Spanish Language: Evolution, Global Presence, and American Dialects

Spanish in the Digital Age

New Technologies and Institutions

Among the technological resources serving the Spanish language, the internet, online press, text processors, and grammar checkers stand out.

• Real Academia Española: With support from other academies, it has made resources available online, including Spelling, the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts, and a comprehensive Spanish Grammar sensitive to language varieties. The United States has also participated in the language's dissemination on the continent.
• Universidad Antonio de Nebrija: Has conducted lexical studies on mobile telephony and the internet, creating resources like the Vocabulary of Mobile Telephony, Spanish-English/English-Spanish Dictionaries, and an online Spanish Language Dictionary.
• Instituto Cervantes: Continues its work in Spanish education and promotion worldwide through resources like libraries, online consultations, and courses.
• Ricardo Soca's Spanish Language Page: Publishes updated information on online resources related to the Spanish language, including dictionaries, spelling guides, grammar rules, and translation tools.
• EFE DEU: Provides extensive language resources online, including translations and explanations of errors and barbarisms.
• Multiple forums discuss computer terminology in Spanish.

Spanish Across the Globe

Current State of Spanish

Spanish is a language with a wide-reaching community, characterized by:

• Homogeneity and unity, yet with diverse geographical and sociolinguistic varieties, including pidgin languages.
• A prominent cultural language with a rich literary tradition in both Spain and Latin America.
• International status as an official language in 21 countries, with significant speaker populations in other nations and continued expansion.
• High communicability and low diversity, facilitating exchange within the Hispanic community.

Its global presence and coexistence with other languages are marked by:

• America: Official language in most Central and South American countries, co-official with English and other languages in regions like Puerto Rico, Peru, Paraguay, and Mexico.
• Equatorial Guinea: The only African country with Spanish as an official language, though not a native one.
• United States: A growing Hispanic population, coupled with economic, political, and media influence, has made Spanish a popular second language choice in education.
• Philippines: Nearly 2 million speakers, though not as a mother tongue, and the number is declining.
• Judeo-Spanish: Spoken in various communities, including New York and Israel.
• Morocco: Spanish holds importance in education and due to migration and tourism.

Spanish in the Americas

American Spanish encompasses the Castilian dialects spoken in the Americas. It is the official language of Central and South America and the mother tongue of 400 million people. Variations exist due to factors like the diverse origins of colonizers, different colonization methods, and the influence of indigenous languages.

Linguistic Features

• Lisp, strong yeísmo, presence of final s, confusion of final l and r, and aspiration of g and j, especially in Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia, and Venezuela.

Morphosyntactic Features

• Use of vos (vos = you) and the consequent loss of tú and usted, absence of leísmo, loísmo, and laísmo, and use of different suffixes like -ada (girl), diminutive -ito (now), use of the preterite instead of the perfect tense (qué bueno que viniste), use of unknown verbal periphrases, and distinct usage of adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.

Lexical Features

• Transfer of words from indigenous languages that are common in Spain (maíz, tabaco) and others exclusive to the Americas (pavo). Terms common in Spain that have fallen into disuse (falda) or changed meaning (manzana) are preserved in Latin America. Anglicisms are common in Central America and the Caribbean, and Italianisms in Argentina (pibe).