Spanish

Source: http://betohs2008.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/how-spanish-language-began/

Spanish also known as Castellano in Spain is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese. México contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and used as an official language of the European Union.

Is the native language of 330 million people in the world. In addition to Spain, Spanish is the official language of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In addition, it is widely spoken in several other nations, including Canada, Morocco, the Philippines, and the United States. The language of Cervantes, Picasso and García Márquez is already the second world language as for of international communication and the third as an international language of politics, economics and culture.

Spanish became the major diplomatic language until the 18th century. The lexicon at this time began to incorporate a large body of words from other languages, both European and Native American. From Italian came such new words as: “soneto”, “medalla” and “piano”. Gallicisms included: “jard­n” and “sargento”. Words like “patata”, “cndor”, “alpaca” and “puma” came from Quechua and Guarani. From the family of Nahuatl languages came such familiar vocabulary as: “chocolate”, “tomate” and “cacao”.

In 1713, the Real Academia Española was founded. Spanish grammar was formalized during this period and there was a great advanced in Hispanic literature, helped by Spanish’s relatively free word order, creating a variety of diverse literary styles.

Reference

Yule, G. (2006). The Study of Language: Third Edition, Cambridge University New York.