Talk:Languages of Spain

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Language, dialect, etc.

It is perfectly valid to say that Andaluz is a dialect of Spanish. Andaluz is not, however, a dialect of Castilian, which is simply another dialect of Spanish, albeit the politicially dominant one. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

but it is if you say that "Castilian" is the same as "Spanish", which seems the main idea here.--80.103.139.175 03:09, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

In English, to refer to "Castilian" is specifically to refer to the Castilian dialect. The broader language is simply called Spanish. Some of us who are reasonably bilingual may sometimes use "Castilian" to refer to the broader language (especially if we are talking to a Catalan native!), but if that were our intent we would more likely borrow castellano directly; in any case, the use of either "Castilian" or "castellano" in an English-language context to refer to the entire language rather than a dialect is essentially a Spanglish usage. - Jmabel | Talk 20:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The relationship between what we call "Castilian" and "Spanish" is not the same as the relationship between "Tuscan" and "Italian", where Italian is a derivation of Tuscan. Castilian IS Spanish. You can't specify "Castilian dialect" and somehow exclude "Spanish language", as they are the same thing. In fact, you can say Mexican Spanish (et al) is a dialect of Castilian. 2CrudeDudes (talk) 15:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

You're not right, actually. While castellano, which you are translating as Castilian, is used as a word indicating the Spanish language as a whole, there is also a dialect of Spanish called centronorteno, which is referred to in English as the Castilian Spanish dialect.131.111.29.227 (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Two names for a same language: "Castilian" and "Spanish"

Castilian is the historical and autochtonal name of the language, Spanish is mainly a political denomination and can't be more valid than the first one if we follow a linguistical criteria.

I considere that calling "Spanish" to Castilian language is equivalent as calling "Brittish" to English language, or "Roman" to Latin one, justifying it on a legal status or a political or ethno-centristic question. Castilian is not the only language spoken in Spain, nor the only official language, besides, it's not reduced to the current Estate of Spain. It's true, that since centuries ago, it has got generalized into a sort of "lingua franca", in a regional and even international reality, and due to that, the second denomination of "Spanish" started being applied or associated to it, specially from a foreign context, where speakers from other languages tended not to be as familiarized with the reality of the language nor the linguistic or sociologic reality of the region to be awarded of many relevant ethnic and regional overtones.

Castilian started to exist as one else of Iberian Peninsula's derivation from late vulgar Latin, spoken in there, specifically that one spoken among the influencial area of the young counties and soon independent kingdom of Castile, that, compared to the rest of the territory, and the other political and linguistical entities, it was one of smallest and less significative ones. Through Reconquista historical contest, this young reign started expanding, taking advantage from several weakness or confrontation periods among Moor divisions or kingdoms, as well as from his northern christianic neighbours in some conflicts (one of the latest and most decissive ones got translated into the annexation of Leon by that one), and thus it smartly ended up getting to gain some sort of militar and political hegemony as a strong entity around the Peninsula, across the next centuries. This, added to an internationally growing influence derived from the new colonial campaigns in the Americas during beggining of Modern Ages, and a subsequent, decisive ultramarine trade and mercantilist industry, of which it took monopoly or hegemony during a good period of time, increasing the kingdom's richness and strengh; as well an important royal linking through marriage with Aragon crown, important power of Spain in the Age, after Portugal, and main power in Mediterranean, affirmated through several conquests and interventions, and the ultimate fusion de facto of both thrones in the only person of Carlos V (Charles V) of Habsburg, who at same time heritaged throne of Austria and Burgundy and the right to throne of Sacred Germanic-Roman Empire of Germany, can give us a clue of the influence this political entity could achieve far away his frontairs, as something mainly homogeneous. Then conquest of Navarre, a good part of Italy, with Napoli, Sardinia, Malta, Sicilia and Balears, under control, several victories against Ottomans, some strategic positions in northern-western African litoral that supposed an important substract against Algerian piracy, etc.

This considerably elevated international influence of Castilian language, that enjoyed some higher and stronger cultural supports and wider influencial areas than its romance neighbours and status de facto as Lingua Franca, inside and outside the Peninsula, in a context where most of Spain started to be seen as a mostly unified entity, except for Portugal, under the authority of a same dinasty or even monarch. However, not even in these moments "Castilian" denomination, only one logical, usable and possible in Medieval Ages, ceased to be oficially and popularly used during most of Modern one, even when a new "Spanish" one, motivated by a new context and reality, tended to shily share the traditional one. It wouldn't be until uprise of Borbons and their centralistic politics that seeked to abolish most of fueros or regional/autonomical statuses, laws and political realities, and "Spanish" denomination for the language to be increasingly and prominently used as preferent and officialized one. These hasn't got the erased the popular use, maybe implemented with a new synonymous. However, from political institutions, and specially in International contacts, this use has got as the apparently the only convenient or existing one. That doesn't respond to a sociological and linguistical reality, just a politically motivated purpose and justification, reasonibly reinforced during Franco's dictatorship and fascism, and as such, I don't considere excluding one of both possible, existing, vigent and current, nowadays also politically, but mainly linguistically, denominations of this romance language as opposed to the rest of its neighbours, wich don't belong to it, and are considered at same level, could be synonymous of a wide and neutral information, but probably an ideological-political influenced or motivated filter, that only cares to show one privative and non-only actual and existing, misinforming and excluding reality.

Castilian is internationally more widely known as Spanish the same way English could have got known as Brittish if historical events had tend to impose this political reality. That doesn't mean, from a linguistical criteria, we can't be critic with it, but flexible, wide, and open-minded, and defy it or even change it, not only in English, but in any language.

The argument of systematically excluding "Spanish" to the language and "Castilian" to the northern regional dialect doesn't consciously admits but actually tends to prevail and reinforce and justify in names a political Castilian-dominant statu quo, that still makes some conservative and continuist influence at the level of modern Spanish estate, and a strongest one in international context, but its only clear foundation isn't other than a temporal, poor and non-scientifically objective systematic confusion of "political" and "linguistical" frontair, we should be critic with. The fact Borbons dinasty and later Franco's ruling have favoured a centralistic spanishist totalitarist propaganda can't be a valid justification to ban out an alternative, historically homogeneous and currently testimoniated and evidenced denomination, as valid and coherent as "Spanish"'s one, supported by most of the speaker population from a non-monolinguistic society and contest, with several centuries of antiquity and continuity in time.

Signed by Hrodeberth

Galician

Galician language has an very important book industry and newspapers, even more thatn the basque language. I modificated the article in that way. --81.41.170.57 13:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

the opening sentence:

The most prominent of the languages of Spain is, of course, Spanish (which nearly everyone in Spain can speak and is also called in Spain castellano — "Castilian").

the sentence in parenthesis represents an opinion, unless supported by a citation PMoney 09:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It is definitely a true statement --the Dannycas 01:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

oh yeah I know it is, but I think the wording just annoys me "which nearly everyone in Spain can speak" - I think I'd rather see it worded differently. I'm also a stickler for citations, I know that Spanish/Castilian is the most prominent language in Spain...but maybe we can get a citation backing that.

This is absurd. The time spent seeking citations for the obvious and universally acknowledged is better spent making actual improvements to articles. I'm all for citing anything where even minor controversy obtains, but this is like having to cite for the fact that the common English-language name for the country is "Spain" or that it is in Western Europe. A total waste of time. This is one of those cases where I cannot imagine that there is a good-faith doubt about the matter; if you want to track down a citation for it yourself, feel free to waste your time; but please don't ask someone else to waste theirs. - Jmabel | Talk 18:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've made these minimal clarifications, that I considere important from a linguistical criteria, to the opening sentence, in order to be more exact and respectful with the social and linguistical reality: The most prominent of the languages of Spain is Castilian (also called and more internationally known as Spanish), which nearly everyone in Spain can speak and is called in Spain and Hispanic America both español ("Spanish"), and castellano ("Castilian"). I've changed South America for Hispanic America because it is less restrictive and more proper to the geographical and cultural-linguistical reality of that part of the continent: Mexico comprehends a part of North America and Central America, besides, it's not geographically clear where South America starts (unless we stated it as in Panama's Channel), nor where insular Caribbean territories belong to; on the other hand, Brazil and the Guyanas are also part from South America and are not mainly Spanish speaker, added to the fact that, into mainly Spanish speaker countries, there exist indigenous minorities, some of them very prominent, that speaks their own languages, and aren't necesarilly bilingual, as quechuas in Equador, Peru or Bolivia, or ayamars in this last. I prefere to mention it as Hispanic America and not Spanish America, refering to the cultural or linguistical reality, and not to a former colonial/political status. -- Hrodeberth 12:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to talk about the examples of the phonological features of the Andalusian dialect. Except in words as "parece" pronounced "paece", the elision of intervocalic "r" is not common at all. I live in Seville and I have never heard anything as "pa'e" or "ma'e" (whatever ' could mean). The opening of vowels due to the elision of final or pre-consonantal h is limited to the east part of Andalusia, so in Seville "escucha" will never be pronunced ɛˡkuʃa but ehˡkuʃa or ˡkuʃa. The change l>r is common, but r>l is common in Cuba, not in Andalusia. I think that the nasalisation of vowels is completely wrong, nobody here says nothing such as kantã instead of kantan "cantan", obviously, the second "a" in "cantan" is nasalised, but the final "n" is not elided.

---

JP Madrid, Barcelona, Londres...

I'm seeing the people is saying this opinions are more than likely people that speaks minority cooficial languages.

If we follow the OFICIAL spanish association, rae we can find:

http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=castellano

If you see the 4th and 5th point, you see that spanish comes from Castilian, and the rest of languages spoken in Spain have different history, and they are not "Spanish".

To say Castilian=Spanish is correct and if you are from Spain and not extemist you will say that. English=british also. If you know speak english, try to understand scottish language... You'll see (not the scottish accent. The language).

I was living for a long time in Barcelona also and we have to take care about Valencian language. It's not clear that this language is a dialect even in Catalunya. (obviously the catalan extremists don't think so, but standard people have their doubts).

Jorge Pablo (jorgepab81@gmail.com) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.113.228 (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Change of Map

The map added by user:Auslli is clearly of less quality than the previous one. Its only improvement is to separate Asturian and Leonese, which by the way are divided exactly by the administrative border, what a coincidence! I want to hear reasons in favor of the new map before removing it. --Jotamar (talk) 11:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Overall, and with all due respect, I am worried about this user's additions, which all go in the same direction and are never properly cited. MOUNTOLIVE _{fedeli alla linea} 17:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Historical map

The historical map, with changing colors based on the years, gives the impression that Occitan is the main language of southern France (and that Franco-Provençal is dominant in east-central France), which is definitely not true today. Funnyhat (talk) 01:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

"Spanish" and "Castilian" part deux (or should I say "dos"?)

I feel like the first sentence...

The languages of Spain are the languages spoken or once spoken in Spain. Romance languages are the most widely spoken in Spain, of which one, Spanish, is the country's official language.

...should establish that Castilian was chosen to be the official "Spanish" language and both names essentially refer to the same thing, so as to reference the existence of other Spanish languages and clear up the fact that Castilian isn't a different language necessarily.

Just like English comes from England (and England is a region of the United Kingdom), Castilian comes from Castile (a region of the Kingdom of Spain).

Thoughts? 2CrudeDudes (talk) 15:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The issue is discussed in Names given to the Spanish language. Suggest pipe-link it in to the sentence with a reference to Castilian e.g "of which one, the language originally known as Castilian and now usually referred to as Spanish, is the country's official language." DeCausa (talk) 21:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

How To Speak Spanish

If you want to know how to speak Spanish ask me and I will anwser.

                                   Gracias.
                                    (Thank you.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.137.117 (talk) 23:52, 27 November 2013 (UTC) 

Possibility of renaming and modifying content

Hey, I'm just presenting as a possibility the idea of renaming this article something like 'Hispanic languages' or something of the sort, as this would shorten the article title, and would make this page more focused on what it is: a page on the languages of the Iberian peninsula; something as major as a linguistics group could be argued to be of more import notability-wise than the linguistic status of a political entity; the content of the latter could be included on the article for Spain itself. This is just my opinion. Please reply if you have anything to say about this. --Joseph Yanchar (talk) 02:06, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

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Andalusian as a special variety

The infofobox section regional varieties is primarily concerned with all those more or less marginal varieties which are not part of the mainstream languages of Spain (Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque), to wit: Eonavian (Galician of Asturias), Fala (spoken in 3 towns by the Portuguese border), Portuguese of Olivenza, Cedillo and a few other towns, Caló (gypsy), Erromintxela (gypsy), Riffian Berber of Melilla, Extremaduran of northern Extremadura, Cantabrian (of rural areas of Cantabria). All the other dialects of Spanish are covered under other varieties of Spanish. Including Andalusian here completely distorts the list, as it is one of the main dialects (really a group of dialects) of Spanish, and in fact, depending on your point of view, tha main dialect. Including Andalusian opens the door to a never-ending list, which would make it useless. For those reasons I am completely opposed to the recent editions including Andalusian in the list. --Jotamar (talk) 19:48, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Since I wrote it in the paragraph reserved for "varieties", in which dialects of languages are included, it should not be an issue. This dialect of Spanish is recognized in the Statute of Autonomy in Andalusia as a linguistic "variety" (this is where I included it in this article) that must be respected. I didn't write "Andalusian language", but instead: "Andalusian dialect", therefore it shouldn't bother anyone. Frariji9 (talk) 13:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

You haven't addressed any of my points. Being recognized in a political or administrative document has zero relevance for that list. Your point seems to be that your dialect is important and therefore it must appear in a very visible place of the infobox. I don't see any other logic in your comments. --Jotamar (talk) 02:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I found this website in which you can read about the various languages and dialects of Spain:

https://altalingua.es/cuantas-lenguas-y-dialectos-hay-en-espana/ (In Spanish) Frariji9 (talk) 12:46, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, what I need is not a source stating that an Andalusian dialect exists, what I need is some sort of rationale to include it in that particular list. --Jotamar (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Please explain why it's so important to include the Andalusian dialect in that particular list. Just reverting my editions again and again with not even one comment is nothing but a way to waste both your time and mine. --Jotamar (talk) 16:52, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

It's a dialect spoken by around 8 million people in Southern Spain. It's clearly an important language variety. Maybe there should be another category in this list for "dialects of Spanish". I think that would be the best solution, since that would also allow us to include "Murciano dialect" or "Canarian dialect", for example. Frariji9 (talk) 08:32, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I have changed the list. --Jotamar (talk) 19:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Perfect! 😉 Frariji9 (talk) 08:13, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

What does co-official mean in practice?

According to the article, in e.g. Catalonia, Catalan has co-official status with Castilian. What does this mean in practice? Can I file my income tax declaration in Catalan? Can I insist on getting my tax demand served in Catalan (or I'm not paying)? If court procedings are in Castilian and I speak Catalan (or vice versa) can I insist on having an interpreter? Can a landlord validly serve an eviction notice in Catalan (or I'm staying put)? Do laws, edicts, announcements etc. have to be published in both Catalan and Castilian (or I'm going to ignore them)? And so on. And while we're at it, what is the significance of "protected status"? 190.94.102.43 (talk) 19:30, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Catalan and Valencian (all over again)

LucenceLugo: Your edit makes it look as if Valencian and Catalan were two different legal entities. That is wrong. Check the source I provided, which is as legal and official as you demand it to be: a legally binding statement issued by the AVL (the official institution in charge of determining the status of Valencian) and published in the DOGV (the Valencian equivalent of BOE). Here is what it states:

It is a fact that there are in Spain two equally legal names for designating this language: Valencian, as established by the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Community, and Catalan, recognized in the Statutes of Autonomy of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, and ratified by the Spanish legal system (annex 8) and case law (annex 9).

The whole document is addressed at determining the right way to interpret the law. If you go to annex 9 (you can read it here: https://dogv.gva.es/portal/ficha_disposicion_pc.jsp?sig=1853/2005&L=0), you will see that case law (from Spanish courts including the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court) is quite clear: the fact that each region uses its own name does not mean that they are legally different. Legally, Catalan and Valencian are synonyms.

Just as an example, Castillian and Spanish are legally synonyms. The Spanish constitution never uses the name Spanish, but only Castillian. And yet, no reasonable person would ever say that Castillian is official in Spain, Colombia and Bolivia, while Spanish is official in Costa Rica, Panamá and Honduras. And just as another example, Occitan is official in Catalonia in spite of the fact that it is referred to as Aranese.

In short, the whole point of the AVL statement is to make it clear that interpreting the law as if Catalan and Valencian were legally different is wrong. And it is as official as it can be (as both the Constitutional and Supreme courts determined). Agpshi (talk) 09:49, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

LucenseLugo: Come to the discussion page before reverting again. What you are doing is considered disruptive editing.

Your change implies a quite dubious interpretation of the law, for it goes against the rulings of the Spanish Supreme and Constitutional courts on the right way to interpret it, as mentioned in the source I am providing. Please read them before making any more changes.

On the other hand, the fact that nobody discussed your change for three months does not mean that other users are endorsing it. That requires explicit endorsement. The current version was there undiscussed for seven full months and it was, in turn, a slight modification of the original version, which was there for almost a decade. So three months without anybody discussing it means nothing (provided, of course, that no one gave their explicit support either). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agpshi (talk • contribs) 06:34, 28 March 2024 (UTC)