1.
Government of Spain
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Spain is a parliamentary monarchy whose government is defined by the Constitution of Spain. This was approved by a referendum of the people of Spain in 1978. The final interpretation of the Constitution, in the case of dispute, is the business of the Constitutional Court of Spain, the king is also the commander in chief of the Spanish Armed Forces in which capacity he suppressed the 23-F Spanish coup détat attempt in February 1981. The king, currently Felipe VI, has held this position since 19 June 2014 and his predecessor, Juan Carlos I, abdicated the throne. Daughters can inherit only if the monarch has no sons, the heir presumptive is Leonor, Princess of Asturias. The Military Chief of Staff is General of the Army Fernando Alejandre Martínez, President of the Government, sometimes misleadingly called the Spanish President, is the first minister and is elected by the Congress of Deputies. He is informally but internationally and commonly referred to as the Prime Minister, the current holder is Mariano Rajoy Brey, who was elected on 21 December 2011. He appoints a number of vice-presidents ordered numerically according to rank and responsible for their respective major ministries such as Finance, Foreign affairs, Domestic administration, etc. Minister for the Presidency and Vice President, María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, the following is the list of members of the Cabinet of Spain formed after the 2016 general election. Shown here is the logo of the Government of Spain. Below it is a variant design for the Ministry of Finance, Spanish cabinets from 1931 to 2004 Official website Law 50/1997, of the Government Boe. es
2.
Instituto Cervantes
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The Cervantes Institute is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, the Cervantes Institute, a government agency, is the largest organization in the world responsible for promoting the study and the teaching of Spanish language and culture. This organization has branched out in over 20 different countries with 54 centres devoted to the Spanish and Hispanic American culture and it designs Spanish language courses, offering two kinds of courses, general and special. It offers the Diplomas of Spanish as Foreign Language examinations on behalf of the Spanish Ministry of Education and this is an official qualification certifying levels of competence in the Spanish language, and is the only certificate for non-native Spanish speakers that is officially recognised in Spain. The diplomas are subdivided into six levels, each one corresponding to a proficiency level as described by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1. It improves the methods of Spanish education, sponsors lectures, book presentations, concerts, art exhibitions, The Spain Film Festival and Festival of Flamenco. Supported by other organisations and communities and it organises and promotes the program to spread the Spanish language throughout the world. The Institute works with Spains national radio and television to deliver Spanish language courses, publications, on-line bibliographies, library holdings, the hosting of major conferences on the state of the Spanish language. It also publishes the Anuario del español to analyse and report on the situation and it supports the Centro Virtual Cervantes on the internet since 1997. General language courses are offered at four different levels, elementary, intermediate, advanced, to provide different resources, including Spanish on-line, to improve the teaching. To allow the students to use any of the facilities of the Cervantes Institute around the world, to issue Spanish language diplomas and certificates The administration of the Cervantes Institute is subdivided into three parts. A commitment and interest in planning the activities and direction of the Institute are managed by a high-profile membership, Patronato, The Cervantes Institute is overseen by its governing body, the Patronato. It gives general directions for the activities of the Institute and informs on its annual activities, the Consejo de Administración is a management body and approves the general plans and projects of the Institute. It consists of representatives from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Education, Culture and Sport, Treasury, the Director is appointed by the Council of Ministers of Spain. The Director is in charge of guiding the management of the Institute, Centro Virtual Cervantes is an online service that was created in December 1997 by the Instituto Cervantes of Spain to contribute to the diffusion of the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. The Instituto Cervantes also has a presence in the 3D virtual world Second Life. On 13 December 2004, the Cervantes Institute formed its Centro de Formación de Profesores in its headquarters, located in Alcalá de Henares and this institution was founded to encourage the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language and to provide useful resources to its members. The Centre supports the future teachers of Spanish through its Master of Education in Spanish as a Foreign Language, the Automatic Translator Service of the Cervantes Institute, Portal de las Tecnologías Lingüisticas en España, was launched by the Cervantes Institute on 10 January 2005
3.
Culture of Spain
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In the areas of language and religion, the Ancient Romans left a lasting legacy. The subsequent course of Spanish history added other elements to the countrys culture, the Visigothic Kingdom left a sense of a united Christian Hispania that was going to be welded in the Reconquista. Muslim influences were strong during the Middle Ages, another influence was the minority Jewish population in some cities. After the defeat of the Muslims during the Christian Reconquista period between 718 and 1492, Spain became an almost entirely Roman Catholic country. By the end of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Spaniards made expressions of cultural diversity easier than it had been for the last seven centuries and this occurred at the same period that Spain became increasingly drawn into a diverse international culture. Spain has the third highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world, after Italy and China, the term Spanish literature refers to literature written in the Spanish language, including literature composed by Spanish and Latin American writers. It may include Spanish poetry, prose, and novels, Spanish literature is the name given to the literary works written in Spain throughout time, and those by Spanish authors worldwide. Due to historic, geographic, and generational diversity, Spanish literature has known a number of influences and is very diverse. Some major movements can be identified within it, highlights include the Cantar de Mio Cid, the oldest preserved Spanish cantar de gesta. It is written in medieval Spanish, the ancestor of modern Spanish, la Celestina is a book published anonymously by Fernando de Rojas in 1499. This book is considered to be one of the greatest in Spanish literature, and traditionally marks the end of medieval literature, in these novels, the adventures of the pícaro expose injustice while simultaneously amusing the reader. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it appears at or near the top of lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. However, Spains best known artist since the 20th century has been Pablo Picasso, who is known for his sculptures, drawings, graphics. Other leading artists include Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris, Joan Miró, during the Prehistoric period, the megalithic Iberian and Celtic architectures developed. Through the Roman period, both development and construction projects flourished. In the 19th century eclecticism and regionalism, the Neo-Mudéjar style, in the 20th century, the Catalan Modernisme, modernist architecture, and contemporary architecture germinated. The art of motion picture making within the nation of Spain or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish cinema, in recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence. In the long history of Spanish cinema, the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel was the first to achieve universal recognition, followed by Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s
4.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
5.
Felipe VI of Spain
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Felipe VI is the King of Spain. He ascended to the throne on 19 June 2014 following the abdication of his father and he is the only son of Juan Carlos and his wife Sofía of Greece and Denmark. When Juan Carlos was chosen in 1969 to be Francisco Francos successor, Felipe became heir apparent when Juan Carlos succeeded Franco as head of state following his death in 1975. He was created Prince of Asturias in 1977, the title for the first in line. As Prince of Asturias, he worked to support philanthropic causes, in 2004, Felipe married TV presenter Letizia Ortiz with whom he has two daughters. Leonor, the elder, is his heir apparent and he succeeded his father as King of Spain when he abdicated in 2014. Felipe was born at Our Lady of Loreto Clinic in Madrid and he was baptised on 8 February 1968 at the Palace of Zarzuela by the Archbishop of Madrid, Casimiro Morcillo. His godparents were his paternal grandfather Juan and his paternal great-grandmother, shortly after his birth he was styled infante, although his father was not yet king. The ruling dictator General Francisco Franco died just over two months before Felipes eighth birthday, and Felipes father ascended the throne, in his first official appearance, Felipe attended his fathers proclamation as king on 22 November 1975. In 1977, Felipe was formally created Prince of Asturias, in May, nine-year-old Felipe was made an honorary soldier of the 1st Kings Immemorial Infantry Regiment. The occasion was marked on 28 May and was attended by the king, on 1 November the same year, he was ceremoniously paid homage as Prince of Asturias in Covadonga. In 1981 Felipe received the Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece from his father, Felipe attended school at Santa María de los Rosales, which his daughters currently attend. As the heir to the throne, a regulated and structured plan was laid out for Felipes military training. In August 1985, a Royal Decree named Felipe as officer at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza and he began his military training there in September. He completed the first phase of his formation in October, in July 1986, he was promoted to Cadet 2nd Lieutenant. He was also named as Midshipman, on September 1986, he began his naval training at the Escuela Naval Militar in Pontevedra, joining the Third Brigade. In January 1987, he continued his training on board the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano. In July, he was named as Student Ensign at the Academia General del Aire in Murcia, in September 1987, he began his air force training there
6.
Miguel de Cervantes
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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, was a Spanish writer who is highly regarded as perhaps the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the worlds pre-eminent novelists. His major work, Don Quixote, considered to be the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature and his influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes. He has also been dubbed El príncipe de los ingenios, in 1569, in forced exile from Castile, Cervantes moved to Rome, where he worked as chamber assistant of a cardinal. He then enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his life until 1575. In 1585, Cervantes published a novel named La Galatea. He worked as a agent for the Spanish Armada. In 1597, discrepancies in his accounts for three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville, in 1605, Cervantes was in Valladolid when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death and his last work, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, was published posthumously in 1617. It is assumed that Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, the probable date of his birth was determined from records in the church register, given the tradition of naming a child after the feast day of his birth. He was baptized in Alcalá de Henares on 9 October 1547 at the church of Santa María la Mayor. Witnesses, Baltasar Vázquez, Sexton, and I, who baptised him, Miguel at birth was not surnamed Cervantes Saavedra. He adopted the Saavedra name as an adult, by Spanish naming conventions his second surname was that of his mother, Cortinas. His paternal grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, was a lawyer who held several administrative positions. His uncle was mayor of Cabra for many years and his mother, Leonor de Cortinas, was a native of Arganda del Rey and the third daughter of a nobleman, who lost his fortune and had to sell his daughter into matrimony in 1543. This led to an awkward marriage and several affairs by Rodrigo. Leonor died on 19 October 1593, little is known of Cervantes early years. It seems he spent much of his moving from town to town with his family, eventually enrolling in The Imperial School. During this time, he met a young barmaid named Josefina Catalina de Parez, the couple fell madly in love and plotted to run away together
7.
Don Quixote
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Don Quixote, fully titled The history of the valorous and wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age, the story follows the adventures of an hidalgo named Mr. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story. Throughout the novel, Cervantes uses such techniques as realism, metatheatre. Arthur Schopenhauer cited Don Quixote as one of the four greatest novels written, along with Tristram Shandy, La Nouvelle Héloïse. Cervantes wrote that the first chapters were taken from The Archive of La Mancha, and this metafictional trick appears to give a greater credibility to the text, implying that Don Quixote is a real character and that the story truly occurred several decades back. However, it was common practice in that era for fictional works to make some pretense of being factual. As a result, he is given to anger and believes every word of these fictional books of chivalry to be true. Imitating the protagonists of these books, he decides to become a knight-errant in search of adventure. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor and becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. In a pretended ceremony, the innkeeper dubs him a knight to be rid of him, and sends him on his way. Don Quixote next frees a young boy tied to a tree and beaten by his master, and makes his master swear to treat the boy fairly, Don Quixote then encounters traders from Toledo, who insult the imaginary Dulcinea. He attacks them, only to be beaten and left on the side of the road. While Don Quixote is unconscious in his bed, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, a large part of this section consists of the priest deciding which books deserve to be burned and which to be saved. This gives an occasion for many comments on books Cervantes liked and disliked, for example, Cervantes own pastoral novel La Galatea is saved, while the rather unbelievable romance Felixmarte de Hyrcania is burned. After the books are dealt with, they seal up the room contained the library. After a short period of feigning health, Don Quixote requests his neighbor, Sancho Panza, to be his squire, Sancho, who is both greedy and unintelligent, agrees to the offer and sneaks away with Don Quixote in the early dawn. It is here that their famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixotes attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants, the two next encounter a group of friars accompanying a lady in a carriage
8.
Spanish literature
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Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain. The literature of Spanish America is an important branch of Spanish literature, the Roman conquest and occupation of the Iberian peninsula beginning in the 3rd century BC brought a Latin culture to Spanish territories. The arrival of Muslim invaders in 711 CE brought the cultures of the Middle, in Medieval Spanish literature, the earliest recorded examples of a vernacular Romance-based literature mix Muslim, Jewish, and Christian culture. One of the works is the epic poem Cantar de Mio Cid. Spanish prose gained popularity in the mid-thirteenth century, lyric poetry in the Middle Ages includes popular poems and the courtly poetry of the nobles. During the 15th century the pre-Renaissance occurred and literary production increased greatly, in the Renaissance important topics were poetry, religious literature, and prose. In the Baroque era of the 17th century important works were the prose of Francisco de Quevedo, a notable author was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, famous for his masterpiece Don Quixote de la Mancha. In Romanticism important topics are, the poetry of José de Espronceda and other poets, prose, the theater, with Ángel de Saavedra, José Zorrilla, in Modernism several currents appear, Parnasianism, Symbolism, Futurism, and Creationism. The destruction of Spains fleet in Cuba by the U. S. in 1898 provoked a crisis in Spain, a group of younger writers, among them Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, and José Martínez Ruiz, made changes to literatures form and content. Poets were closely tied to formal academia, Novelists such as Benjamín Jarnés, Rosa Chacel, Francisco Ayala, and Ramón J. Sender were equally experimental and academic. The Spanish Civil War had a impact on Spanish writing. Among the handful of war poets and writers, Miguel Hernández stands out. During the early dictatorship, literature followed dictator Francisco Francos reactionary vision of a second Spanish golden age, by the mid-1950s, just as with the novel, a new generation which had only experienced the Spanish civil war in childhood was coming of age. By the early 1960s, Spanish authors moved towards a restless literary experimentation, when Franco died in 1975, the important work of establishing democracy had an immediate impact on Spanish letters. Originally, these songs would have been closely associated with fertility rites. Later, primitive love ballads and heroic tales would have arisen and these popular, vernacular forms would have rarely if ever been written down. The Roman conquest and occupation of the peninsula, spanning from the 3rd century BC to the year 409 A. D, the Roman philosopher Seneca was born in Spain as were the poets Martial, Quintilian, and Lucan. While the invasion of Germanic tribes in the fifth century A. D, outstanding amongst the works produced is Saint Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, an attempted summa of all classical knowledge
9.
Spanish phonology
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This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the dialect used in Spain on radio. For historical development of the system see History of Spanish. For details of geographical variation see Spanish dialects and varieties, Spanish has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes and corresponding allophones. The phoneme /ʝ/ is realized as an approximant in all contexts except after a pause, in these environments, it may be realized as an affricate. The two also overlap in distribution after /l/ and /n/, enyesar aniego, although there is dialectal and ideolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like abyecto vs abierto. There are some alternations between the two, prompting scholars like Alarcos Llorach to postulate an archiphoneme /I/, so that ley would be transcribed phonemically as /ˈleI/ and leyes as /ˈleIes/. In a number of varieties, including some American ones, a parallel to the one distinguishing non-syllabic /i/ from consonantal /ʝ/ occurs for non-syllabic /u/. Near-minimal pairs include deshuesar vs. desuello, son huevos vs son nuevos, the phoneme /ʎ/ is found in some areas in Spain and some areas of South America. Most speakers in Spain, including the variety prevalent on radio, however, speakers in Latin America and those parts of southern Spain have only /s/. Some speakers in southernmost Spain have only and not /s/ and this ceceo is not entirely unknown in the Americas, especially in coastal Peru. The phoneme /s/ has three different pronunciations depending on dialect, the phonemes /t/ and /d/ are laminal denti-alveolars. The phoneme /s/ becomes dental before denti-alveolar consonants, while /θ/ remains interdental in all contexts, before front vowels /i, e/, the velar consonants /k, ɡ, x/ are realized as post-palatal. According to some authors, /x/ is post-velar or uvular in the Spanish of northern, others describe /x/ as velar in European Spanish, with a uvular allophone appearing before /u/. A common pronunciation of /f/ in nonstandard speech is the bilabial fricative. /ʃ/ is a phoneme that occurs only in loanwords, many speakers have difficulty with this sound. In a number of dialects occurs, as a deaffricated /tʃ/, some of the phonemic contrasts between consonants in Spanish are lost in certain phonological environments, and especially in syllable-final position. In these cases the phonemic contrast is said to be neutralized, nasals and laterals The three nasal phonemes—/m/, /n/, and /ɲ/—maintain their contrast when in syllable-initial position
10.
Spanish orthography
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Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script, the punctuation is similar to that used in other Romance languages and in English. The Spanish language is written using the Spanish alphabet, which is the Latin script with one letter, eñe ñ. Although the letters k and w are part of the alphabet, they appear only in such as karate, kilo, waterpolo. Each letter has an official name according to the Real Academia Españolas new 2010 Common Orthography. The digraphs ch and ll were considered letters of the alphabet from 1754 to 2010, the digraph rr is occasionally considered a letter, but officially it was never so. ^1 The sequence ⟨ch⟩ represents the affricate /tʃ/, the digraph was formerly treated as a single letter, called che. ^2 The phonemes /θ/ and /s/ have merged in many dialects, see seseo. ^3 With the exception of loanwords, hámster, hachís, hawaiano, which have /x/. ^5 Used only in the digraph ⟨qu⟩. ^6 The digraph ⟨rr⟩. For details on Spanish pronunciation, see Spanish phonology and Wikipedia, when acute accent and diaeresis marks are used on vowels they are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but ⟨ñ⟩ is considered a separate letter from ⟨n⟩. This makes a difference when sorting alphabetically, ⟨ñ⟩ appears in dictionaries after ⟨n⟩, for example, in a Spanish dictionary piñata comes after pinza. There are five digraphs, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ll⟩, ⟨rr⟩, ⟨gu⟩ and ⟨qu⟩, thus, for example, in dictionaries, chico is alphabetized after centro and before ciudad, instead of being alphabetized after all words beginning with cu- as was formerly done. Despite their former status as unitary letters of the alphabet, ⟨ch⟩, thus the word chillón in a text written in all caps is CHILLÓN, not *ChILlÓN, and if it is the first word of a sentence, it is written Chillón, not *CHillón. Sometimes, one finds lifts with buttons marked LLamar, but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according to RAE rules, B and V The letters ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ were originally simply known as be and ve, which in modern Spanish are pronounced identically. In Old Spanish, they represented different sounds but the sounds merged later. Their usual names are be and uve, in some regions, some Mexicans and most Peruvians generally say be grande / chica, Argentines, Uruguayans and Chileans, be larga / corta. Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter, e. g. b de burro / v de vaca, Colombians tend to say be grande for B and ve pequeña for V. In Venezuela, they called B as b de Bolívar, and V as v de Venezuela, regardless of these regional differences, all Spanish-speaking people recognize be as the official name of B. R The digraph ⟨rr⟩ is sometimes called doble erre or erre doble. It is sometimes suggested that the name of the letter ⟨r⟩ be ere when it is single, and erre when it is double, the name ere was used when referring specifically to the alveolar tap /ɾ/ and erre referring to the alveolar trill /r/
11.
Names given to the Spanish language
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There are two names given in Spanish to the Spanish language, español and castellano. Generally speaking, both terms can refer to the Spanish language as a whole, with a preference for one over the other depends on the context or the speakers origin. Soon after that there begin to appear discursive texts in Castilian and this early Romance language was derived from Latin and evolved into modern Spanish. However, the term Spanish is a recent term that first referred to Spain as a country. The actual legal unification date is disputed, but commonly agreed to have occurred not earlier than the eighteenth century, only then did the Castilian language begin to be commonly called Spanish. In 1492, the arrival of Christopher Columbus on a Castilian-paid expedition paved the way for the Spanish colonization of the Americas, as a result of this process, most countries in South America now speak the same language as Castile. Until about the eighteenth century, the Kingdom of Castile, and not Spain as a whole, was the power. In English, the term Spanish relates both to the language and to the nation, the noun used for a person from Spain is Spaniard, with the collective noun the Spanish. The term Castilian is much less widespread amongst English speakers than the term Spanish, both Latin ancestor words are based on the place name Hispania, and both are marked with an asterisk to indicate that they are reconstructed, not directly attested. The dissimilation hypothesis, advanced by Ramón Menéndez Pidal, presumes that Latin Hispania was lengthened by the derivational suffix -ōne, the Old Spanish form españon is documented in works of the 13th and 14th centuries. It is suggested that the final /n/ of this changed to /l/ by dissimilation from the previous nasal consonant. This sporadic sound change is observed in other words, Menéndez Pidal cites Barcelona and delante, Lathrop adds ingle. According to the Occitan scenario, advanced by Rafael Lapesa, the Spanish borrowed the Occitan name for themselves, the Occitan influence is inferred because in Castilian the same Latin suffix would have produced *españuelo rather than español. Lapesa counters the dissimilation hypothesis by citing other words with -ñón in which dissimilation did not take place, cañón, borgoñón, riñón, penny, in discussing loans from French and Occitan, calls this the most remarkable loan of all, español Spanish, replacing native españón. The name Hispania was applied to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans when they discovered, one theory about this name is that it comes from Canaanite אי שפנים, meaning island of hyraxes, named by Canaanite-speaking Phoenicians who mistook Spains large rabbit population for hyraxes. Several other theories about the name have been advanced as well, the Romans called the inhabitants of Hispania hispani, and the relevant adjective was hispanicus. As the branches of Vulgar Latin began to evolve into separate Romance languages and it was at first a general term that embraced the various dialects of Iberian Romance spoken in the area, including the forebears of modern Portuguese, Galician, Castilian and Catalan. With this, the break with the Roman concept of Hispania was complete, similarly, español came to be used to refer to the common language of this new country, Castilian
12.
Spanish dialects and varieties
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Some of the regional varieties of the Spanish language are quite divergent from one another, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, and less so in grammar. While all Spanish dialects use the written standard, all spoken varieties differ from the written variety. There are differences between European Spanish and the Spanish of the Americas, as well as many different dialect areas both within Spain and within Hispanic America, among grammatical features, the most prominent variation among dialects is in the use of the second-person pronouns. For the second-person singular familiar pronoun, some Hispanic America dialects use tú, in a broad sense, Hispanic American Spanish can be grouped into, Mexican Central American Caribbean. The Spanish spoken in Gibraltar is essentially not different from the areas in Spain. The maintenance of phonemic contrast is called distinción in Spanish, the merged phoneme is typically realized as, though in parts of southern Andalusia the realization is closer to, in Spain this latter variation is called ceceo and the former one seseo. In dialects with seseo the words casa and caza are pronounced as homophones, the symbol stands for a voiceless sibilant like the s of English sick, while represents a voiceless interdental fricative like the th of English thick. In some cases where the merger would render words homophonic in Hispanic America. Caza replaced by cacería, or cocer, homophonic with coser, for more on seseo, see González-Bueno. Traditionally Spanish had a distinction between /ʎ/ and /ʝ/. But for most speakers in Spain and the Americas, these two phonemes have merged in the phoneme /ʝ/. This merger results in the words calló and cayó being pronounced the same, the use of the merged phoneme is called yeísmo. The phoneme /ʝ/ can be pronounced in a variety of ways, in most of the area where yeísmo is present, the merged phoneme /ʎ ~ ʝ/ is pronounced as the fricative or approximant or as the glide, and also, in word-initial positions, glide, affricates and. In the area around the Río de la Plata, this phoneme is pronounced as a sibilant fricative, either as voiced or, especially by young speakers. One of the most distinctive features of the Spanish variants is the pronunciation of /s/ when it is not aspirated to or elided. However, in most of Andalusia, in a few areas in southern Spain. /s/ is allophonized as or before voiced consonants when it is not aspirated to or elided, is a transitional between and. In some varieties of Hispanic American Spanish this may also occur intervocalically within an individual word, for instance, todos los cisnes son blancos, can be pronounced, or even
13.
Peninsular Spanish
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The related term Castilian Spanish is often applied to formal varieties of Spanish as spoken in Spain. This is usually called distinción in Spanish, while the merger of phonemes is called seseo. However, many Andalusian dialects and the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands do not use distinción as a general rule, in morphology, the most notable distinguishing feature of Peninsular Spanish is the use of the pronoun vosotros and its corresponding verb forms for the second person plural familiar. In virtually all varieties of Modern Spanish, for the second person plural, the familiar. Again, the use of vosotros is uncommon in the Canary Islands and only partially introduced in Western Andalusia
14.
Spanish language in the Americas
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The Spanish language spoken in the Americas is distinct from Peninsular Spanish and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in Africa and Asia. Of the more than 469 million people who speak Spanish as their language, more than 418 million are in Latin America. There are numerous regional particularities and idiomatic expressions within Spanish, in Latin American Spanish, loanwords directly from English are relatively more frequent, and often foreign spellings are left intact. One notable trend is the abundance of loan words taken from English in Latin America as well as words derived from English. The Latin American Spanish word for computer is la computadora, whereas the word used in Spain is el ordenador, pronunciation varies from country to country and from region to region, just as English pronunciation varies from one place to another. In general terms, the speech of the Americas shows many features akin to southern Spanish variants, especially to western Andalusia. Most Spaniards pronounce ⟨z⟩ and ⟨c⟩ as, conversely, most Hispanic Americans have seseo, lacking a distinction between this phoneme acc /s/. However, seseo is also typical of the speech of many Andalusians, most of Spain, particularly the regions that have a distinctive /θ/ phoneme, realize /s/ with the tip of tongue against the alveolar ridge. Phonetically this is an apico-alveolar grave sibilant, with a weak hushing sound reminiscent of retroflex fricatives, to a Hispanic American speaker, the /s/ in Spanish dialects from northern Spain might sound close to like English ⟨sh⟩ as in she. As mentioned, Anglicisms are far more common in Hispanic America than in Spain, due to the stronger, equally, indigenous languages have left their mark on Hispanic American Spanish, a fact which is particularly evident in vocabulary to do with flora, fauna and cultural habits. Doublets of Arabic-Latinate synonyms with the Arabic form are common in Hispanic American Spanish being influenced by Andalusian Spanish like Andalusian, in this sense Hispanic American Spanish is closer to the dialects spoken in the south of Spain. Examples include the previously mentioned alcoba along with standard cuarto, recámara, habitación, dormitorio, aposento or pieza, see List of words having different meanings in Spain and Hispanic America. Most Hispanic American Spanish usually features yeísmo, there is no distinction between ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨y⟩, and both are, speakers of Rioplatense Spanish pronounce both ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨y⟩ as or. Most speakers of coastal dialects may debuccalize or aspirate syllable-final /s/ to, or drop it entirely, so that sounds like or. ⟨g⟩ and ⟨j⟩ are usually aspirated to in Caribbean and other coastal language vernaculars, as well as in all Colombia, in other American dialects the sound is closer to, and often firmly strong in Peruvian Spanish dialect. Very often, especially in Argentina and Chile, becomes fronter when preceding high vowels /e, i/ and this happens at a reduced level in Ecuador and Chile as well. It is a feature brought from Extremadura and westernmost Andalusia, in many Andean regions the alveolar trill of rata and carro is realized as an alveolar approximant or even as a voiced apico-alveolar. A notable exception is the Department of Nariño and most Costeño speech which feature the soft, word-final /n/ is velar in much Latin American Spanish speech, this means a word like pan is often articulated
15.
Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives
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Ceceo is found in some dialects of Spain, in the southernmost part of Andalusia. In many other Spanish-speaking regions and countries, however, the distinction between /s/ and /θ/ has been neutralized or merged. These varieties of Spanish are sometimes said to exhibit neutralización as opposed to distinción, in this case, their pronunciation may or may not coincide with the English pronunciation. Ceceo is a found in a few dialects of southern Spain in which the historical phonemes /s/. Ceceo is found primarily in some varieties of Andalusian Spanish, although Hualde reports that there is evidence of it in parts of Central America. A publication of the University of Oviedo also notes that the ceceo can be found in Argentina, other linguists have noticed the use of ceceo in parts of Puerto Rico, Honduras, and Venezuela. It is a largely rural pronunciation and is often stigmatized, seseo is the merger in the opposite direction, the original phonemes /s/ and /θ/ are both pronounced as. For example, the words casa and caza would be pronounced with the same sound and this rentention of the can result in ambiguity but can usually be interpreted depending on the context of which the sentence is spoken. Seseo is the most widespread pronunciation among Spanish speakers worldwide and occurs in all speakers in Hispanic America. While it is a minority pronunciation in Spain itself, seseo is considered standard in all varieties of Latin American Spanish and it coexists with distinción and ceceo in parts of Spain. Traditional dialect atlases show one variant or another used in adjacent regions, in Spain, seseo is considered more socially acceptable or perhaps less substandard than ceceo. The following table gives an example of the three pronunciation patterns discussed so far, Many speakers of ceceo and seseo dialects in Spain show sociolinguistic variation in usage. In some cases, this variation may arise when a ceceo or seseo speaker more or less consciously attempts to use distinción in response to sociolinguistic pressure. However, as, for instance, in the case of the variation between the velar nasal and alveolar pronunciation of the nasal in -ing in English, the switching may be entirely unconscious. It is perhaps evidence of the saliency of three-way ceceo-seseo-distinción variation that inconsistent use has elicited evaluative comments by some traditional Spanish dialectologists, for instance, Dalbor discussed it as sporadic or chaotic switching and the use of intermediate sounds impossible to determine with precision. In fact, sociolinguistic variation is highly structured in terms of how often each variant will appear given various social. This myth has been discredited by scholars for lack of evidence, Lundeberg traces the origins of the legend back to a chronicle of Pero López de Ayala stating that Peter of Castile lisped a little. The timeline is incorrect, however, he reigned in the 14th century
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Voseo
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Voseo is the use of vos as a second person singular pronoun, including its conjugational verb forms in many dialects of Spanish. In dialects that have it, it is used instead of tú. Use of tú is known as tuteo, Vos is used extensively as the primary form of the second person singular in Rioplatense Spanish, Eastern Bolivia, and Paraguayan Spanish. Central American Spanish also exhibits an extensive use of vos. Vos had not been used in formal writing except in Argentina. Nowadays it is common to see billboards and other advertising media using voseo. In the dialect of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, vos is also the form for use in television media. In Peru, voseo is present in some Andean regions and Cajamarca and it is also present in Ladino, where it replaces usted. In the United States, Salvadoran Americans are by far the largest voseo users followed by other Central Americans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and Costa Ricans. Voseo can also be found in the context of using verb conjugations for vos with tú as the pronoun, as in the case of Chilean Spanish. Originally a second-person plural, Vos came to be used as a more polite second-person singular pronoun to be used among ones familiar friends. O Dios, sois vos mi Padre verdadéro, O God, thou art my true Father, Tú eres un buen amígo, Thou art a good friend. The standard formal way to address a person one was not on terms with was to address such a person as vuestra merced in the singular. Because of the meaning of these forms, they were accompanied by the corresponding third-person verb forms. Other formal forms of address included vuestra excelencia and vuestra señoria, today, both vos and tú are considered to be informal pronouns, with vos being somewhat synonymous with tú in regions where both are used. This was the situation when Castilian was brought to the Río de la Plata area, note that the term vosotros is a combined form of vos otros, while the term nosotros comes from nos otros. In the first half of the 19th century the use of vos was as prevalent in Chile as it was in Argentina, the current limitation of the use of vos in Chile is attributed to a campaign to eradicate it by the Chilean education system. The campaign was initiated by Andrés Bello who considered the use of vos a manifestation of lack of education, the independent disjunctive pronoun ti is also replaced by vos. That is, vos is both nominative and the form to use after prepositions, therefore, para ti for you becomes para vos, etc
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Spanglish
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Most varieties of Spanglish are not usually considered a language itself, but instead a blend of Spanish and English lexical items and grammar. Spanglish is not a pidgin, because unlike pidgin languages, Spanglish can be the primary form for some individuals. Spanglish can be considered a variety of Spanish with heavy use of English or a variety of English with heavy use of Spanish and it can be more related either to Spanish or to English, depending on the circumstances. Since Spanglish arises independently in each region, it reflects the spoken varieties of English and Spanish. In general different varieties of Spanglish are not necessarily mutually intelligible, the term was introduced by the Puerto Rican poet Salvador Tió in the late 1940s, when he called it Espanglish or Inglañol. Some of these creoles have become recognized languages in their own right, including the Llanito language of Gibraltar and San Andrés–Providencia Creole of Colombia. In the late 1940s, the Puerto Rican journalist, poet, and essayist Salvador Tió coined the terms Espanglish for Spanish spoken with some English terms, between 1902 and 1948, the main language of instruction in public schools was English. Currently Puerto Rico is nearly unique in having both English and Spanish as its official languages, consequently, many American English words are now found in the vocabulary of Puerto Rican Spanish. Spanglish may also be known by different regional names, Spanglish does not have one unified dialect—specifically, the varieties of Spanglish spoken in New York, Florida, Texas, and California differ. It is common in Panama, where the 96-year U. S. control of the Panama Canal influenced much of society, especially among the former residents of the Panama Canal Zone. The same applies to the large Puerto Rican-descended populations of New York City, Spanglish is spoken commonly in the modern United States, reflecting the growth of the Hispanic-American population due to immigration. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the population of Hispanics grew from 35.3 million to 53 million between 2000 and 2012, Hispanics have become the largest minority ethnic group in the US. More than 80% are of Mexican descent, Mexican Americans form one of the fastest-growing groups, increasing from 20.6 million to 34.5 million between 2000 and 2012. Around 58% of this community chose California, especially Southern California, Spanglish is widely used throughout the heavily Mexican-American and other Hispanic communities of Southern California. The use of Spanglish has become important to Hispanic communities throughout the United States in areas such as Miami, New York City, Texas, in Miami a Spanglish familiarly known as Cubonics is spoken. Spanglish is known as bilingualism/ semi-lingual ism, the acquisition of the first language is interrupted or unstructured language input follows from the second language. This can also happen in reverse, many Mexican-Americans, immigrants and bilinguals express themselves in various Spanglishes. For many, Spanglish serves as a basis for self-identity, however, many others believe that Spanglish should not exist and should be prohibited
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Royal Spanish Academy
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The Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE, is the official royal institution responsible for overseeing the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies, the proposed language guidelines are shown in a number of works. The priorities are the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española, edited periodically twenty-three times since 1780, the Academy has a formal procedure for admitting words to its publications. The headquarters, opened in 1894, is located at Calle Felipe IV,4, in the ward of Jerónimos, the Center for the Studies of the Royal Spanish Academy, opened in 2007, is located at Calle Serrano 187–189. King Philip V approved its constitution on 3 October 1714, placing it under the Crowns protection, the RAE began establishing rules for the orthography of Spanish beginning in 1741 with the first edition of the Ortographía. The proposals of the Academy became the norm in Spain by royal decree in 1844. The current rules and practical recommendations are presented in the latest edition of the Ortografía. In 1994, the RAE ruled that the Spanish consonants CH and LL would hence be alphabetized under C and under L, respectively, the Números are elected for life by the other academicians. Each academician holds a seat labeled with a letter from the Spanish alphabet, upper-, joint publications of the RAE and the Association of Spanish Language Academies Diccionario de la lengua española. The first edition is in public domain, the Diccionario esencial de la lengua española was published in 2006 as a shortened work to span between the 22nd and 23rd editions. The edition of 1999 was the first spelling book to cover the whole Hispanic world, the first edition is in public domain. Nueva gramática de la lengua española, the latest edition is the first grammar to cover the whole Hispanic world, replacing the prior Gramática de la lengua española and the Esbozo de una Nueva gramática de la lengua española. The first edition is in public domain, the Gramática básica is a 250-page pocket reference intended for school use, to be published in late 2010. The RAE has also published two works by individual editors, Gramática de la lengua española and Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Resolves doubts related to the use of the Spanish language, replaces the Diccionario escolar de la RAE. Diccionario práctico del estudiante is a version for Latin America
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Ministry of Education (Spain)
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The ministrys first minister was Antonio García Alix. The current minister is Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, from the Peoples Party, since the reign of Alfonso XIII, the current Ministry of Education has successively been known by the following titles, Ministry of Public Instruction and the Fine Arts. Ministry of Public Instruction and Health, commission of Culture and Education of the Technical Board of the State. Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, Ministry of Education, Social policy and Sport. Rover Environmental Monitoring Station Education in Spain Official website of Ministry of Education Official website
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RTVE
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RTVE is the largest audiovisual group in Spain broadcasting in the Spanish language. Since January 2010 it is financed exclusively by public subsidies, in the exercise of its public service function, among the obligations of the RTVE Corporation are, Promote dissemination and awareness of constitutional principles and civic values. Guarantee the objectivity and truthfulness of the information provided, while ensuring that a range of views is presented. Facilitate democratic debate and the expression of opinion. Promote the territorial cohesion and linguistic and cultural diversity of Spain, to serve the widest audience, ensuring maximum continuity and geographical and social coverage, with a commitment to quality, diversity, innovation, and high ethical standards. RTVE throughout its history has undergone numerous restructurings and reorganisations, and has assumed numerous identities, the history of RTVE begins in 1937 with the first broadcasts by Radio Nacional de España from the city of Salamanca. In these early years, RNE served as a tool for the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Further consolidations followed in 1977, at which time RTVE became an autonomous organization, in 1979 TVE, RNE were joined by RCE an old radio service which, unlike RNE, could broadcast commercials. In 1980, RTVE was configured, by statute, as a public entity with its own jurisdiction. The former cinema newsreels service NO-DO was merged into RTVE to be dismantled in 1981, since then, the NO-DO archives are property of RTVE and its conservation is on their hands and Filmoteca Nacionals. In 1989, RCE was dismantled and its service was merged into RNE. This change in the law put Corporación RTVE in control of Spains public radio, in 2012 the PP began staffing RTVE with party veterans. Considerable controversy was caused when Ana Pastor was fired, on 11 June 2013, RTVE was one of the few known European broadcasters to condemn and criticize the closure of Greeces state broadcaster ERT. Pursuant to the 2006 Law of State Radio and television, management of the public service is entrusted to Corporación RTVE. The Administrative Council of the RTVE is the body of RTVE, and appoints the executive officers of RTVE and its companies, approves its organization. The President has operational control of operations, in order to execute the decisions. The President is appointed by, and may be dismissed by, before the 2006 Act, this position was filled by the role of the Director General, which had a de facto total control of RTVE. In practice, the Director General had been chosen by the Government for their political profile, the News Council is an internal supervisory body composed of RTVE journalists with the aim of safeguarding RTVEs independence
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Europe
Austria (Vienna)
Belgium (Brussels)
Bulgaria (Sofia)
Cyprus (Nicosia)
Czech Republic (Prague)
France (Bordeaux, Lyon, Paris, Toulouse)
Germany (Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Munich)
Gibraltar (Gibraltar), Spanish foreign minister José García-Margallo y Marfil has decided to close this branch due to political reasons.[8]
Greece (Athens) The original Athens Cervantes Institute opened in 1992; in March 2010, Greek-born Queen Sofia of Spain opened its new building.
Hungary (Budapest)
Ireland (Dublin, see 53°20′31″N 6°15′06″W / 53.341975°N 6.251575°W)
Italy (Milan, Naples, Palermo, Rome)
Netherlands (Utrecht)
Poland (Warsaw, Kraków)
Portugal (Lisbon)
Romania (Bucharest)
Serbia (Belgrade)
Sweden (Stockholm)
United Kingdom (Leeds, London, Manchester)
Algeria (Algiers, Oran)
Australia (Sydney)
Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Recife, Curitiba)
India (New Delhi)
China (Beijing)
Egypt (Cairo, Alexandria)
Israel (Tel Aviv)
Japan (Tokyo)
Jordan (Amman)
Lebanon (Beirut, Kaslik, Tripoli)
Morocco (Casablanca, Fes, Rabat, Tangier, Tétouan, Marrakesh)
Philippines (Manila)
Russia (Moscow)
Syria (Damascus)
Tunisia (Tunis)
Turkey (Istanbul)
United States (Albuquerque, Boston, Boston University, Chicago, New York, Seattle, U. of Washington)
