Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Is there a language other than Spanish spoken in Spain?
In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only (Spanish) but also (Castilian), the language from the kingdom of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, Asturian, Catalan, Aragonese and Occitan.
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 colonizing power, and the language used was called "castellano". Thus, some Latin American countries formerly under Spanish rule have retained the custom of calling it "castellano", while others eventually switched to calling it "español", with many different factors influencing the final choice.
Formally speaking, the national language of Spain, the official Spanish language, is the Castilian language (as opposed to regional Spanish languages like Galician, Catalan, Asturleonese and Basque). As such both names, "español" and "castellano", have distinct and independent meanings that may be required for clarity in some specific contexts.
Generally speaking, though, both terms can be used to refer to the (national) Spanish language as a whole, with a preference for one over the other that depends on the context or the speaker's origin. "Castellano" (as well as "Castilian" in English) has another, more restricted, meaning, relating either to the old Romance language spoken in the Kingdom of Castile in the Middle Ages, predecessor of the modern Spanish language, or to the variety of Spanish nowadays spoken in the historical region of Castile, in central Spain.
There are four languages with official status in Catalonia (an autonomous community of Spain): Catalan; Spanish- which is official throughout Spain; Aranese, a dialect of Occitan spoken in the Aran Valley; and Catalan Sign Language. Many other languages are spoken in Catalonia as a result of recent immigration from all over the world.
As a percentage of the general population of all Spain, Spanish is natively spoken by 74%, Catalan by 17%, Galician by 7% and Basque by 2% of all Spaniards. Occitan is spoken by less than 5,000 people, only in the small region of "Val d'Aran".
Other Romance minority languages, though not official, have special recognition, such as the Astur-Leonese language ("asturianu", "bable" or "llionés") and Aragonese ("aragonés") in Aragon.
Spanish legislation, most notably in the Statutes of Autonomy of the bilingual communities, use the term "own language", or "language proper to a community", to refer to a language other than Spanish that originated or had historical roots in that particular territory. The Statutes of Autonomy of the respective autonomous communities have declared Basque the language proper to the Basque Country and Navarre, Catalan the language proper to Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community—where it is historically, traditionally and officially known as Valencian—and Galician to be the language proper to Galicia. There are other protected regional languages in other autonomous communities. As a percentage of total population in Spain, Basque is spoken by 2%, Catalan/Valencian by 17%, and Galician by 7% of all Spaniards. A 2016 Basque Government census revealed 700,000 fluent speakers in Spain (51,000 in Basque counties in France) and 1,185.000 total when passive speakers are included.
Known as "Rioplatense Spanish", Buenos Aires' Spanish (as that of other cities like Rosario and Montevideo, Uruguay) is characterised by "voseo", "yeísmo" and aspiration of "s" in various contexts. It is heavily influenced by the dialects of Spanish spoken in Andalusia and Murcia.
A similar situation occurred in the American Southwest, including California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, where Spaniards, then "criollos" (Tejanos, Californios, etc.) followed by Chicanos (Mexican Americans) and later Mexican immigrants, kept the Spanish language alive before, during and after the American appropriation of those territories following the Mexican–American War. Spanish continues to be used by millions of citizens and immigrants to the United States from Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas (for example, many Cubans arrived in Miami, Florida, beginning with the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and followed by other Latin American groups; the local majority is now Spanish-speaking). Spanish is now treated as the country's "second language," and over 5 percent of the U.S. population are Spanish-speaking, but most Latino/Hispanic Americans are bilingual or also regularly speak English.
At least 40 spoken languages are spoken in Argentina. They include indigenous and immigrant languages, with Spanish being dominant. Some are endangered, spoken by elderly people whose descendants do not speak the languages. There is evidence of some now extinct languages.
The United States has forty-one million people aged five or older that speak Spanish at home, making Spanish the second most spoken language of the United States by far. Spanish is the most studied foreign language in United States, with about six million students. With over 50 million native speakers, heritage language speakers and second language speakers, the United States now has the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico, although it is not an official language of the country. About half of all American Spanish speakers also assessed themselves as speaking English "very well" in the 2000 U.S. Census. This percentage increased to 57% in the 2013-2017 American Community Survey. The United States is among the Spanish-speaking countries that has its own Academy of the Spanish Language.
Spanish is spoken by about 90% of the country's population. In Nicaragua the Voseo form is common, just as in other countries in Central and South America like Honduras, Argentina, Uruguay or coastal Colombia. Spanish has many different dialects spoken throughout Latin America, Central American Spanish is the dialect spoken in Nicaragua. In the Caribbean coast many afro-Nicaraguans and creoles speak English and creole English as their first language. Also in the Caribbean coast, many Indigenous people speak their native languages, such as the Miskito, Sumo, Rama and Garifuna language. In addition, many ethnic groups in Nicaragua, such as the Chinese Nicaraguans and Palestinian Nicaraguans, have maintained their ancestral languages, which are minority languages, while also speaking Spanish and/or English. These minority languages include Chinese, Arabic, German, and Italian, among others.
According to the official government of Catalonia, Catalan is the second most spoken language of the region, after Spanish (over 35% of Catalans use exclusively Catalan as their first language, while 11% of Catalans use equally both Catalan and Spanish). It is the most spoken language in many comarques of Catalonia, with the exception of the Barcelona metropolitan area (Barcelonès plus surrounding comarques) and Camp de Tarragona. Catalan is a compulsory subject in schools and enjoys equals rights with Spanish throughout Catalonia.
Roman Catholicism, which has a long history in Spain, remains the dominant religion. Although it no longer has official status by law, in all public schools in Spain students have to choose either a religion or ethics class. Catholicism is the religion most commonly taught, although the teaching of Islam, Judaism, and evangelical Christianity is also recognised in law. According to a June 2016 study by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research about 70% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholics, 2% other faith, and about 25% identify with no religion. Most Spaniards do not participate regularly in religious services. This same study shows that of the Spaniards who identify themselves as religious, 59% hardly ever or never go to church, 16% go to church some times a year, 9% some time per month and 15% every Sunday or multiple times per week. Recent polls and surveys have revealed that atheists and agnostics comprise anywhere from 20% to 27% of the Spanish population.
Catholic Christianity is the largest religion in Spain, but practical secularization is strong. Only 3% of Spaniards consider religion as one of their three most important values, even lower than the 5% European average. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 abolished Catholicism as the official state religion, while recognizing the role it plays in Spanish society. As a result, there is no official religion and religious freedom is protected.
The main cause of Spanish and Catalan social bilingualism in modern Catalonia was large-scale migration from the rest of Spain during the 20th century, as Catalonia started a significant industrialization which demanded an increased workforce from elsewhere. Spanish has historically been spoken among a minority of civil servants born in other regions in Spain and among segments of the wealthiest bourgeoisie. Spanish has also been spoken as a second language by most Catalans, as it has been the only official language over long periods since the eighteenth century.
Portuguese and Spanish started to grow as lingua francas in the region in since the conquests of the 16th century. In the Case of Spanish this process was not even and as the Spanish used the structure of Inca Empire to consolidate their rule Quechua remained the lingua franca of large parts of what is now Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Quechua importance as a language for trade and dealing with Spanish-approved indigenous authorities (curaca) made the language expand even after the Spanish conquest. It was not until the rebellion of Túpac Amaru II that the Spanish authorities changed to a policy of Hispanization that was continued by the republican states of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. Quechua also lost influence to Spanish as the commerce circuits grew to integrate other parts of the Spanish Empire where Quechua was unknown, for example in the Rio de la Plata.
No single ethnic group forms a majority of California's population, making the state a minority-majority state. Hispanics (of any race) are the largest single ethnic group in the state. Spanish is the state's second most widely spoken language. Areas with especially large Spanish speaking populations include the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the California-Mexico border counties of San Diego and Imperial, and the San Joaquin Valley. Nearly 43% of Californian residents speak a language other than English at home, a proportion far higher than any other state.
Worldwide, English is used widely as a lingua franca and can be seen to be the dominant language at this time. The world's largest language by native speakers is Mandarin Chinese which is a first language of around 960 million people, or 12.44% of the population, predominantly in Greater China. Spanish is spoken by around 330 to 400 million people, predominantly in the Americas and Spain. Arabic is spoken by around 280 million people. Bengali is spoken by around 250 to 300 million people worldwide, predominantly in Bangladesh and India. Hindi is spoken by about 200 million speakers, mostly in India. Portuguese is spoken by about 230 million speakers in Portugal, Brazil, East Timor, and Southern Africa.
According to some, derived from the fact that almost all Spaniards are Catholic, and Spain remains to this day one of the most homogeneous Western countries, Spanish Judeophobia reflects a national obsession with religious and ethnic unity which is based on the conception of an imaginary "internal enemy" plotting the downfall of the Catholic religion and the traditional social order. However, this assumption clashes with the fact that 21st-century Spain is one of the most secularized countries in Europe, with only 3% of Spaniards considering religion as one of their three most important values and thus not linking it to their national or personal identity. Furthermore, in modern Spain there is not an "internal enemy" scare but in far-right circles, which are more often focused against Muslim immigration as well as Catalan and Basque separatism, way more visible phenomena. Modern antisemitic-like attitudes in Spain are actually related to the perceived abusive policies of the State of Israel against Palestinians and in the international scene rather than to any kind of religious or identity obsession, and it has been defined by Jewish authors as an "antisemitism without antisemites."
There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe – roughly 3% of the world's total. Most of the European languages are of Indo-European origin. Since the end of the 18th century, the most widespread language of Europe (both in terms of geography and the number of native speakers) has been Russian, which replaced French. Counting only native speakers, approximately 150 million Europeans speak Russian on a daily basis, followed by German (approx. 95 mil.), English and French (each by 65 mil.), Italian (60 mil.), Spanish and Polish (40 mil. each), Ukrainian (30 mil.) and Romanian (26 mil.). As far as foreign language studies are concerned, English is currently the most popular foreign language in Europe, followed by German, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish
Language standardization is presently also being pursued in the revival of the Romani language among various groups – in Spain, Great Britain and elsewhere – which have ceased to speak the language. In these cases, a specific dialect is not revived, but rather a standardized form derived from many dialects is developed. The Spanish politician Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia promotes Romanò-Kalò, a variant of Standard Romani with the extant Caló words inserted back, aiming to both the Gitano tradition and communication with other Romani people.
The term "Castilian Spanish" can be used in English for the specific varieties of Spanish spoken in north and central Spain. Sometimes it is more loosely used to denote the Spanish spoken in all of Spain as compared to Spanish spoken in Latin America. There are several different varieties of Spanish, which should not be confused with the other official and non-official languages in Spain, of which Castilian is only the most prominent because it is the only one that is official throughout the whole national territory.
The different varieties of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas are distinct from Peninsular Spanish and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in Africa and Asia. Linguistically, this grouping is somewhat arbitrary, akin to having a term for "overseas English" encompassing variants spoken in the United States, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, but not the Island of Britain. There is great diversity among the various Latin American vernaculars, and there are no traits shared by all of them which is not also in existence in one or more of the variants of Spanish used in Spain. A Latin American "standard" does, however, vary from the Castilian "standard" register used in television and notably the dubbing industry.
Of the more than 469 million people who speak Spanish as their native language, more than 418 million are in Latin America and the United States.
The languages of Spain (), or Spanish languages (), are the languages spoken or once spoken in Spain. Romance languages are the most widely spoken in Spain; of which Spanish, or Castilian, is the only language which has official status for the whole country. Various other languages have co-official or recognised status in specific territories, and a number of unofficial languages and dialects are spoken in certain localities.
Peninsular Spanish (), also known as Spanish of Spain () European Spanish () and Iberian Spanish (), sometimes inaccurately referred to as Castilian Spanish () refers to the varieties of the Spanish language spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, as opposed to the Spanish spoken in the Americas and in the Canary Islands. The related term Castilian Spanish is often applied to formal varieties of Spanish as spoken in Spain. According to folk tradition, the "purest" form of Peninsular Spanish is spoken in the Castilian province of Valladolid, although the concept of "pure" language has been questioned by modern linguists.