Spanish Language in the Americas: History and Influences

The Global Reach of Spanish

The reach of the Spanish language is vast, with the majority of speakers concentrated in Spain and the countries of Central and South America, excluding Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken. Additionally, there are single-state areas where Spanish is the primary language.

In areas formerly under Spanish rule, such as the Philippines, Western Sahara, Morocco, and Equatorial Guinea, Spanish remains influential. Judeo-Spanish, a 15th-century form of Spanish, is spoken in Israel.

While Spanish may be a third language for some, it is widely studied as a second language. The Cervantes Institute promotes the international diffusion of Spanish.

The Spanish of the Americas

We generically refer to the Spanish of the Americas as the most geographically diverse and vibrant variety of our language. Spanish is the official language of 19 Latin American republics, co-official with Guarani in Paraguay, with Quechua in Peru, and with English in Puerto Rico.

The discovery of America in 1492 led to the penetration of Spanish in these lands.

The Hispanization process was complex, resulting in the rich blend of languages and cultures that now characterize Spanish in the Americas.

American Spanish: General Characteristics

• Dialect features are closely linked with southern Spanish dialects.
• There is great linguistic diversity throughout Latin America.

Foreign Influences (Extranjerismos)

Reasons for Their Appearance:

• Scientific and technical discoveries are often named with foreign words, especially English.
• Neglect or media influence has led to the unnecessary adoption of foreign words or expressions into Castilian.

Extranjerismos, or foreign words, are used in our language. Sometimes their use is undesirable because there are equivalent words in Castilian. However, some foreign terms are necessary to describe new realities.

Difficulties:

• Pronunciation of foreign sounds in Castilian (e.g., "show").
• Unfamiliar and difficult spelling (e.g., "software").
• Mismatches between pronunciation and spelling (e.g., "hall" = [jol]).
• Terminations beyond our language's morphological norms, such as the formation of plurals (e.g., "playback," "casting").

Another form of foreign influence occurs through semantics, where a foreign meaning is adopted for a word that already exists in our language.