As a general rule, the peninsula is home to five different languages: Aranese, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish. This does not however mean that all Spaniards speak these languages; Spain is politically divided into different regions and these languages are official and unofficial in Spanish autonomous communities.
What are the 4 languages of Spain?
How many languages are spoken in Spain? As a general rule, the peninsula is home to five different languages: Aranese, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish.
Does Spain only have one language?
Most languages spoken in Spain belong to the Romance language family, of which Spanish is the only language which has official status for the whole country.
What are the 6 official languages of Spain?
The 6 Official Languages of Spain and How to Learn ThemLanguage map of Spain.Castilian Spanish.Catalan.Valencian.Aranese.Basque.Galician.
Does Spain have their own language?
Castilian Spanish is the official national language of Spain. However, there are other co-official languages spoken in Spain´s many culturally diverse regions that form an important part of the Spanish cultural patrimony.
Is English spoken in Spain?
Spain, much like many other European countries, speaks English as a second language and has over 11 million English-speaking residents.
Does everyone in Spain speak Spanish?
Nearly 94 percent of the population in Spain speak Spanish, but only about 82 percent call it their mother tongue. With more than 45 million people speaking Spanish in the country, Spain ranks number three together with Colombia among the countries with the most Spanish speakers, after Mexico and the United States.
What is the first language in the world?
Dating back to at least 3500 BC, the oldest proof of written Sumerian was found in today's Iraq, on an artifact known as the Kish Tablet. Thus, given this evidence, Sumerian can also be considered the first language in the world.
Which language has the most words?
EnglishCounting the Words in the DictionaryLanguageWords in the DictionaryEnglish171,476Russian150,000Spanish93,000Chinese85,5683 more rows•Mar 7, 2018
What is Spain most known for?
What is Spain known for? Here are the top 7 things about the countryThe food. Of course, we couldn't talk about a visit to Spain without diving into the food. ... The markets. This may go hand-in-hand with the food, but Spain's markets are a must for anyone. ... The architecture. ... Flamenco. ... Soccer. ... Siestas. ... Nighttime adventures.
What is Spanish from Spain called?
Castilian SpanishIn English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general.
What are people from Spain called?
A person who is from Spain or has origins from Spain is Spanish.
What is Spain's second language?
SpanishSpain / Official languageThe most common language in Spain is Spanish which is currently spoken by 94% of the total population as their first or second language. This is followed by Catalan (16%), Galician (5.64%) and Basque (1.26%).
How many languages do we have in Spain?
fiveThere are five official languages in Spain: Castilian, Catalan, Galician, Basque and Aranese (which has only 2,800 native speakers). The most common language in Spain is Spanish which is currently spoken by 94% of the total population as their first or second language.
How many Spanish language are there?
How Many Spanish Languages Are There? The answer to the above question is: There are ten major Spanish dialects. Generally, languages seem to be named after a certain culture or the people or inhabitants of a country.
How many languages can Spanish people speak?
Nowadays 16 different languages (official and unofficial) are spoken on the Iberian Peninsula and the 11 islands that are an important part of the country. Here are the languages listed and ranked by the number of speakers in descending order: 1.
Is Spain a multilingual country?
A historically multilingual country, Spain is today legally divided into 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities. The 1978 Spanish Constitution stipulates that Castilian – i.e., Spanish – is the official language of the Spanish state and that all Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it.
What are the two languages spoken in Spain?
The autonomous communities have established the following official languages in their respective territories: Catalan in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, Valencian (a variety of Catalan) in Valencia, Galician in Galicia, Basque in the Basque Country and a part of Navarre, and the Aranes language in the Aran Valley. Catalan and Valencian are considered two varieties of the same language.
Where is Spanish spoken in Spain?
Spanish is predominant in the metropolitan area of Valencia, the metropolitan area of Alicante - Elche and in the metropolitan area of Castellón de la Plana, while Valencian is predominant in the northern part of the province of Alicante, the south of Valencia province, and most of the province of Castellón.
What is the native language of Spain?
According to the Survey of the Involvement of the Adult Population in Learning Activities distributed by the National Institute of Statistics with data from 2016, in regards to the languages in Spain that are native languages or languages that are not native but used, 98.9% of the population speaks Spanish, 17.5% speaks Catalan, 6.2% speaks Galician, 5.8% speaks Valencian (a variety of Catalan ) and 3.0% speaks Basque. For autonomous communities, Catalan can be used by almost 85% of the population of Catalonia and 63.1% of the Balearic region, Galician is used by 89% of Galicians, Valencian is used by 51.8% of the residents in that community and Basque is spoken by 55.1% of the Basque population and 21.7% of people in Navarre. With regard to native languages alone, Galician is the native language of 82.8% of Galicians, Catalan is the native language of 31.6% of people in Catalonia and of 42.9% of the residents in the Balearic region. Valencian (a variety of Catalan ) is the native language of 35.2% of the population in that community and Basque is the native language of 33.7% of the Basque people and of 14.6% of those from Navarre.
What is the language of the Aran Valley?
Aranese, a variety of Occitan/Gascon spoken in the Aran Valley, in the northwest of Lleida province, is official in this valley and from 2006 in all of Catalonia following the new Statute of Autonomy. In the Aran Valley, Spanish is the native language of 38.8% of the population (many of them born elsewhere), Aranese is the native language of 34.2% and Catalan of 19.4%, according to the data from the census in 2001. Aranese is the native language of about 2,800 people, representing 0.007% of the population of Spain.
What is the language of the Balearic Islands?
Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands, or Balearic Catalan, is a variety of eastern Catalan that presents some features that are very different from Peninsular Catalan , such as the replacement of the articles el/la by es/sa. In the Balearic Islands, Spanish is the native language of 47.7% of the population (most of them born elsewhere in Spain), Catalan of 42.6%, and 1.8% claim both languages as native, according to a survey done in 2003 by the Balearic government. Spanish is the predominant language in the metropolitan area of Palma de Mallorca and in Ibiza, while Catalan is predominant in Menorca and in the rural areas of Mallorca.
What is the difference between Spanish and Valencian?
In the bilingual zone, Spanish is the language spoken at home as a preferred form by 54.5% of the population, while Valencian is preferred by 36.4% and 6.2% use both languages, according to a study performed in 2003 by the Valencian government.
What is the predominant language in Mallorca?
Spanish is the predominant language in the metropolitan area of Palma de Mallorca and in Ibiza, while Catalan is predominant in Menorca and in the rural areas of Mallorca. In Valencia, Valencian is a western variety of the Catalan language spoken in this autonomous community.
What are the languages of Spain?
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). About 17% of the population speaks Catalan, making its speakers one of the largest bilingual, non-state communities in Europe. Galician is spoken by 9% of the population of Spain, mainly in Galicia which is an autonomous region in the northwest and is related to Portuguese. Occitan is also spoken in Catalonia where the inhabitants use a subdialect called Aranese. These languages are widely used in newspapers, books, on TV, and in local government.
What is the official language of Spain?
Spanish is the official language of Spain. Also referred to as Castilian, it is a Romance language with origins in the Castile region of Spain. 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. Within Spain, approximately 88% of the population speaks it as their native language, and 99% are able to speak it.
What is the language of Catalonia?
Occitan is also spoken in Catalonia where the inhabitants use a subdialect called Aranese. These languages are widely used in newspapers, books, on TV, and in local government. The recognized regional languages are Aragonese, Asturian, and Leonese. These are not official and are considered minority endangered languages.
How many people speak French?
Additionally, it is also spoken by French-born individuals who currently number about 100,448. German is spoken by only 2% of the population.
How many people are born in Spain?
Approximately 6.1 million people in Spain were born in different countries. This number represents a little more than 13% of the population. The majority of these immigrants have come from the European Union, Latin America, Morocco, China, and Russia (to name a few).
Where is Catalan spoken?
Catalan is spoken in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia (autonomous communities). About 17% of the population speaks Catalan, making its speakers one of the largest bilingual, non-state communities in Europe.
Where is Leonese spoken?
Leonese is spoken in Castile and Le ón by between 20,000 and 50,000 people. Unofficial regional languages include Cantabrian (an Astur-Leonese dialect), Extremaduran (spoken in the autonomous region of Extremadura), Judaeo-Spanish (spoken by Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492), Riffian Berber ...
What are the official languages of Spain?
A look at the variety of languages in Spain (including Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian), the status of official languages in Spain, and how to say some simple phrases in these languages.
What are the main languages spoken in Spain?
Other languages in Spain include: Aranese ( Aranés in Spanish and Aranese), Asturian ( Asturiano in Spanish and Bable in Asturian), Aragonese ( Aragonés in both Spanish and Aragonese), Cantabrian ( Cántabro in Spanish and Cántabru in Cantabrian), and Extremaduran ( Extremeño in Spanish and Ehtremeñu in Extremaduran), which are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Spain. While Aranese and Extremaduran are the only languages in this group that are designated as co-official in Spain (in the Aran Valley in Catalunya and Extremadura, respectively), the other languages do enjoy varying degrees of recognition. Asturian, for example, while not official, is a protected language and enjoys its own Academia de la Llingua Asturiana.
How many people speak Catalan?
The Catalan language is called Catalán in Spanish and Català in Catalan, and evolved from Latin between the 8th and 10th centuries. Today, there are over five million Catalan speakers in Catalunya and the Balearic Islands, where Catalan is a co-official language. The Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) – headquartered in Barcelona – is responsible for regulating and researching the Catalan language in Catalunya and the Balearic Islands. The Institut Ramon Llull (IRC) – also headquartered in Barcelona – promotes Catalan language and culture in the world. They also award certificates to foreigners who demonstrate minimum levels of Catalan-language proficiency according to the ALTE scale.
What is the Basque language called?
The Basque language is called Vasco, Vascuence, or Euskera in Spanish and Euskara or Euskera in Basque, but the origins of the language are not known with certainty. Today, Basque is a co-official language in the Basque Country and part of Navarra where approximately 26% of the population in these areas speak Basque, although figures vary by area. According to the Basque government, 48% of people in Guipúzcoa are Spanish-Basque bilingual, while 10.3% of people are Spanish-Basque bilingual in Navarra. However, only 14% of conversations that take place in Basque-speaking areas are estimated to take place in Basque.
Is Valencian a Spanish language?
The Valencian language is called Valenciano in Spanish and Valencià in Valencian, and is spoken by two million people in the Valencian Community, where it is a co-official language. It should be noted that Catalans generally consider Valencian to be a dialect of Catalan while Valencians generally consider Valencian to be a language in its own right. This discrepancy is largely attributed to differences in the politics and nationalist expressions of each region. The Valencian language enjoys its own governing body, however: the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
How many countries speak Spanish?
Did you know that Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world, second only to Mandarin Chinese? There are 400 million native speakers of Spanish, and interestingly, Spanish has official status in 21 countries including Africa, Europe, and South, Central, and North America.
What is the official language of Spain?
Perhaps the best example of this is the Spanish language. The official language of Spain is Castilian, so when we’re referring to Spanish as a language, we’re actually referring to Castilian.
How many Spanish dialects are there?
The answer to the above question is: There are ten major Spanish dialects. Generally, languages seem to be named after a certain culture or the people or inhabitants of a country.
What was the last major threat to Spanish minority languages?
The last major threat to Spain’s minority languages came during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, who led the conservative Nationalists to victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Although he himself was born in Galicia, his ideology of conformity (called National Catholicism) mandated Castilian Spanish as the sole official language of the state; it became a crime to speak Galician in public, for example.
Where did Spanish start?
It makes a lot more sense that the birthplace of español could also be home to half a dozen other languages when you realize that Castilian Spanish began its life as the everyday Latin spoken around modern-day Burgos province in north-central Spain.
What is the language of Fala?
Very similar to Galician is Fala (“Speech”), hidden away in isolated valleys of northwest Extremadura. Its tiny but strong community of speakers can easily communicate with Galician speakers, although they prefer to distinguish Fala as its own language.
What did Felipe V do after the Spanish Succession?
After the 18th-century War of the Spanish Succession (a dynastic struggle/civil war), the new king Felipe V issued the Nueva Planta decrees that made Castilian laws universal throughout the country and Castilian the language of government. He did this partly to centralize Spain and partly to punish the regions of Aragón, Catalunya, and Valencia, which had opposed him in the war (and which also spoke Aragonese and Catalan).
What languages are being restored after Franco died?
Today, once critically endangered languages are making a comeback and Galician, Basque, and Catalan are stronger than ever before in recent history.
Where did the Aragonese language originate?
Like the medieval kingdom of Aragón, the Aragonese language began in the foothills of the central Pyrenees and gradually spread south. However, over the centuries, Castilian replaced its cousin Aragonese in much of this region, and the language is now spoken only in far-northern Huesca and Zaragoza provinces.
Is Caló a Spanish language?
the Romani people), the caló language is actually a “mixed” language that takes Spanish grammar and replaces most Spanish words with a totally different lexicon. Remember that modern-day Gypsies are descendants of nomadic people from northern India who migrated to Europe centuries ago; hence, Iberian Romani takes a lot of its vocabulary from the ancestral spoken language but operates using Spanish grammatical rules.
How many countries are there in Europe?
Europe is a continent with many countries (about 50 ) and almost each country has its own language, known as the national language. Some countries have even more than one national language.
Is English a lingua franca?
On the other hand, English is on the rise used not only in Europe as a lingua franca, esc pecially by the younger generation of Europeans, even so France tried hard to protect its citizens from the unwanted influence of English on French (language) culture.
Official Languages of Spain
There is a variety of Vernacular languages spoken in Spain. Spanish, the official language in the entire country, is the predominant native language in almost all of the autonomous communities in Spain. Six of the seventeen autonomous communities in Spain have other co-official languages in addition to Spanish. Bilingualism in different degrees and in distinct communicative situations between Spanish and another language is a habitual practice for many of the Spanish people wh…
Regional Languages of Spain
Immigrant Languages of Spain
Main Foreign Languages of Spain