| Series | Spanish pages |
|---|---|
| Español/Spanish Also known as Castellano  |
Syntax - Verbs |
| Script | Latin |
| Family | Indo-European |
| Sub-Family | Romance |
| Estimated native speakers | 329 million |
| Spoken in | Spain, Latin America, former Colonies of Spain, United Nations |
Introduction
Spanish also known as Castillan(español or castellano) is a language in the sub-family Italic belonging to the Ibero-Romance group. It originated in the North of Spain in the Kingdom of Castille which existed in the 1000's - 1200's.
The language evolved from numerous minority languages in dialects that existed in 10th century Spain.
Spanish took it's first influences from Celtic and Basques who occupied the area at the time as with all Romance Languages the main source is Latin introduced to the Iberian Peninsula around 210BC.
In the 5th century the Peninsula was invaded by various Germanic Barbarian groups including the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, Suevi that all after mixing with Roman Settlers began to speak various forms of Vulgar Latin.
In the 8th century, the Moorish Conquest added a heavy amount of changes to the already brewing cauldron in Hispania linguistically because they brought with them Arabic.
In terms of native speakers it is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Coming 2nd after Mandarin Chinese. It has an estimated 320 million speakers.
Family tree
> Indo-European
* Italic
* Romance
* Italo Western
* Galo-Iberian
* Ibero-Romance
* West Iberian
* Spanish
