{"id":216,"date":"2015-06-16T02:15:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T02:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/?p=216"},"modified":"2015-06-16T02:15:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T02:15:49","slug":"castilian-or-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"Castilian or Spanish?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you’ll run into people who refer to what we call\u00a0Spanish as castellano<\/em> (Castilian) instead of\u00a0espa\u00f1ol<\/em> (Spanish).<\/p>\n

To understand the term Castilian (castellano<\/em>) we need to understand that Spanish is primarily\u00a0derived from\u00a0Latin, which arrived on the Iberian Peninsula (the peninsula that includes Spain and Portugal) around 2,000 years ago. On the peninsula, Latin incorporated\u00a0some of the vocabulary from other regional\u00a0languages and then became known as\u00a0Vulgar Latin.<\/p>\n

For reasons more political than linguistic, this dialect (Vulgar Latin) was used commonly in what is now the north-central portion of Spain, which includes Castile. Later it spread throughout the region.<\/p>\n

In the 13th century, King Alfonso pushed for\u00a0historic documents to be translated into the regional\u00a0dialect, known as Castilian (castellano),<\/em> which helped Castilian evolve to become the standard language. He later\u00a0made this dialect the official language for government administration.<\/p>\n

Another factor that helped spread\u00a0Castilian (castellano<\/em>)\u00a0as an official language was the expulsion of the Moors. Castilian became the official tongue of Spain. Later efforts to educate people on the use of Castilian by\u00a0Arte de la lengua castellana<\/em> by Antonio de Nebrija, generated\u00a0the first Spanish-language textbook and one of the first books to systematically define the grammar of\u00a0this\u00a0European language.<\/p>\n

Even with the growing popularity of this language, this didn’t eliminate other\u00a0Peninsular\u00a0languages such as Galician, Euskara (or Basque) and Catalan.\u00a0Even today all\u00a0of these languages coexist in Spain.<\/p>\n

The term Spanish (espa\u00f1ol)<\/em>\u00a0encompasses\u00a0 the entirety of the Spanish language including not only Spain but Latin America, The Caribbean and Equatorial Guinea in Africa (where believe it or not Spanish is the official language!)<\/p>\n

So basically, the main difference between the two terms is\u00a0that Castilian (castellano)<\/em> is the original dialect that generated what would later become, and what we know today as, Spanish (espa\u00f1ol).<\/em><\/p>\n

Nowadays,\u00a0the term Castilian is used in other ways too. Sometimes it is used to describe the language that is spoken\u00a0in the North-Central region\u00a0of Spain. In the Northwest region, for example, Galician is the language.\u00a0\u00a0In the Northeast region, Catalan is the language. Basically, the term Castilian is now used to specify the language spoken in a specific region.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0the absolute\u00a0authority for Spanish – in terms of\u00a0language – is\u00a0The\u00a0Royal Spanish Academy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Nowadays, the Real Academia<\/em>\u00a0considers Spanish as a universal language. Thanks to Wikipedia we can see the top 3 most spoken languages\u00a0 in the world below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Language<\/th>\nNative name<\/th>\nNative speakers (millions)<\/th>\n\u00a0% of world population<\/th>\nMainly spoken in<\/th>\nNotes<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Mandarin<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/b><\/td>\n\u5b98\u8a71\/\u5b98\u8bdd<\/td>\n955*<\/td>\n14.4%<\/td>\nChina, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia<\/td>\nPart of Chinese language<\/span><\/u><\/a> family<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Spanish<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/b><\/td>\nEspa\u00f1ol<\/i><\/td>\n405*<\/td>\n6.15%<\/td>\nArgentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara. See List of countries where Spanish is an official language<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/td>\nPartially mutually intelligible with Portuguese<\/span><\/u><\/a>[2]<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/sup>[3]<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/sup>[4]<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/sup> and Italian<\/span><\/u><\/a>[5]<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/sup><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
English<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/b><\/td>\nEnglish<\/td>\n360*<\/td>\n5.43%<\/td>\nUnited Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. See List of countries where English is an official language<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As you see, Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in the world. In general, the terms\u00a0 castellano<\/em> or espa\u00f1ol<\/em>\u00a0can sometimes\u00a0have political implications. In fact, in some\u00a0parts of Latin America, the Spanish language is known routinely as castellano<\/em> rather than espa\u00f1ol<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you’ll run into people who refer to what we call Spanish as castellano (Castilian) instead of español (Spanish). To understand the term Castilian (castellano) we need to understand that Spanish is primarily derived from Latin, which arrived on the Iberian Peninsula (the peninsula that includes Spain and Portugal) around 2,000 years ago. On the peninsula, Latin incorporated some of … Continue reading Castilian or Spanish?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222,"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanish4life.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}