History of the Spanish language

Many languages have colorful history, but history of the Spanish language is one of the more intriguing ones out there. We have studied the history of this romance language and all I can say is that you can every time find something new and interesting about it.

Here I will go through some of the basics of Spanish language history and I am almost certain that you will read something that you didn’t know about the history of this popular language that is being recognized as one of the most beautiful languages in the whole world. If you are interested in learning Spanish yourself, I recommend you to find the best Spanish online courses here.

History of Spanish in Spain

The Spanish Language can actually be traced back to the legendary Indo-European language family. Over 2000 years before the birth of Christ, Celtiberians spoke an early Celtic language amongst themselves.

The inhabitants in this beautiful region, an area later referred to by scholars as what was known Hispania, started learning Latin from the Romans. The combination of the Celtic language and Latin evolved into what is referred to by many as the Vulgar Latin. It was an adapted form of Latin that used phrases and words that were different from the traditional Latin language that was widely spoken.

When the early Visigoths took over the old region which was called Hispania, Latin remained the dominant and official language of the region. This continued until the Moors, an Arabic-speaking group, conquered the region. Arabic became the dominant language, except for in certain regions dominated by the Christians. In such regions, Vulgar Latin remained the official language. As the Christian groups started to reclaim Moorish Spain, Vulgar Latin returned as the dominant language in every region.

Castilian dialects of Spanish started to take form somewhere around the 13th or 14th century with King Alfonso. Toledo became the cultural epicenter for the King and his scholars. In Toledo, these scholars created works in Castilian Spanish and then began a series of translations of the various works of science, the law, literature, history, etc. into Castilian Spanish. These translations became the basis for the dissemination of information in a significant part of Western Europe. The King soon declared Castilian as the official language for government documents and decrees.

The dominance of the Castilian dialect continued to rapidly grow as all the Catholic kingdoms took over most regions of Spain. Castilian Spanish then quickly became the official language for all educational materials and official documents in all of Spain. Certain regions maintained different dialects, most notably Andalusian, spoken in and around Seville.

History of Spanish in Latin America

In Latin America, the Spanish language has many different variants or dialects in the different areas it is spoken because of the size of the territory, as well as different histories regionally. We can realize the development of different variants of Latin American Spanish in the different areas of Latin America: Amazonian, Bolivian, Caribbean, Central American, Andean, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Mexican, Northern Mexican, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Puerto Rican and Argentine.

Knowing the origin of the Spanish language in Latin American countries is essential to recognizing the subtle differences in the Spanish spoken in different regions. As many of you know, Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas and brought with him the Spanish language.

During the early stages there were many challenges, as the local languages were starkly different, making communications difficult. Until the Catholic Church stepped in, it was unclear whether Spanish would survive in the region. The Catholic Church was really instrumental in the expansion of the use of Spanish in the region. In particular, the Jesuits and Franciscans established learning intuitions to teach children Catholicism in Spanish. As the children and adolescents grew, the Spanish language started to spread and expand. As Catholicism grew, so did the use of the Spanish language as the primary form of communication.

Despite the efforts of the Spaniards to impose the language on the natives, the sheer dominance in numbers caused the language to blend with the local dialects. In particular, Mexican and Peruvian natives were able to significantly influence the language spoken today in Latin America.

Certain influences from Spanish explorers from Andalusia helped shape the pronunciation of Latin American Spanish versus Castilian Spanish. This is why certain words in Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish sound quite different even with identical spellings. The combination of all of these historical and sociological events has caused the evolution of the distinct form of Latin American Spanish spoken today in Central and South America.

So as you can see, the history of this beautiful Spanish language is very intriguing indeed, mostly because it is the language that really started what we now know is America. Of all the three romance languages, Spanish has definitely the most important part inn the history of mankind.