Spanish language
Spanish or Castilian (in its own language: español, castellano) is one of the Romance languages. It began as a variety of Latin in what is now northern Spain, and has since become one of the world's most widely-spoken languages. Its is nowadays the first spoken language and the state language of Spain, as well as of a majority of american countries which are, from north to south, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. In most of these countries, however, Spanish coexists with several minority languages. Spanish is also practised by an important part of the population of the United States, has an official status in Equatorial Guinea and enjoys some diffusion in the Philippines, in Morocco and in Western Sahara.
Spanish is closely related to the following Romance languages:
- Asturian-Leonese (asturllionés)
- Galician-Portuguese (galegoportuguês)
- Aragonese (aragonés, fabla)
- Catalan (català)
- Occitan (occitan)
Ladino (djudeo-espanyol, sefardí) is a Spanish dialect.
Phonology
Due to a Basque substratum (which can also occur in the Gascon dialect of Occitan), but in all positions, Latin initial f- mutated into h- before a non-diphthongised vowel.
Spanish around the world
The Philippines
In 2007, the Instituto Cervantes in Manila requested of the Philippine government to reinstate the status of Spanish as an official language, prior to current president's Gloria Arroyo's state visit to Spain in December 2007.