How Spanish is spoken around the world: the evolution of different dialects Spanish is the official language of 18 Latin American countries, Spain and Equatorial Guinea in Africa. Although many central and South Americans have native Indian as their first language, Spanish is continuing to spread there. The most common dialect is Castilian which started spreading due to the Reconquista, the conquest of Moorish Spain by the Christian states in 1492. It arose in Cantabria in the 9th century in a town called Burgos. The language then spread to the south. After starting in Spain, the Castilian dialect was distributed to the New World during the Age of Discovery from the mid 15th century to the mid 16th century. Latin American countries have developed their own standards, mainly a difference in phonology and vocabulary, agreeing mostly with Southern Spanish dialects. For example, typical Castilian uses a lisp like ‘th’ sound, whereas, Latin American uses the ‘s’ sound. Galician is spoken in north-western Spain and Catalan is spoken in eastern and north-eastern Spain. Andalusian is a dialect spoken in southern Spain and is the second most popular dialect. It is a ‘linguistic modality’ of the Spanish language and is also spoken in the British territory of Gibraltar. The dialect of Spanish, used in Arab occupied Spain before the 12th century was called Mozarabic. This was very a very archaic form of Spanish with many influences from Arabic, the Mozarabic refrains have been added to Arabic and Hebrew poems. Judeo-Spanish is a reflection of the Castilian language before the 16th century standardisation. Rioplatense Spanish is spoken in the River Basin region, Argentina and Uruguay. The main difference between this dialect and the others is the intonation, which resembles Italian due to the rise of Italian immigrants in these regions in the 19 th century. Esha Shah
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