Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote, a work often cited as both the first modern novel and "the first great novel of world literature". A 2002 poll of 100 well-known authors voted it the "best book of all time", as voted by the judges from among the "best and most central works in world literature".
This portrait, attributed to Juan de Jáuregui, is unauthenticated. No authenticated image of Cervantes exists.
An incident in the story of Don Quixote (1870), by Robert Hillingford.
Monument of Cervantes erected in 1929 (Madrid)
Statue of Miguel de Cervantes at the harbour of Naupactus (Lepanto)
Spanish or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.
Antonio de Nebrija, author of Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar of a modern European language
Spanish language signage in Malabo, capital city of Equatorial Guinea
Spanish language newspaper in the Philippines from 1892
Announcement in Spanish on Easter Island, welcoming visitors to Rapa Nui National Park