Talk:Spanish language

Spanish language does not exist

The language that is described in this article is only called Castilian. Please correct the mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.51.27 (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed before and as it turns out you are wrong; your edits to this affect have been reverted. Please do not make these edits anymore. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 02:08, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I see. I thought that wikipedia was not fascist propaganda but this kind of articles make me to change my point of view. If you want a nazi encyclopaedia, it's up to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.60.34.101 (talk) 18:11, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

You should actually read the discussion before slinging insults. Also, see the page on Castilian Spanish. In the end this is a question of English lexicon. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 18:54, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Isn't Castilian a subset of Spanish?

I once knew a speaker of Mexican Spanish who became very offended when somebody said she was speaking Castilian. Her implication was that Castilian refers only to the version of Spanish that is spoken as the standard in Spain. My English dictionary agrees. Yet the lede sentence in the article says "Spanish or Castilian ... is a Romance language...", implying that they are synonyms. Should this be changed? Duoduoduo (talk) 19:55, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The article Castilian Spanish says: "In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers." This reinforces my point. I will delete "or Castilian" from the first sentence of the lede, unless someone raises objections here. Duoduoduo (talk) 00:26, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

You should see the article Names given to the Spanish language. Castilian is both a dialectal variation of Spanish and an alternative name for the Spanish language as a whole. In that article, you'll see where, when and why one name is preferred over the other. For example, in Mexico the denomination "Spanish" for the language is preferred over the denoination "Castilian". In most of South America it is the opposite. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 07:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware of that article (which is correctly tagged as written like a personal reflection or essay), and it's wrong. It falls into the false cognate trap, by incorrectly implying that the English word "Spanish" is the same thing as the Spanish word "español" and that the English word "Castilian" is the same thing as the Spanish word "castellano". They are not, as can be seen by looking it up in a dictionary of the English language. The English word "Spanish" refers to the language that is spoken in parts of Spain, Latin America, and the US. It is correctly translated in Central America, Mexico, and the US as "español", and is correctly translated in much of South America as "castellano". The English word "Castilian" refers to the version of the language spoken in northern and central Spain and used as a broadcasting standard in Spain. It is correctly translated in Central America, Mexico, and the US as "castellano". Duoduoduo (talk) 14:06, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

1) "Castilian language" (as opposed to "Castilian Spanish", which certainly refers to a regional dialect) is not a false cognate. It is widely used in English language scholarship to signify the Spanish language: (a) almost always when it is contrasted to other Spanish langauges (Catalan, Galician) (b) very often in historical works dealing with the early stages of modern Spanish, and (c) it is also accepted as a valid alternative name for the Spanish language nowadays. For the academic works using the term, see: Scholar Google Search "Castilian language"; for the actual current use of "Castilian" meaning "Spanish language", see examples: 1, 2, 3, 4; other definitions: 1902 Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Castilian", and others (1, 2). There are tons of examples. These are just a few, but i think it is enough to demonstrate that this use for the term "Castilian" is actually used, so it is not a false cognate.

2) In the whole Spanish speaking world both "Castellano" and "Español" are valid terms to designate the language. One or the other are often preferred in different contexts, countries and times; but both of them are valid in any place. It is a matter of custom and/or preference, not of different meanings here and there. Beacause the meaning of "Castellano" to designate a regional variant of Spanish is also valid -and actually used- all over the Spanish speaking world. Polysemy. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 21:23, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the citations. I looked through the first ten pages of Scholar Google Search Castilian language, but I couldn't find a single article that used it for anything outside Spain. Then I looked through your other citations, and still they all (with one exception) refer to the language spoken in Castile. The 1902 Britannica article says "the spirants c, z, which at present represent but one interdental sound (a lisped s, or a sound between s and Eng. th in thing)...." That seems to refer to the language of Castile. Your item [2] refers explicitly to the language of Castile. I could go on and on showing that your numerous examples refer to Castile. One of your references says "Sometimes it is used, not altogether accurately, to distinguish the Spanish of Spain from that of Latin America. And sometimes it is used simply as a synonym for Spanish, especially when referring to the "pure" Spanish promulgated by the Royal Spanish Academy...." The phrase "not altogether accurately", doesn't say what the inaccuracy is, and the reference to the "pure Spanish promulgated by the Royal Spanish Academy" again refers to the language of Castile. Your reference [3] is the only one backing up your assertion: it says "Castilian, which is spoken in all the national territory, Equatorial Guinea, the former Spanish territory of Sahara, Central and South America (except Brazil and the Guyanas) and parts of the Philippines, is the official and cultural language of some 350 millon people the world over." But this site belongs to the Real Academia Española, and probably is showing a little chauvinism or pride in the home language by saying that others speak it.

I find it striking that out of all the numerous citations you gave, only one Spain-based site says that the English term "Castilian" can be used for the variants of Spanish spoken outside of Spain. Or maybe I just missed some. Can you come up with something to reinforce your assertion? Thanks Duoduoduo (talk) 22:33, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

1) You are right in one point. The only variant of Spanish called Castilian is that of Central and Central-northern Spain. But when we are talking of Castilian as a language it is the same Spanish language, in Spain or out of Spain. The fact that the expression "Castilian language" is mostly used when comparing Spanish (v.g. Castilian) with other Languages of Spain (Galician, Catalan, et al.) makes it mostly useful when dealing with Spain proper. But those sources are referring to the same language when talking about "Castilian", inside or outside Spain. That is: the Spanish language.

2) The mistake referred in one source is precisely when some people use "Castilian" to denote the Spanish spoken in Spain (vs. the Spanish spoken elsewhere). It is a mistake a) because there is not one single variant of Spanish in Spain (Castilian variant is just one of them, alongside Andalusian, etc.) and, this is the most important one b) because the language is the same. Across the Hispanosphere you only have some minor grammatical mutually understandable variations, some lexical variations and some pronounciation variations. But the language is always the same: Spanish/Castilian. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 23:26, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's what would settle it: Can you come up with a scholarly article that analyzes some feature (maybe grammar or pronunciation) of what is spoken in some region of Latin America (that is, specifically focusing outside of Spain), in which the linguist says he is analyzing the Castilian language as spoken there? Duoduoduo (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Kibitzing from the sidelines here, and not directly in response, your comment above sent me googling. One of the hits i came up with is Eamonn Rodgers (2002), Encyclopedia of contemporary Spanish culture, Taylor & Francis US, p. 493, ISBN 9780415263535, http://books.google.com/books?id=L6O3JJVYecUC , which speaks of two principal subvarieties of Castilian, one of which is more closely related than the other to Spanish as spoken in the Canaries and Latin America. Also, I ran across Edward Y. Odisho (2007), Linguistic tips for Latino learners and teachers of English, Gorgias Press LLC, p. 8, ISBN 9781593336905, http://books.google.com/books?id=fodfZ9OsMzoC , which says that though the Real Academia Española (RAE) has worked mightily since 1713 to standardize the Spanish language, Spain has a variety of dialects and several variants of Spanish in addition to other languages spoken side by side with Castilian Spanish, and that the linguistic diversity of Spanish in Latin America is even greater than in Spain. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 17:47, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• If the page is "Spanish language", shouldn't the content refer to it as such? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.235.115 (talk) 18:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

This article seems to confuse Hispanics with Spanish speakers.

Not all Hispanics speak Spanish. The conclusion that all Hispanics speak Spanish is not supported by the citations.

1) For the United States the headding says "Spanish as NATIVE language speakers" and cites #23 the census "Hispanics older than 5 years old". This assumes that all Hispanics over five speak Spanish as their native languge. Not true. Most second or third generation Mexicans I know speak primarily English. According to the US census data 54% speak English "very well" and presumably better than Spanish. My experince is living in the Eastern suburbs of Los Angeles and I know that the situation is different in the city. But a LOT of Mexicans in Southern California live in the suburbs.

2) For the United States the headding says total number of Spanish speakers and cites #25 "There are 50,477,594 Hispanic people" in the US. And 100% of them speak Spanish? No, just as in the above about half of Hispanics speak English better than Spanish and know just enough Spanish to talk to their grandparents (in simple Spanish) or order a beer.

3) And finally, the number of "native" Castillian Spanish speakers in Spain is cited as 41 million out of a population of 47 million. But the Wikipedia articles on Catalan says that it has 11 million speakers and the Galican has over 3 million. Let me see, 41 million plus 11 million plus 3 million is a total of 55 million native speakers out of a population of 47 million. And does that inclue kids uner five? Is the article confusing native speakers with total speakers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.171.181.95 (talk) 16:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

As a result of these errors the conclusion that "Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world" is false if the data in the citations were interpreted correctly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.239.133.132 (talk) 20:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Add to that the fact that there are large numbers of Mexicans in the US (and probably people from other American countries) who are classified as "Hispanic" by the census but who are fluent in neither English nor Spanish. There are (depending on how you count them) hundreds of languages spoken in the Americas. One simply cannot make assumptions about language based on ethnicity or country or origin. It just doesn't work that way. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 15:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Why English dictionaries?

It may be true that Madrid Spanish is taken as the standard pronunciation for radio and television in Spain, but surely the four English-language dictionaries cited as authorities for that statement actually have nothing to say on the subject, do they? Can someone replace them with a genuine sociolinguistic source on the status of Madrid Spanish in the mass media? Kotabatubara (talk) 06:28, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

"Sortable" table not working

I am preparing to delete "sortable" from the specs of the "wikitable" under "Geographic distribution" because the sorting function is not working in a useful way, and it only serves to confuse. When you click the little up/down arrowhead at the top of a column, the numbers are sorted according to their first digit, then their second digit (or comma), etc. regardless of how many digits they have. For example, sorting by col. 2 "Population" in ascending order gives the following sequence:

 • Guatemala  14,361,666
 • Russia     140,702,094
 • Guam       154,805

I've read the instructions for "Help:Sorting" but cannot make them work. The best solution would be for someone to make the table sortable according to actual numerical values, but if this cannot be done in the next few days, I will do the next-best thing and change "wikitable sortable" to "wikitable". Kotabatubara (talk) 18:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

New outline

I've reorganized the article under a new outline, which I think is more logical than the previous one. Previously, some material appeared under headings that were unrelated to their contents (e.g. the discussion of names of the language, under "Spain" in the section on "Geographic distribution"). The logic of the new order of major sections is to go from "universal" (all languages have grammar and phonology) to Spanish-specific (all languages have a past, but few have a history as thoroughly documented as that of Spanish; not all languages have a writing system, and fewer still have normative academies or official status for use by international organizations).

In this reorganization I have made an effort to limit myself to moving the sections or paragraphs, and to refrain from editing their contents. In some cases this has brought redundancies into juxtaposition, which will need revision later. Kotabatubara (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Stress placement and /-n/ vs. /-s/

I am preparing to revise the section on word stress, and I want to respect the request that was inserted in the article, namely "please do not add /n/ before discussing it in the talk page".

I appreciate the motivation to treat stress in terms of spoken sounds, rather than the traditional orthographic approach of textbooks. I also appreciate the difference between /-n/ and /-s/ with regard to stress. The statement that I'm preparing begins by citing the tendency for words with a final consonant to be stressed on the last syllable, then gives the exceptions as being (1) words that end in /-s/ and (2) verbs that end in /-n/ (I speculate that this is because these are both grammatical morphemes, but I think that explanation would be too technical for this general article). Nouns and adjectives ending in /-n/ -- like other words ending in a consonant -- tend to have final stress. Words of the margen, virgen, joven type are vastly outnumbered by those of the acción, bailarín, alemán type.

I wonder if this verb-vs.-non-verb treatment for /-n/ would satisfy the editor who made that request. Kotabatubara (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Nos-alteros vs Nos

In the comparative table, appears the Nos-alteros vs Nos (Nos/Nosotros, Nos/Nosaltres, Noi/Noialtri), such construction is purely Latin: nos-alteros means "the group who are speaking, and not you who are listening" (exclusive we), nos means "all of we, both who are speaking and who are listening" (alter in Latin means "the other" of a group of only two elements). Time, confusion and simplification moved some languages to choose one form, and other languages the another, no more keeping the original sense.91.117.9.231 (talk) 23:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone messed up the title of the section "Dialectal variation" to read "I hate wikipidia just kidding. its actually really helpful :) sorry i have to mess up this wiki article, but a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do XD", but it is only seen if you're not logged in. I can't figure out how to change it back. Maybe someone can fix this.

Corbo3nbn (talk) 01:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Y Done  Andreas  ^(T) 14:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)