Interesting Facts About the Spanish Language
Spanish is one of the most beautiful languages in the world and today ranks among the most widely spoken. It is also remarkably easy to learn, so if you haven't decided which language to learn next, consider the one spoken by prominent figures in art like Cervantes, Velazquez, and Picasso.
● Spanish ranks second in number of native speakers, exceeding 400 million worldwide. It even surpasses English with its 354 million speakers, though it falls behind Chinese, which boasts around 1.2 billion speakers.
● Like Italian, Spanish has a wide variety of dialects, which sometimes leads to confusion in its naming. Interestingly, even Spaniards and Latin Americans often refer to it as "Castilian," distinguishing it among many other dialects and indicating its place of origin.
● In recent years, Spanish has become one of the most popular languages on the Internet. Statistics show that more than 164 million Internet users communicate in Spanish. Over the past decade, its use on the Internet, particularly on social media, has increased by approximately 800%, a trend expected to continue rising.
● In the United States, over 35 million people speak Spanish. Experts predict that by 2050, the majority of U.S. citizens will speak Spanish, displacing English, French, and Chinese.
● The first document written in Spanish was Las Glosas Emilianenses in 964 AD. It was a religious text written in Latin, with Spanish glosses added by the author in the margins. The first complete text written entirely in Spanish appeared in the 12th century, which was a poem by an anonymous author - El Cantar del Mio Cid.
● Spanish is recognized as the most phonetic language in the world. If you know how a word is spelled, you can be confident in pronouncing it correctly. The exception may be new words of foreign origin, which typically retain their original spelling.
● Given the number of Spanish speakers, it's no surprise that Spanish is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organizations.
● In 1713, the Royal Spanish Academy was founded to preserve, spread, and facilitate communication in Spanish-speaking countries. The Academy continues to regulate linguistic and literary standards.
● Depending on the continent, Spanish can vary significantly. Colonial settlements allowed Spanish to develop independently, mixing with local languages and dialects. Despite these differences, speakers from different regions can understand each other with ease.
● Spanish and English share a large number of cognates, primarily derived from Arabic and Latin. Their major differences lie in verb conjugations and the more frequent use of the subjunctive mood in Spanish compared to English.
● Spanish is about 60% derived from Anglo-Saxon roots, making it one of the easiest languages to learn. Its main advantage is that words are pronounced as they are written, and vowel sounds never change their pronunciation. Therefore, after mastering Spanish, learning any other European foreign language becomes much easier.
