Spanish

From origin, to romance; the history of the Spanish language

It is interesting to think about how the Spanish we hear and speak today is very different from its different stages throughout history. The Spanish we understand now has gone through thousands of years of language development and cultural influence. Spanish is the most widely spoken “Romance” Language, among Portuguese, French, Italian and others, as more than 330 million people speak it in more than 20 countries. Historians believe that a family of languages called the “Proto-Indo-European” languages were spoken until 3,400 BCE which formed the basis of many romantic languages. As the people who spoke these languages moved around, they spread over Europe and Asia and branched out into languages such as Greek, Armenian, Balto-Slavic and Albanian. The idea of Spanish developing came from The Iberian Peninsula (where Spain and Portugal meet) where Romans settles speaking a cruder form of Latin, Vulgar Latin. As other languages in the same area mixed together, around 11th century the Castilian dialect was formed in northern Spain which has been proven to be the earliest point where we can see the beginnings of modern Spanish being spoken. However, it is important to note that Spanish is also spoken in South America, which started with Christopher Columbus who started to spread the language further to places like Bahamian Islands, Trinidad and South American mainland.

Over times, the sounds of Latin American Spanish became pretty different to those who spoke Castilian Spanish. To this day, there are differences with pronunciation points that make different dialects sound different. Additionally, there are vocabulary differences e.g. in Spain someone drives un coche, a car, whilst elsewhere you drive un carro, a car.

Spanish is the result of many decades of linguistic evolution and the origins of it show that languages don’t form in isolation, as even now more nuanced dialects are spoken globally.

Avinashi Sahota