Languages of Spain: A Sociolinguistic Overview

Language and Society in Spain

Language is a major means of social cohesion and the hallmark of a community.

Geographical Varieties

Geographical varieties of language are related to the fragmentation experienced by that language as it extends across a space. These are called dialects and local dialects. Diachronically, every language is a dialect of another from which it comes.

Formation of Iberian Languages

The current Spanish language situation is the result of a pre-Roman substrate, a Romanization that did not equally affect all the territory, and an Arab invasion that divided the peninsula into two areas: the Arab and Christian.

Castilian Spanish

Castilian, a Romance language that emerged in an area little Romanized (Cantabria and North of Burgos), has more than 350 million speakers in Spain, South America, Central America, Guinea, the former Spanish Sahara, and the Philippines. Its first written words date from the tenth century (glosses), the first grammar from 1492, and in the eighteenth century, the Royal Spanish Academy was founded. Geographical varieties of Castilian are: Andalusian, Murcian, Extremaduran, and Canarian (southern dialect), and Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese (historical dialects).

Latin American Spanish

Latin American Spanish represents a relevant variety due to the large number of people who speak it. Its salient features are seseo, voseo, and a huge variety and lexical richness.

Co-Official Languages in the Peninsula

The co-official languages in the peninsula are Catalan, Valencian, Galician, and Basque. Since the 1978 Constitution, which recognizes their official status, these languages have undergone a standardization process aimed at overcoming the ostracism to which they had been relegated.

Catalan

Catalan, spoken by some ten million people, extends through Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, part of Aragon, Andorra, French Roussillon, and Alghero (Sardinia). Its first written words, Iudicum, appear with the Forum. It experienced two periods of splendor (Middle Ages and Renaixença) and presents two varieties: Western and Eastern.

Valencian

Valencian, with phonetic, morphological, and lexical characteristics, but very similar to those of Western Catalan, is an official language, together with Castilian, in Valencia.

Galician

Galician, spoken by about three million people, spans the four provinces of Galicia and parts of Asturias, Castilla-León (Bierzo and Zamora), and Extremadura. It experienced a period of splendor during the Rexurdimento (linguistic and literary consciousness in Galicia). With the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, it initiated a series of measures aimed at the full normalization of the language.

Basque

Basque, of uncertain origin, is the only language on the peninsula that is not of Latin origin and has more than three thousand years of history. Spoken by about seven hundred thousand people in Euskadi, Navarre, and the French Basque country, it has experienced its own rebirth like Catalan and Galician in the nineteenth century. At present, the ikastolas have made it so that young people know the language better than their parents.

Bilingualism and Diglossia

Spain, a multilingual country, has areas of diglossia (Catalan spoken in Aragon, or Galician in Asturias, Castilla León, and Extremadura) and bilingualism (Catalonia, Galicia, Euskadi...). However, despite normalizing action, bilingualism in the strict sense does not exist.

Language Interference

The interference between languages living together is numerous among the Iberian languages. A special case is composed of mixed patterns (Spanglish).