capturing most of the territory. But already in 718 the population rose up in an armed struggle for liberation and independence. Reconquista: return of occupied lands, creation of Christian states in the liberated territories. Special role played in the Reconquista Castile, which is why the Castilian dialect became the basis of the Spanish literary language. In 1492, at the end of the Reconquista, the Spanish court launched the first expedition to India.

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America. colonial conquest of the New World Spanish conquistadors. The Spaniards discover vast territories from Mexico to Cape Horn in southern Argentina and conquer numerous Indian tribes of the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, Quechuas, Patagonians and others. By the 17th century, Spain had created a huge colonial empire in which, in the words of King Charles V, “The sun never sets.” The Spanish language spreads in conquered lands, and its development in new conditions is influenced by the languages of the indigenous population, which led to the creation of national varieties of the Spanish language in Latin American countries. Over time, this powerful empire, enriched by new overseas possessions, collapsed, like all early and late empires in history, the former colonies became independent, retaining Spanish as the state language, and on its basis creating their own original literature and poetry.

Modern spoken Spanish in Latin American countries one is very different from each other both in phonetics and in lexical composition: a Mexican from the hinterland will not always understand an Argentinean, a Peruvian a Cuban, a Chilean a Guatemalan, etc. This is natural, because Each country has its own way of life, its own characteristics, its own history and culture. And this is not surprising: even in Spain itself, in different provinces, for example, in Valencia and Leon, Andalusia and Castile, they speak differently, but all native speakers of Spanish around the world are united by a generally accepted literary language and standard Castilian pronunciation(the so-called "castellano"), which all educated people adhere to.

Currently, Spanish, along with English, is actively used in international communication, and Russia does not remain aloof from this process. Russian citizens are well acquainted with Spain, its culture and traditions, largely thanks to world-famous figures of Spanish culture, such as Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Federico Garcia Lorca, Miguel de Unamuno, Velazquez, Goya, Picasso. The Spanish language is becoming more and more popular every day in Russia; it is the language of tourism and travel.

The increased interest in the Spanish language is evidenced by the opening of the Cervantes Institute in Moscow in 2001, where anyone can enroll in courses, sit in the library, check out a book, music CD or film, visit an exhibition, watch Spanish cinema or just chat. Instituto Cervantes Spanish government organization, which emerged in 1991 and declared its mission to unite and disseminate cultural heritage Spanish-speaking countries in the world, where the main place is firmly occupied by English language. Cervantes Institutes are open in many countries around the world; Moscow became the thirty-eighth. The Moscow Cervantes Institute is located in a reconstructed three-story mansion in the center of Moscow. The Institute has equipped last word equipment, auditoriums, exhibition halls, library. The language at the Cervantes Institute is taught by Spaniards. The Institute's library contains about 5 thousand volumes, and the Spanish side promises to allocate about 12 thousand euros annually to replenish its funds. Readers can order books through the interlibrary catalog from any library in Spain. In addition, the Cervantes Institute holds conferences, exhibitions, film screenings, concerts and other artistic events. Thus, the activities of the Institute are an important support for the wider study of the Spanish language. The importance that the leadership of the two countries attaches to this is evidenced by the fact that the Cervantes Institute in Moscow was opened personally by the Prince of Asturias.

Regarding the study of the Russian language in Spain, according to the Ministry of Education and Culture of Spain, more than 3,000 people study the language in the country, of which about 700 in universities, over 1,600 in public foreign language schools and the rest in private educational institutions and in Russian language courses at public organizations. On the Russian side, Roszarubezhtsentr, the Institute of Russian Language named after. A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg publishing house "Zlatoust". A common disadvantage of teaching the Russian language in Spanish educational institutions is the lack of modern teaching materials, limited access to the developments of Russian specialists on methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language, and insufficient opportunities for advanced training. One of the leading public organizations involved in the dissemination of the Russian language in Spain is the A.S. Pushkin Foundation in Madrid. Every year 200 300 people study in Russian language courses at the Foundation. Training is conducted according to programs developed by the Russian Language Institute. A.S. Pushkin in Moscow and according to manuals published in Russia. The courses are attended by students, journalists, teachers, diplomats, engineers, doctors, businessmen and people seeking to learn more deeply the language, culture and literature of Russia. The A.S. Pushkin Foundation organizes internships in Russian educational institutions and holds events dedicated to the promotion of Russian culture, literature and art.

Yulia Baltacheva