Spanish language

Spanish
Spanish
español, castellano
Region	Most of Central America, large parts of South America, some of North America with substantial minorities in other parts, and the Caribbean; some of Europe; and enclaves and immigrant groups on all continents
Native speakers	around 500 million, 400 million of whom are native speakers[citation needed]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Official status
Official language in	Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, European Union, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, New Mexico (USA), Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Regulated by	Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (Real Academia Española and other 21 national Spanish language academies)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa
ISO 639-3	spa
	Map of the Hispanophone world,; with full, large, and little community speaking Spanish.

Spanish ([español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) or Castilian ([castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is an Iberian Romance language, and the fourth most-widely spoken language in the world according to some sources, while other sources list it as the second or third most spoken language. It is spoken as a first language by about 402 million people, and by a total of 500 million including non-native speakers.^{[citation needed]} Some assert that, after English, Spanish can now be considered the second most important language in the world, due to its increased usage in the United States, the high birth rate in most of the countries where it is official, the growing economies of the Spanish-speaking world, its influence on the global music market, the importance of its literature, and simply due to the broad number of areas on the Earth's surface where the language is spoken.

Naming

Spanish people tend to call this language [español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) when contrasting it with languages of other states (for example: in a list with French and English), but call it [castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Castilian, from the Castile region) when contrasting it with other languages of Spain (such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan/Valencian). In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term [castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) to define the official language of the whole State, opposed to [las demás lenguas españolas] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (lit. the other Spanish languages). Article III reads as follows:

El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. (…) Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas…

Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (…) Other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities…

However, in some parts of Spain, mainly where people speak Galician, Basque, and Catalan, the choice of words can reveal somehow the speaker's sense of belonging, and even their political views. People from bilingual areas might consider it offensive to call the language [español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), as that is the term that was chosen by Francisco Franco — during whose dictatorship the use of regional languages was forbidden — and because it connotes that Basque, Catalan and Galician are not languages of Spain. On the other hand, more nationalist speakers (both Spanish and regional nationalists) might prefer [español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) either to reflect their belief in the unity of the Spanish State or to denote the perceived detachment between their region and the rest of the State.

For the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, speakers of the language in some areas refer to it as [español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), and in others [castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is more common. [Castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is the name given to the Spanish language in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Central America, Ecuador, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Some philologists use "Castilian" only when speaking of the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, stating that it is preferable to use "Spanish" for its modern form. Castilian can be also a subdialect of Spanish spoken in most parts of modern day Castile. This dialect has a number of characteristics and a specific pronunciation different to the one of Andalusia or Aragon for example, where different subdialects are spoken.

Classification and related languages

Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European, descended largely from Latin and having much in common with its European geographical neighbours.

Spanish is related to several languages in terms of phonology, grammar and orthography. Of these, Portuguese is perhaps one of the most similar in terms of major languages. However, Spanish is also closely related to Catalan, Asturian, Galician and several other Romance languages. Italian is similar enough to Spanish to make some communication possible between native speakers of both languages. Spanish has fewer similarities with French and Romanian but shares strong ties due to Latin roots.

Portuguese is orthographically similar in many ways to Spanish but it has a very distinctive phonology. A speaker of one of these languages may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other (although generally it is easier for a Portuguese native speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around). Compare, for example:

[Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Portuguese)

[Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Spanish)

Some less common phrasings and word choices may have closer cognates with Spanish:

[Ela cerra sempre a janela antes de cear.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (less common Portuguese)

(Which translates as "She always closes the window before having dinner.")

In some places, Spanish and Portuguese are spoken almost interchangeably. Portuguese speakers are generally able to read Spanish, and Spanish speakers are generally able to read Portuguese, even if they cannot understand the spoken language. In fact, the number of bilingual speakers in Brazil (where Portuguese is the official language) has greatly risen because nearly every nation bordering Brazil is Spanish speaking.

History

The Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Celtiberian, Basque and Arabic, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin [vita] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [vida] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), palatalization (Latin [annum] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [año] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin [terra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [tierra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Latin [novus] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [nuevo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). Similar phenomena can be found in most other Romance languages as well.

During the [Reconquista] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), this northern dialect was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in northern Morocco.

The first Latin to Spanish dictionary ([Gramática de la Lengua Castellana] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija. When Isabella of Castile was presented with the book, she asked, What do I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?, to which he replied, Ma'am, the language is the instrument of the Empire.

From the 16th century on, the language was brought to the Americas, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marianas, Palau and the Philippines by Spanish colonization.

In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara and parts of the United States, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City, that had not been part of the Spanish Empire.

For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Geographic distribution

Spanish is one of the official languages of the United Nations and the European Union. The majority of its speakers are confined to the Western Hemisphere, and Spain.

With approximately 106 million first-language and second-language speakers, Mexico boasts the largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world. The four next largest populations reside in Colombia (44 million), Spain (c. 40 million), Argentina (39 million) and the United States of America (U.S. residents age 5 and older who speak Spanish at home number 31 million) [1].

Spanish is the official and most important language in 20 countries: Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea (co-official French), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Puerto Rico (co-official English), Spain (co-official Catalan, Galician and Basque), Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara (co-official Arabic).

In Belize, Spanish holds no official recognition, however, it is the native tongue of about 50% of the population, and is spoken as a second language by another 20%. It is arguably the most important and widely-spoken on a popular level, but English remains the sole official language.

In the United States, Spanish is spoken by three-quarters of its 41.3 million Hispanic population. It is also being learned and spoken by a small, though slowly growing, proportion of its non-Hispanic population for its increasing use in business, commerce, and both domestic and international politics. Spanish does hold co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. See Spanish in the United States for further information.

In Brazil, Spanish has obtained an important status as a second language among young students and many skilled professionals. In recent years, with Brazil decreasing its reliance on trade with the USA and Europe and increasing trade and ties with its Spanish-speaking neighbours (especially as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc), much stress has been placed on bilingualism and Spanish proficiency in the country (the same is true of Portuguese proficiency in neighbouring countries). On July 07 2005, the National Congress of Brazil gave final approval to a bill that makes Spanish a mandatory foreign language in the country’s public and private primary schools [2]. The close genetic relationship between the two languages, along with the fact that Spanish is the dominant and official language of almost every country that borders Brazil, adds to the popularity. Standard Spanish and Ladino (Judæo-Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews) may also be spoken natively by some Spanish-descended Brazilians, immigrant workers from neighbouring Spanish-speaking countries and Brazilian Sephardim respectively, who have maintained it as their home language. Additionally, in Brazil's border states that have authority over their educational systems, Spanish has been taught for years. In many other border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayo-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Portuñol is also spoken.

In European countries other than Spain, it may be spoken by some of their Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, primarily in Andorra (where it is spoken by a great part of the population, despite having no official status), the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom where there is a strong community in London. There has been a sharp increase in the popularity of Spanish in the United Kingdom over the last few years. It is spoken by much of the population of Gibraltar, though English remains the only official language. Yanito (llanito), an English-Spanish mixed language is also spoken.

Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is the seventh most spoken language in Australia; where there is a strong community in Sydney. It is also spoken by the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, but Spanish has long since been forgotten, and now only exists as an influence on the local native languages.

In Asia the Spanish language has long been in decline. Spanish ceased to be an official language of the Philippines in 1987, and it is now spoken by less than 0.01% of the population; 2,658 speakers (1990 Census). However, the sole existing Spanish-Asiatic creole language, Chabacano, is also spoken by an additional 0.4% of the Filipino population; 292,630 (1990 census). Most other Philippine languages contain generous quantities of Spanish loan words. Among other Asian countries, Spanish may also be spoken by pockets of ex-immigrant communities, such as Mexican-born ethnic Chinese deported to China or third and fourth generation ethnic Japanese Peruvians returning to their ancestral homeland of Japan.

In the Middle East and North Africa, small Spanish-speaking communities exist in Israel (both standard Spanish and Ladino), northern Morocco (both standard Spanish and Ladino), Turkey (Ladino), and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla which are part of Spain.

In North America and the Caribbean, Spanish is also spoken by segments of the populations in Aruba, Canada (mainly in Toronto and Montreal), Netherlands Antilles (mainly on Bonaire, Curaçao and St. Maarten), Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (mainly on St. Croix).

In Antarctica, the territorial claims and permanent bases made by Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Spain also place Spanish as the official and working language of these enclaves.

Variations

There are important variations among the various regions of Spain and Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or [laísmo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) of this dialect is deprecated).

Spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [usted] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), and in some parts of Latin America, [vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (the use of this form is called voseo). Generally speaking, [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) are informal and used with friends (though in Spain [vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is considered a highly exalted archaism that is now confined to liturgy). [Usted] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is universally regarded as the formal form, and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers. The pronoun [vosotros] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is the plural form of [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in most of Spain, although in the Americas (and some particular southern-Spain cities such as Cádiz) it is replaced with [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). It is remarkable that the informal use of [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in southern Spain does not keep the proper pronoun-verb agreement: while the formal form of "you go" would be [ustedes van] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), in Cádiz the informal form would be constructed as [ustedes vais] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), making use of the second person of the plural instead of the third (which constitutes the formal construction).

[Vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun in various countries around Latin America, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Zulian state of Venezuela. In Argentina, Uruguay, and increasingly in Paraguay, is it also the standard form used in the media, whereas media in other [voseante] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) countries continue to use [usted] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). [Vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) may also be present in other countries as a limited regionalism. Its use, depending on country and region, can be considered the accepted standard or reproached as sub-standard and considered as speech of the ignorant and uneducated. The interpersonal situations in which the employment of vos is acceptable may also differ considerably between regions.

Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. The Spanish dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural; [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (formal/familiar). Meanwhile, in Spain there are two; [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (formal) and [vosotros] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (familiar/informal).

The RAE (Real Academia Española), in association with twenty-one other national language academies, exercises a controlling influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar guides and style guides. In part due to this influence, and also because of other socio-historical reasons, a neutral standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.

Grammar

Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but small noun declension and limited pronominal declension. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.)

As for syntax, the unmarked sentence word order is Subject Verb Object, though variations are common. Spanish is right-branching, using prepositions, and with adjectives generally coming after nouns.

Spanish is also pro-drop (allows the deletion of pronouns when pragmatically unnecessary) and verb-framed.

Sounds

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Consonant Phonemes of Spanish
	Bilabial		Labio- Dental	Dental		Alveolar	Post- Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosives	p	b		t	d				k	g
Nasals	m			n				ɲ
Fricatives			f	θ		s		ʝ	x
Affricates							tʃ
Approximants								j	w
Trills				r
Taps				ɾ
Laterals				l				ʎ

The consonantal system of Castilian Spanish, by the 16th century, underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from some nearby Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Catalan:

The initial /f/, that had evolved into a vacillating /h/, was lost in most words (although this etymological h- has been preserved in spelling).
The voiced labiodental fricative /v/ (that was written u or v) merged with the bilabial oclusive /b/ (written b). Orthographically, b and v do not correspond to different phonemes in contemporary Spanish, excepting some areas in Spain, particularly the ones influenced by Catalan/Valencian and some Andalusia.
The voiced alveolar fricative /z/ (that was written s between vowels) merged with the voiceless /s/ (that was written s, or ss between vowels).
The voiced alveolar affricate /dz/ (that was written z) merged with the voiceless /ts/ (that was written ç, ce, ci), and then /ts/ evolved into the interdental /θ/, now written z, ce, ci. But in Andalucia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with /s/ as well. Notice that the ç or c with cedilla was in its origin a Spanish letter, although is no longer used.
The voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ (that was written j, ge, gi) merged with the voiceless /ʃ/ (that was written x, as in Quixote), and then /ʃ/ evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound /x/, now written j, ge, gi.

The consonantal system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Ladino, the language spoken by the descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century, as well as in Portuguese, neither of which underwent the shift.

Lexical stress

Spanish has a phonemic stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word [camino] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (with penultimate stress) means "road" or "I walk" whereas [caminó] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (with final stress) means "he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish syllables are all pronounced at a more or less constant tempo, the language is said to be syllable-timed.

Writing system

The pronunciation of any Spanish word can be perfectly predicted from its written form.

Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of ñ (eñe). Ch ([che] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), pronounced [tʃ]) and ll ([doble ele] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) also used to have their own places in the alphabet (a, b, c, ch, d, …, l, ll, m, n, ñ, …). Since 1994, however, words containing the letters ch and ll have been alphabetized as though spelled with the separate letters c - h and l - l.

The letter u sometimes carries diaeresis (ü) after the letter g, and stressed vowels carry acute accents (á) in many words. These marks usually indicate deviations from what would be expected if one followed the customary rules of Spanish orthography. For example, gue indicates that the g is hard before the e sound. However, güe means that the u is also pronounced (in this case, with the w sound.) Accent marks usually indicate that the customary rules of accentuation (stress the last syllable of any word ending in a consonant (including y) other than n or s; stress the next to last syllable otherwise) are to be ignored. In a few cases, an accented letter is used to distinguish meaning: compare [el] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (= the before a masculine singular noun) with [él] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (= he or it). Words that could otherwise be mistaken for function words are often given accents (such as "té", tea, or "dé" and "sé", forms of "dar" and either "saber" or "ser", respectively). Interrogative pronouns ([que] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [cual] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [donde] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [quien] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), etc.) receive accents when in questions or indirect questions. Demonstrative pronouns ([ese] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [este] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [aquel] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), etc.) have accents when they refer to a specific, implied object and are not being used as adjectives. In addition, [o] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (= or) is written with an accent between numerals to indicate that it is not part of the numerals: e.g., [10 ó 20] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) should be read as [diez o veinte] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) rather than [diez mil veinte] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). Accent marks are frequently omitted on capital letters.

Exclamatory and interrogative clauses begin with inverted question and exclamation marks.

Examples of Spanish

Note, the third column uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, the standard for linguists, to transcribe the sounds. There are several examples of travellers' vocabulary and one literary reference.

You can listen to these words being read out. Both the transcription and the recording represent standard Castilian pronunciation.

English	Spanish	IPA transcription
Spanish	[español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[espaˈɲol]
Spanish (Castilian)	[castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[kasteˈʎan̪o]
English	[inglés] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[iŋˈgl̪es]
yes	[sí] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈsi]
no	[no] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈn̪o]
hello, hi	[hola] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈol̪a]
Good morning!	[¡Buenos días!] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈbwen̪os ˈd̪i.as]
Good afternoon/evening!	[¡Buenas tardes!] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈbwen̪as ˈt̪ard̪es]
Good night!	[¡Buenas noches!] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈbwen̪as ˈnotʃes]
goodbye	[adiós] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[aˈð̞jos]
please	[por favor] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[poɾfaˈβ̞oɾ]
thank you	[gracias] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈɡɾaθjas] or [ˈɡɾasias]¹
sorry	[perdón] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[peɾˈð̞on]
Hurry!	[¡Date prisa!] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	['d̪at̪e 'pɾisa]
because	[porque] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈpoɾke]
why?	[¿Por qué?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[poɾˈke]
who?	[¿Quién?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈkjen]
what?	[¿Qué?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈke]
when?	[¿Cuándo?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈkwan̪d̪o]
where?	[¿Dónde?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈd̪on̪d̪e]
how?	[¿Cómo?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈkomo]
how much?	[¿Cuánto?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈkwan̪t̪o]
I do not understand	[No entiendo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[n̪oen̪ˈt̪jendo]
Help me (please) Help me!	[Ayúdeme ¡Ayúdame!] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[aˈjuð̞eme] [aˈjuð̞ame]
Where's the bathroom?	[¿Dónde está el baño?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈd̪on̪d̪eesˈt̪ael̪ˈβ̞aɲo]
Do you speak English?	[¿Habla(s) inglés?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈaβ̞l̪a(s)ˈɡl̪es]
cheers! (toast)	[¡Salud!] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[sa'luð̞]
¹ Pronunciation commonly used outside of northern and central Spain.

English:	In some village in La Mancha, whose name I do not care to recall, there dwelt not so long ago a gentleman of the type wont to keep an unused lance, an old shield, a greyhound for racing, and a skinny old horse.
Spanish:	[En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los ] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) [de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
IPA transcription (Northern/Central Spain):	[en̪un̪l̪uˈɣaɾ \| ðel̪aˈmantʃa ‖ d̪eˈkuʝo \| ˈn̪ombɾe \| n̪oˈkjeɾo \| akoɾˈðaɾme ‖ n̪oaˈmutʃo \| ˈt̪jempo \| keβiˈβia \| un̪iˈðal̪ɣoðel̪oz ‖ ðeˈl̪anθa \| en̪ast̪iˈʎeɾo ‖ aˈðaɾɣa \| an̪ˈt̪iɣwa ‖ ro'θin \| ˈflako \| iˈɣal̪ɣo \| koreˈðoɾ ‖]
IPA transcription (Outside Northern/Central Spain):	[en̪un̪l̪uˈɣaɾ \| ðel̪aˈmantʃa ‖ d̪eˈkuʝo \| ˈn̪ombɾe \| n̪oˈkjeɾo \| akoɾˈðaɾme ‖ n̪oaˈmutʃo \| ˈt̪jempo \| keβiˈβia \| un̪iˈðal̪ɣoðel̪oz ‖ ðeˈl̪ansa \| en̪ast̪iˈʎeɾo ‖ aˈðaɾɣa \| an̪ˈt̪iɣwa ‖ ro'θin \| ˈflako \| iˈɣal̪ɣo \| koreˈðoɾ ‖]

[El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (opening sentence).

External links

About the Spanish language

Template:About.com
Official page of the RAE (in Spanish)
Ethnologue report for Spanish
Spanish Language & Linguistics Website
PDF: A history of the Spanish language
Numbers of speakers by countries
Why learn Spanish? — 10 reasons for learning Spanish
Spanish Language — Collection of lessons and other resources
Spanish evolution from Latin
Spanish Language Characteristics — Some characteristics of Spanish Language
Learn Spanish — Spanish Forum for learning and exploring the Spanish language, with help from volunteer teachers from all over the world.
Learning Spanish

Dictionaries

Yahoo Spanish-English Dictionary — Superb dictionary. Different idiomatic expressions are listed, many meanings are shown for each word, differences between meanings are highlighted.
Langtolang Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Turkish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Finnish, Esperanto, Swahili, Serbo_Croat Multilingual Dictionary
definicion.org
DRAE, Dictionary of the RAE (Spanish-spanish)
Spanish — English Dictionary: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
Diccionarios.com
An English-Spanish Dictionary
Tododiccionarios.com — A directory of reference works in English or Spanish, classified by subject, with several thousand links.
Spanishdict.com — Another Spanish-English dictionary.
Wordreference.com — Comprehensive Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary.
Tomísimo.org — A Spanish-English dictionary.
Diccionarios en internet — Dictionaries in Spanish, English, etc.