Mes de la Herencia Hispana

Spanish Language

The history of the Spanish language and the origin started with the linguistic evolution of Vulgar Latin (the name vulgar simply means common and it derives from the Latin word “vulgus”, meaning “people”). Vulgar Latin is a blanket term used to describe the vernacular dialects of the Latin language. The Latin language was spoken in the vast provinces of the Roman Empire starting from the second and 3rd century CE, until its direct merging with the early romance idioms.

The Spanish language is also called Castellano or Espanol . It is known as a Romance language and is the third most spoken language on the planet. At least 352 million persons speak Spanish in seven continents especially in the Americas (417 million including second language users).

The Spanish language was brought to the Americas and Philippines by the Spanish colonization since 16th century. It was used by the Creole and Mestizo descendants of the Spaniards.

Spanish is one of the official languages of the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations. Although there are many countries that speak Spanish there are different dialects. Mexico may use a different version of Spanish and Cuba will use another. Some words in the Spanish language maybe written the same but have different meaning. For example the word “chino” could mean orange (Mexican) or Chinese (Latin).  Here are a few countries and terrritories that use the Spanish language.