How was Spanish born? Origin of a universal language
The most recent statistics ensure that the Spanish It is the second language in the world with the most native speakers, only behind Mandarin Chinese. However, not everything has been a path of roses for this language. The origins of Spanish (or Castilian, as preferred) come from many centuries ago, and specifically from a very determined region of the north of the Iberian Peninsula.
The spanish It is an Iberian Romance language. Romance languages are those that derive from the ancient Roman Empire and its conquests. Spanish, the french, the Romanian, the Italian, Portuguese, Galician or Catalan are Romance languages, since they all derive from Latin (from vulgar Latin, to put it more precisely).
Castilian, an origin older than the Romans
The army of the Roman Empire reached the Iberian Peninsula in 218 B.C. During the later centuries, the Roman troops conquered Hispania by defeating their previous occupants (Phoenicians, Basques, Carthaginians, Greeks and Iberians). As a consequence of the invasion, the Vulgar Latin, which was the language spoken by the soldiers, spread throughout the territory, although it was mixed with the languages of the previous peoples. of pre-Roman societies we maintain words like “Cabaña”, “Beer”, “Salmon” or “mud”, among many others.
Centuries later, around 400 AD, the barbarians (people of German origin) invaded the peninsula and the Romans were expelled. Of this cultures Central European we maintain terms such as “War”, “Pride”, “Soap” or “towel”.
a Muslim occupation and the birth of Spanish
In 711 the Muslims occupied the peninsula and remained in it for eight centuries. As is known, this culture that came from North Africa founded al-Andalus, a sophisticated civilization that came to dominate almost all the peninsular territory. of that period we still maintain words of Arabic origin that are present in our language. “sugar”, “olive”, “mayor”, “syrup” or “rider” are some examples.
Studies say that Castilian was born around the 9th century in a very specific area of Spain, between the south of Cantabria and the north of Burgos. At first, Castilian was a romance dialect that coexisted in the peninsula along with others similar to it, such as the Galician-Portuguese, the Astur-Leonese or the Catalan.
Alfonso X, Antonio de Nebrija y Covarrubias, capital figures of Spanish
The Castilian variant of Vulgar Latin began to evolve until it ended up establishing itself in the peninsular center during the 9th and 20th centuries. However, the standardization of language Castilian will not be produced until the 13th century, when King Alfonso X, known as “El Sabio”, turned Toledo into the capital of Spanish.
Two centuries later, in 1492, Antonio de Nebrija published his grammatica. This work strengthened Spanish as the official language of the kingdom. In addition, Nebrija’s text was the first book that tried to study and understand the grammar of a European language.
119 years later, in 1611, the first dictionary of the Spanish language was published. The work was called Treasure of the Castilian or Spanish language, and was the work of the scholar from Toledo Sebastián de Covarrubias.
Castilian in America and its subsequent global expansion
As we have seen, Latin did not come to the peninsula casually, but entered the territory as a consequence of the Roman conquest. Well, Spanish was introduced in Latin America by a similar process. The Spaniards, landing on a continent still unknown to them, imposed their language on native languages. Fortunately, we still have some words of Amerindian heritage, such as “Canoa”, “Cacique” or “RUBLE”.
Today Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Estimates assure that 483 million people have Spanish as a native language, which makes it the second with the most native speakers in the world. In addition, it is currently estimated that around 580 million people speak Spanish, that is, almost 8% of the world’s population.
And as if it were not enough, Spanish is the third most used language in the world. Online. Our language, which is spoken on all the continents of the planet, is a universal language that is not predicted other than to continue evolving and increasing its influence.
For this reason, the translation work that involves Spanish is increasingly frequent and demanded. The most common translation of Spanish is English Due to the number of documents, websites and texts needed in both languages, Although in NUADDA We do very frequently translations from Spanish to other languages, mainly by French, German, English and Italian.
