The '
Spanish language' developed from
vulgar Latin, with influence from
Basque in the north and
Arabic in the southern part of the
Iberian Peninsula (see
Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronic
phonology include
lenition (Latin ''vita'', Spanish ''vida''; Latin ''lupus'', Spanish ''lobo''),
palatalization (Latin ''annum'', Spanish ''año'') and diphthongation of short E/O from vulgar Latin (Latin ''terra'', Spanish ''tierra''; Latin ''novus'', Spanish ''nuevo''; Latin ''tempus'', Spanish ''tiempo''; Latin ''ferrum'', Spanish ''fierro'' and now ''hierro''). Similar phenomena can be found in most other
Romance languages as well, especially after the fall of the
Roman Empire in the 4th century AD reduced cultural contact with Rome.
External history
The standard Spanish language is also called
Castilian. In its earliest form, and up through approximately the fifteenth century, the language is customarily called Old Spanish. From approximately the sixteenth century on, it is called Modern Spanish. Spanish of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is sometimes called "classical" Spanish. Unlike English and French, it is not customary to speak of a "middle" stage in the development of Spanish. Castilian Spanish originated, after the decline of the
Roman Empire, as a continuation of
spoken Latin in the
Cordillera Cantábrica, in northern Spain, in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, but others claim it came from ''Franco-Navarrese'' and Gothic-Castilian dialects in the 11th century AD. With the ''
Reconquista'', this northern dialect spread to the south, where it almost entirely replaced or absorbed the provincial dialects, at the same time as it borrowed massively from the vocabulary of Moorish Arabic and was influenced by ''Mozarabe'' (the Romance speech of Christians living in Moorish territory) and medieval Judeo-Spanish (
Ladino). These languages all but vanished in the Iberian peninsula by the late 16th century.
The prestige of Castile and its language was propagated partly by the exploits of Castilian heroes in the battles of the
Reconquista — among them
Fernán González and Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (
El Cid) — and by the narrative poems about them that were recited in Castilian even outside the original territory of that dialect.
The first steps toward standardization of written Castilian were taken in the thirteenth century by King
Alfonso X of Castile, known as Alfonso el Sabio. He assembled scribes at his court and supervised their writing, in Castilian, of extensive works on history, astronomy, law, and other fields of knowledge.
Antonio de Nebrija wrote the first grammar of Spanish and presented it, in 1492, to
Queen Isabella, who is said to have had an early appreciation of the usefulness of the language as a tool of hegemony, as if anticipating the empire that was about to be founded with the voyages of
Columbus.
The
Spanish Royal Academy was founded in 1713, largely with the purpose of preserving the "purity" of the language. The Academy published its first
dictionary in six volumes over the period 1726-1739, and its first grammar in 1771, and it continues to produce new editions of both from time to time. Each of the Spanish-speaking countries has an analogous language academy, and an
Association of Spanish Language Academies was created in 1951.
The language was brought to the
Americas (
Latin America, especially
Mexico,
Central America and western
South America), and to the
Federated States of Micronesia,
Guam,
Marianas,
Palau and the
Philippines, by the
Spanish colonization which began in the
16th century. The Spanish failed to exercise land claims over the
Solomon Islands and
Micronesia, where a map reader can find some geographic place names in Spanish, but no major Spanish cultural influence is felt in distant, often isolated islands in the three centuries of Spanish administrative rule in these areas later acquired by the
Germans and
Americans by 1900.
The
Catholic church preached Christianity to the
natives in selected local languages such as
Mayan,
Aztecan,
Guaraní,
Quechua and
Aymará in the Americas, and
Tagalog in the Philippines, rather than Spanish, for ease of conversion and to separate them from the direct influence of the non-missionary Spaniards, held by the church to be "evil", uncivilized and unfavorable for the natives, and to further expand assimilation of natives to the introduced Spanish culture.
In the
Americas its usage was continued by the descendants of the Spaniards, whether by the large population of
Spanish ''criollos'' or by what had then become the mixed Spanish-Amerindian (''
mestizos'') majority. After the wars of independence fought by these colonies in the
19th century, the new ruling elites extended their Spanish to the whole population to strengthen national unity, and the encouragement of all natives to become fluent in Spanish has had a certain amount of success, except in very isolated parts of the former Spanish colonies.
The still Spanish colonies of
Cuba and
Puerto Rico encouraged more immigrants from Spain in the late 19th century, and similarly other Latin American countries such as
Argentina, nearby
Uruguay and to a lesser extent
Chile,
Mexico,
Panama and
Venezuela, attracted waves of
European Spanish and non-Spanish, Caucasian immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There, the countries' large (or sizable minority) population groups of second- and third-generation descendants adopted the Spanish language as part of their governments' official assimilation policies to include Europeans who were Catholics and agreed to take an oath of allegiance to their chosen nation's government.
In the
Philippines, this process did not occur for several reasons. It was isolated as the only Spanish colony in Asia, far removed from all of Spain's colonies in the Americas. Rather than being a direct colony of Spain, the Philippines was in fact a colony of another Spanish colony,
New Spain , and was administered from
Mexico City, thereby lessening the ties and interest of Spain proper, and disabling the large scale Spanish migration experienced across the Americas. From the Spanish claim on these islands in 1535 to the late 1800s, the Philippines was the only "direct" European colony in terms of cultural influences in
Southeast Asia.
In comparison to its counterparts in Spanish America, the Philippine population was, and still is, almost exclusively native, and mixed Spanish-Filipinos (Filipino
mestizos) were few in number, while Spaniards (of which a great many were actually
Mexican ''
Criollos'') accounted for even fewer than the ''Mestizos''. Following the
Spanish-American War the small number of Spaniards and Latin Americans present in the country eventually returned to New Spain (
Mexico) and Spain, or a smaller wave of ''Hispano-Filipinos'' had settled in US-annexed
Hawaii and the western
US in the early 1900s (see
Filipino Americans).
Ultimately, at the culmination of the
Philippine-American War many of the already minuscule ''Mestizo'' population was decimated as casualties of war. English was then declared an official language. Spanish finally ceased to be an official language of the Philippines in
1973. A
creole language called
Chabacano developed as a
lingua franca in the south when the Spaniards built forts to combat the
Muslims and imported workers from all over the country. The local languages, then and now, are not mutually intelligible. However, Spanish like English (but more preferable) is still studied by educated Filipinos and professionals who might emigrate to Mexico.
Unlike the Philippines, when
Puerto Rico became a possession of the
United States as consequence of the same
Spanish-American War, its population was by then almost entirely of Spanish and mixed Afro-Caribbean Spanish (''
mulatto'' and ''
mestizo'') descent , thereby enabling the retention of their inherited Spanish language as a mother tongue while co-existing with the American imposed
English as co-official. Puerto Rico has received immigration from Europe, when Spanish colonial officials invited farmers and island fishers from
Corsica, the
Canary Islands, the
Azores,
Greece,
Malta,
Italy and
Ireland, while millions of Puerto Ricans went to the mainland US in the 20th century. (see
Puerto Rican and
Puerto Ricans in the United States).
A similar situation occurred in the American Southwest including
California,
Arizona,
New Mexico and
Texas, where Spaniards, then
Californios (Spanish criollos in California) followed by
Chicanos (
Mexican Americans) and later Mexican immigrants, maintained Spanish alive before, during and after the American appropriation of those territories, since the 1500s. Spanish continues to be used by millions of citizens and immigrants from Latin America to the United States (for example, many
Cuban Americans arrived in
Miami, Florida beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, 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 US population are Spanish-speaking, but most
Latino/
Hispanic Americans are bilingual or also regularly speak English.
In the
20th century, Spanish was introduced in
Equatorial Guinea and
Western Sahara after periods of Spanish colonial rule, and it is also studied and spoken in former
French and
Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia, but it is not the main languages of these areas. It is also spoken in parts of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as
Spanish Harlem in
New York City, at first by immigrants from Puerto Rico, and later by other Latin American immigrants who arrived there in the late 20th century.
In the Marianas, the Spanish language was retained until the
Pacific War, but native inhabitants may speak
Chamorro an Austronesian language, some German and later English,
Japanese and
Korean introduced in the early 20th century, and some languages introduced by immigrants from the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
Language politics in Francoist Spain declared Spanish as the only official language in Spain, and to this day Castilian Spanish is the most preferred language in government, business, public education, cultural arts and the media. But in the 1960s and 1970's, the Spanish parliament agreed to allow provinces to use, speak and print official documents in three other languages:
Catalan for Catalonia,
Basque, a non Indo-European language for the Basque provinces, and
Galician, akin to Portuguese, for Galicia. Since the early 1980s after Spain became a multi-party democracy, these regional and minority languages have rebounded in common usage as secondary languages, but Castilian Spanish remains the universal language of the Spanish people.
Influences
Main articles: Influences on the Spanish language
Possible Basque influence
Many Castilians who took part in the
reconquista and later repopulation
campaigns were of
Basque lineage and this is evidenced by many
place names throughout
Spain. The change from
Latin 'f-' to Spanish 'h-' (discussed at length below) is commonly ascribed to the influence of
Basque speakers for a few reasons. The change from f to h was first documented in the areas around
Castile and
La Rioja, areas where many Basques were known to have lived. The change to h took place to a greater degree in the
Gascon language in
Gascony in
France, an area also inhabited by Basques. The
Basque language lacked the f sound and thus substituted it with h, the closest thing to f in that language.
There are some difficulties with attributing this change to Basque though. There is no hard evidence that
medieval Basque had an h sound, but there is also no hard evidence that it ''didn't.'' Adding to this is the fact that the f to h
phenomenon is not peculiar to Spanish. It also happened in certain dialects of three other
Romance languages:
Romanian,
Italian and
Sardinian. In fact, the change from f to h is one of the most common
phonological changes in all kinds of world languages and is not peculiar to
Romance languages. According to the explanations which negate or downplay Basque influence, the change occurred in the affected dialects wholly independent of each other as the result of internal change (i.e. linguistic factors, not outside influence). It is also possible that the two forces worked in concert and reinforced each other.
Possible Celtic influence
Two specific types of
lenition, the
voicing of
voiceless consonants and the
elision of
voiced consonants (both of which are discussed at greater length below), are the
phonological changes of Spanish which are most often attributed to the influence of
Celtic languages. While examples of these two types of lenition are ubiquitous and well-documented in
Spanish, two
assumptions need to be made if these two types of lenition are to be attributed to patterns of lenition in Celtic languages. The first assumption is that a population of
bilingual Celtiberian-
Romance speakers existed long enough to have had an influence on the development of
Castilian. The second assumption is that
Continental Celtic, an
extinct branch of
Celtic, did indeed exhibit the types of lenition which are known to exist in modern
Insular Celtic languages. (Furthermore, it should be noted that such lenitions
are a very common kind of change in languages all around the world, and similar phenomena are found also in Romance languages such as Corsican and Sardinian, where no Celtic causation is plausible; the Spanish development may therefore just be an internal process, not due to outside influence.)
Germanic influence
Although
Germanic languages by most accounts affected the
phonological development very little, many
Spanish words of Germanic origin are very common in all varieties of everyday Spanish. The words for
cardinal directions (norte, este, sur, oeste) are all taken from Germanic words (
north,
east,
south and
west in
Modern English) after the contact with Atlantic sailors.
Arabic influence
Main articles: Arabic influence on the Spanish language
An important number of Spanish
nouns start with the syllable ''al-'' (such as ''alcohol'' "
alcohol", ''alcoba'' "
alcove, room", ''almohada'' "
pillow", ''algodón'' "
cotton", ''alcalde'' "
mayor", ''alcázar'' "
castle", ''alfalfa'' "
alfalfa", ''almirante'' "
admiral" (with an added -d- by erroneous association with the
Latin prefix ''
ad-''), ''almíbar'' "
syrup", ''alcatraz'' "
albatross", ''álcali'' "
alkali", ''alquimia'' "
alchemy", ''algoritmo'' "
algorithm", ''álgebra'' "
algebra", ''albacora'' "
albacore", ''Alhambra'' "Red Castle", ''Al-Andalus'' "
Andalusia" (note that Al-Andalus is how Arabs referred to the land inhabited by the Vandals, since Arabic does not have a "v" sound) have Arabic origins, as well as many that start with ''at-'', ''az-'' and others (such as ''azufre'' "
sulfur" and ''ataúd'' "
coffin", ''azúcar'' "
sugar", ''azul'' "
blue,
azure"), ''azafrán'' "
saffron". This is due to the interpretation of the Arabic
proclitic definite article ''al'' as part of the following word.
Internal history
At first just one of many
dialects of
Iberian Romance spoken in
Iberia, the dialect of
Castile eventually became identified as ''the''
Spanish language (called
español or
castellano in
Spanish). This is due in large part to the
cultural hegemony of the Castilians during and after the
Reconquista. Modern Spanish is strikingly different from
Latin, its main source language, in many ways, but determining exactly ''when'' these changes took place is often problematic. The main
reason for this lack of hard
evidence is the fact that the system of
orthography used by speakers of Iberian Romance in the
Middle Ages was extremely similar to if not identical to that of
Classical Latin. While there were undoubtedly
phonological and
morphemic differences between Iberian Romance and Latin (and later, between
Castilian and
Iberian Romance), most of these differences were not reflected in writing until after the Reconquista and even later.
Abandonment of phonological length
At a very early time in the development of
Romance, the distinction between Latin
long vowels and
short vowels was very slight and the number of
minimal pairs based on
vowel length is much smaller than in Latin.
| Minimal pairs in Latin |
|---|
| Long vowel | Meaning | Short vowel | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| p'ī'lum | ''javelin'' | p'i'lum | ''hair'' | |
| l'ī'ber | ''free'' | l'i'ber | ''book'' | |
| f'ī'dēs | ''you will trust'' | f'i'dēs | ''faith'' | |
| l'ē'vis | ''smooth'' | l'e'vis | ''light'' (adj.) | |
| l'ē'git | ''he read'' | l'e'git | ''he reads'' | |
| s'ē'dēs | ''abode'' | s'e'dēs | ''you sit'' | |
| m'ā'lum | ''apple'' | m'a'lum | ''bad'' | |
| l'ā'brum | ''washtub'' | l'a'brum | ''lip'' | |
| l'ā'tus | ''wide'' | l'a'tus | ''side'' | |
| 'ō's | ''mouth'' | 'o's | ''bone'' | |
| p'ō'pulus | ''poplar'' | p'o'pulus | ''people'' | |
| s'ō'lum | ''alone'' | s'o'lum | ''soil'' | |
| f'ū'ris | ''thief'' | f'u'ris | ''you rage'' | |
This loss of distinction in vowel length would have made the nominative case and the ablative case of the first declension identical in sound.
Loss of case system
The gradual loss in the number of
grammatical cases in
Indo-European languages has been happening since long before
Classical Latin and the trend culminated (in the
Italic family) in the complete loss of
inflection seen in all of the
Romance languages (except
Romanian). This means that
Spanish, like other
Indo-European languages, through its oldest to its modern form, has steadily depended less on
inflections (
suffixes on
nouns,
adjectives etc.) to demonstrate
syntactical relationships and more on
word order and
prepositions.
Quintilian (c. AD
35-
95) remarked that the final 'm' of most
Latin words was barely pronounced. This observation suggests that the
nominative case and the
accusative case of the
first declension were merged in
speech (but the -m was retained in writing). Similarly, the
accusative case and the
ablative case of the
third declension would have merged in speech. This implies that the distinction between the
nominative case and the
accusative case probably barely existed from the beginning of the
common era in
Iberia if at all.
Loss of deponent verbs
Latin had nearly 1,000
deponent verbs, but by the time Castilian emerged as the dominant
dialect of
Spanish, all of them had either been switched to one of the
regular verb conjugations or disappeared from the
vocabulary altogether. The process of converting
deponent verbs to regular conjugations began in
Latin before the
common era.
Plautus used horto, lucto and sortio (regular conjugation) in place of hortor, luctor and sortior (deponent).
| Switch/loss of deponent verbs |
|---|
| Status | Latin deponent | Regularized Spanish |
|---|---|---|
| regularized | demoliri, demorari, metiri, mori, nasci, operari, ordiri, pati, sequi | demoler, demorar, medir, morir, nacer, operar, urdir, padecer, seguir | |
| "lost" | conari, loqui, oriri, |
In some cases, the
deponent verb was lost, but
noun,
adjectives etc based on that verb were kept. From the Latin 'conari' (to try, attempt) comes the Spanish 'conato' (an attempt, effort). From Latin 'loqui' (to speak) comes the Spanish 'elocuente' (eloquent) and 'locutor' (speaker, radio announcer).
Latin 'f-' to Spanish 'h-'
'F' was almost always initial in
Latin words and most of these words developed in Spanish to begin with [h], now for the most part lost (although kept in spelling). This results from the influence of the
Basque language, whose native phoneme inventory lacked [f].
There are many words where the 'f-' was maintained, but most of these examples are from learned words (words transmitted primarily by writing rather than orally). This is one of the most predictable patterns in the development of Spanish and the first written record of it is from
863 when the Latin 'Forticius' was written as 'Ortiço.' The h- was originally pronounced as an
aspirate (i.e. as an h in English) but is now gone from most varieties. The Latin
grapheme f represented either a
voiceless labiodental fricative (exactly like f in
Modern English and
Modern Spanish) or a
voiceless bilabial fricative (similar to f in
Modern English and
Modern Spanish and exactly like the 'f' sound of
Japanese).
| Examples of Latin 'f-' to Spanish 'h-' |
|---|
| consonants | Latin word | Spanish word |
|---|---|---|
| 'f-' ---> 'h-' | 'f'ilius, 'f'olia, 'f'ungus, 'f'errum, 'f'acere, 'f'acienda, 'f'actus, 'f'arina, 'f'emina, 'f'urca, 'f'ormosus, 'F'erdinandus | 'h'ijo, 'h'oja, 'h'ongo, 'h'ierro, 'h'acer, 'h'acienda, 'h'echo, 'h'arina, 'h'embra, 'h'orca, 'h'ermoso, 'H'ernando or 'F'ernando |
Voicing
One of the most common and predictable changes from Latin to Spanish is the
voicing of
voiceless consonants. The three voiceless consonants affected most often were 'p', 't' and 'c' (where 'c' was pronounced hard, as 'c' in 'c'ake). The
voiced equivalents of these three
unvoiced consonants are b, d and g (where 'g' was pronounced hard, as 'g' in 'g'irl). The initial and final consonants are rarely affected, but
consonants (between two
vowels) were affected more often than not.
| Examples of voicing in Spanish |
|---|
| consonants | Latin word | Spanish word |
|---|---|---|
| 'p' ---> 'b' | a'p'erire, a'p'otheca, coo'p'erire, lu'p'us, o'p'era, po'p'ulus | a'b'rir, 'b'odega, cu'b'rir, lo'b'o, o'b'ra, pue'b'lo |
| 't' ---> 'd' | civi't'a't'is, digi't'us, la't'us, ma't'er, mu't'are, scu't'um, veni't'e | ciu'd'a'd', de'd'o, la'd'o, ma'd're, mu'd'ar, escu'd'o, veni'd' |
| 'c' ---> 'g' | apothe'c'a, di'c'o, fo'c'us, la'c'us, lo'c'us, sae'c'ulum | bode'g'a, di'g'o, fue'g'o, la'g'o, lue'g'o, si'g'lo |
Examples of words in which more than one consonant has been voiced (such as the above 'b'ode'g'a) are not uncommon in Spanish, and in this case the change /p/ > /b/ probably occurred before loss of initial a-. Many words also underwent voicing and
elision (discussed below). In the Latin 'di'g'i't'us,' the 'g' was
elided and the 't' was
voiced to 'd' and it became de'd'o.
The case of ''digo'' is an interesting example as it shows different phonetic changes appearing in different verb forms. Notably, some forms of ''decir'' will feature the Latin /k/ to Spanish /θ/ change (which occurs when Latin /k/ is followed by /i/ or /e/), but in other verb forms /k/ is voiced to /g/. This also occurs in a few other Spanish verbs ending in ''-cer'' or ''-cir'', as in the table below:
| Forms with /k/ -> /θ/ | Forms with voicing of /k/ to /g/ |
|---|
| English | Latin | Spanish | English | Latin | Spanish |
|---|---|---|
To say, to tell
It says, it tells | dicere /diːkere/
dicet /diːket/ | decir /deˈθiɾ/
dice /ˈdiθe/ | I say, I tell
May it tell | dico /diːkoː/
dicat /diːkat/ | digo /ˈdigo/
diga /ˈdiga/ |
To do, to make
It does, it makes | facere /fakere/
facit /fakit/ | hacer /aˈθeɾ/
hace /ˈaθe/ | I do, I make
May it make | facio /fakjoː/
faciat /fakjat/ | hago /ˈago/
haga /ˈaga/ |
Elision
While
voiceless intervocalic consonants were often voiced, many voiced intervocalic stops (''d'', ''g'', and occasionally ''b'') were simply dropped from words altogether through a process called
elision.
| Examples of elision in Spanish |
|---|
| consonant | Latin word | Spanish word |
|---|---|---|
| 'b' ---> Ø | vendebat | vendía |
| 'd' ---> Ø | come'd'ere, ho'd'ie, quomo'd'o? | comer, hoy, como? |
| 'g' ---> Ø | co'g'itare, di'g'itus, le'g'ere, re'g'is | cuidar, dedo, leer, rey |
Voicing
Some syllable-final consonants, regardless whether already syllable-final in Latin or brought into that position by syncope, became glides. Labials (''b'', ''p'') yielded the rounded glide [w] (which was in turn absorbed by a preceding round vowel), while the velar ''c'' ([k]) produced the palatal glide [j] (which could palatalize a following [t] and be absorbed by the resulting palatal affricate). (The forms ''debda'', ''cobdo'', and ''dubdar'' are documented in Old Spanish; but the hypothetical form
★ ''oito'' had already given way to ''ocho'' by the time Castilian became a written language.)
| Syllable-final vocalization |
|---|
| change | Latin word | intermediate form | Spanish word |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'p' ---> 'w' | ba'p'tista | -- | ba'u'tista |
| 'b' ---> 'w' | de'b'ita | de'b'da | de'u'da |
| 'b' ---> 'w' ---> Ø | cu'b'itu, du'b'itare | co'b'do, du'b'dar | codo, dudar |
| 'ct' ---> 'ch' | o'c'to, no'ct'e |
★ o'i'to, n'oi'te | ocho, noche |
Syncope
Syncope in the history of Spanish refers to the loss of an unstressed vowel from the syllable immediately preceding or following the stressed syllable. Early in its history, Spanish lost such vowels where they preceded or followed R or L, and between S and T:
| Early syncope in Spanish |
|---|
| environment | Latin words | Spanish words |
|---|---|---|
| '_r' | ap'e'rīre, hum'e'rum, litt'e'ra, op'e'ra | abrir, hombro, letra, obra |
| 'r_' | er'e'mum, vir'i'de | yermo, verde |
| '_l' | acūc'u'la, fab'u'la, ins'u'la, pop'u'lum | aguja, habla, isla, pueblo |
| 'l_' | sol'i'tarium | soltero |
| 's_t' | pos'i'tum, cons'ū'tūra | puesto, costura |
Later, unstressed vowels were lost between other combinations of consonants:
| Later syncope in Spanish |
|---|
| environment | Latin words | Spanish words |
|---|---|---|
| 'b_t' | cub'i'tum, dēb'i'ta, dūb'i'ta | codo, deuda, duda |
| 'c_m, c_p, c_t' | dec'i'mum, acc'e'ptōrem, rec'i'tāre | diezmo, azor, rezar |
| 'd_c' | und'e'cim, vind'i'cāre | once, vengar |
| 'f_c' | adverif'i'cāre | averiguar |
| 'm_c, m_n, m_t' | ham'i'ceolum, hom'i'ne, com'i'te | anzuelo, hombre, conde |
| 'n_c, n_t' | domin'i'cum, bon'i'tātem, cumin'i'tiāre | domingo, bondad, comenzar |
| 'p_t' | cap'i'tālem, comp'u'tāre, hosp'i'tālem | caudal, contar, hostal |
| 's_c, s_n' | quass'i'cāre, rass'i'cāre, as'i'num, fra[ks]'i'num | cascar, rascar, asno, fresno |
| 't_c, t_n' | mast'i'cāre, portat'i'cu, trīt'i'cu, ret'i'na | mascar, portazgo, trigo, rienda |
Diphthongization
Diphthongization in Spanish typically happens to Latin short mid vowels (e, o) that are stressed, as the conjugation of Modern Spanish verbs can attest: yo qu'ie'ro, nosotros quer'e'mos; yo p'ue'do, vosotros p'o'déis; etc.
| Examples of diphthongization in Spanish |
|---|
| consonant | Latin word | Spanish word |
|---|---|---|
| 'e' ---> 'ie' | b'e'ne, t'e'rra | bien, tierra |
| 'o' ---> 'ue' | b'o'nus, f'o'cus | bueno, fuego |
Monophthongization
Many of the examples of
monophthongization in Spanish actually occurred in Latin itself. The change from ''ae'' to ''e'' is thought in some instances to be a product of the influence of the
Faliscan and
Umbrian dialects.
| Examples of monophthongization in Spanish |
|---|
| consonant | Latin word | Spanish word |
|---|---|---|
| 'ae' ---> 'e' | c'ae'spite, s'ae'ta, f'ae'nu | césped, seda, h'e'no |
| 'au' ---> 'o' | t'au'rus, c'au'sa, 'au'rum | t'o'ro, c'o'sa, 'o'ro |
| 'oe' ---> 'e' | p'oe'na, f'oe'dus, c'oe'na | pena, feo, c'e'na |
Learned words and consonant cluster simplification
Learned words became increasingly frequent with the works of
Alfonso X in the mid-to-late
1200s. Many of these words contained
consonant clusters which had usually been reduced to simpler consonant clusters or single
consonants in previous
centuries. This same process affected many of these new, more
academic, words, especially when the words extended into popular usage in the
Old Spanish period. Some of the consonant clusters affected were -'ct'-, -'ct'[i]-, -'pt'-, -'gn'-, -'mn'-, and -'mpt'-. Most of the simplified forms have since reverted back to the learned forms or are now considered to be uneducated.
| Reduction of consonant clusters |
|---|
| Consonant cluster | Latin form | Learned form | Old Spanish form | Modern Spanish form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 'ct' ---> 't' | effe'ct'um, perfe'ct'um, respe'ct'um, se'ct'am | efe'ct'o, perfe'ct'o, respe'ct'o, se'ct'a | efe't'o, perfe't'o, respe't'o, se't'a | efe'ct'o, perfe'ct'o, respe't'o/respe'ct'o, se'ct'a |
| 'ct'[i] ---> 'cc'[i] ---> 'c'[i] | affe'ct'iōnem, le'ct'iōnem, perfe'ct'iōnem | affe'cc'ión, le'cc'ión, perfe'cc'ión | afi'c'ión, li'c'ión, perfe'c'ión | afi'c'ión/afe'cc'ión, le'cc'ión, perfe'cc'ión |
| 'pt' ---> 't' | acce'pt'āre, ba'pt'ismum, conce'pt'um | ace'pt'ar, ba'pt'ismo, conce'pt'o | ace't'ar, bau't'ismo, conce't'o | ace'pt'ar, bau't'ismo, conce'pt'o |
| 'gn' ---> 'n' | di'gn'um, ma'gn'ificum, si'gn'ificāre | di'gn'o, ma'gn'ífico, si'gn'ificar | di'n'o, ma'n'ífico, si'n'ificar | di'gn'o, ma'gn'ífico, si'gn'ificar |
| 'mn' ---> 'n' | colu'mn'am, sole'mn'itātem | colu'mn'a, sole'mn'idad | colu'n'a, sole'n'idad | colu'mn'a, sole'mn'idad |
| 'mpt' ---> 'nt' | pro'mpt'um, exe'mpt'um | pro'mpt'o, exe'mpt'o | pro'nt'o, exe'nt'o | pro'nt'o, exe'nt'o |
Most of these words have modern forms which more closely resemble
Latin than
Old Spanish. In Old Spanish, the simplified forms were acceptable forms which were in coexistenece (and sometimes
competition) with the learned forms. The Spanish
educational system, and later the
Real Academia Española, with their demand that all consonants of a word be
pronounced, steadily drove most simplified forms from
existence. Many of the simplified forms were used in
literary works in the
Middle Ages and
Renaissance (sometimes intentionally as an
archaism), but have since been relegated mostly to popular and uneducated speech. Occasionally, both forms exist in Modern Spanish with different
nuances of meaning or in
idiomatic usage. 'Afición' is a 'fondness for' of 'taste for' while 'afección' is 'affection,' or 'illness.' Modern Spanish 'respeto' is 'respect' while 'con respecto a' means 'with regard to.'
Modern sound changes
By the
16th century the consonantal system of "Castilian" Spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from such
related Romance languages as
Portuguese,
Ladino and
Catalan:
★ The initial , which had evolved into a vacillating , was lost in most words (although the ''h-'' has been preserved in spelling).
★ The voiced bilabial fricative (written ''u'' or ''v'') merged with the bilabial occlusive (written ''b''). Contemporary Spanish letters ''b'' and ''v'' do not correspond to different phonemes, nor do medieval-Spanish ones, as the spelling has been modified to reflect the etymological distribution of ''b'' and ''v'' in Latin.
★ The voiced alveolar fricative (written ''s'' between vowels) merged with the voiceless (written ''s'', or ''ss'' between vowels), now written ''s'' everywhere.
★ Voiced dental affricate (written ''z'') merged with the voiceless (written ''ç'', or ''c'' before ''e'' and ''i''), and then evolved into the interdental , now written ''z'', or ''c'' before ''e'' and ''i''. But in Andalusia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with as well. Notice that the ''ç'' (''c'' with ''
cedilla'') was in its origin a Spanish letter.
★ Note that in the Andalusian merger of with , the resulting unitary phoneme could be either. Coastal regions preferred , and that pronunciation is called ''ceceo''. More inland regions preferred , and are called ''seseo'' dialects. The ''seseo'' region included
Seville, the major Spanish port at that time (on the river
Guadalquivir); and hence most of those who were destined to settle the new worlds stayed for a while in Seville before heading off, and nearby locals supplied many of the seamen and other hands on ship. It should not be surprising, then, that the entire Spanish-speaking new world speaks a language derived, essentially, from the language of Seville. See also
''Ceceo'' and ''seseo''.
★ The voiced postalveolar fricative (written ''j'', or ''g'' before ''e'' and ''i'') merged with the voiceless (written ''x'', as in ''
Quixote''), and then evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound , now written ''j'', or ''g'' before ''e'' and ''i''. In much of Latin America, especially in coastal areas of Central America and northern South America, the same letters correspond to a glottal fricative, . In the highlands of Mexico and generally in the southern part of the continent (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) ''j/g'' correspond to a velar fricative , as in standard European Spanish, but this phoneme has a palatalized allophone (German "ich" sound) in front of front vowels : general , gitano .
Later is the merger, in most dialects, of the palatal lateral and non-lateral consonants and (historical) into a single non-lateral consonant, generally a palatal fricative (but also postalveolar and/or affricate in some dialects). This merger is called ''
yeísmo'' (from the name of the letter ''y'') (Hammond 2001).
See also
★
Cantar de Mio Cid
★
Eurolinguistics - Advanced study for Spanish is an European language.
★
Iberian language
★
Influences on the Spanish language
★
List of English words of Spanish origin
★
Romance languages
★
Spanish dialects and varieties
★
Spanish phonology
★
Spanish vocabulary
★
Vulgar Latin
★
Rafael Lapesa
References
★ "From Latin to Spanish" by Paul M. Lloyd (ISBN 0-87169-173-6)
★ "The University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary" by Carlos Castillo and Otto F. Bond (ISBN 0-671-74348-1)
★ "Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española" by Guido Gómez de Silva (ISBN 968-16-2812-8)
★ "The Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary" by John C. Traupman (ISBN 0-553-57301-2)
★ "Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition" (ISBN 0-02-863474-8)
External links
★
The history of Spanish language Castilian Spanish and the history of Spanish language.
★
A recording of the sibilants, as they would have been pronounced in medieval Spanish.
★
''A History of the Spanish language'' (sample from the second edition, 2002), by Ralph Penny
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
