Name of the Spanish language

This article identifies the differences between those terms, the countries or backgrounds that show a preference for one or the other, and the implications the choice of words might have for a native Spanish speaker.

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.

Traditionally the first recorded examples of written Castilian/Spanish are considered to be the Glosas Emilianenses, a number of isolated words added to a Latin text as an aid to the reader, dated to the eleventh century.

The actual legal unification date is disputed, but commonly agreed to have occurred not earlier than the eighteenth century at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession.

Both Latin ancestor words are based on the place name Hispania (which evolved into España by regular sound changes); and both are marked with an asterisk to indicate that they are reconstructed, not directly attested.

The dissimilation hypothesis, advanced by Ramón Menéndez Pidal,[1] presumes that Latin Hispania was lengthened by the derivational suffix -ōne (which survives in other ethnonyms such as bretón, borgoñón, sajón, and lapón).

It was at first a general term that embraced the various dialects of Iberian Romance spoken in the area, including the forebears of modern Portuguese, Galician, Castilian and Catalan.

With this, the break with the Roman concept of Hispania was complete, and the term acquired its modern meaning of 'all of Iberia except for Portugal and Andorra'.

The word is derived from Latin castella, the plural of castellum, which, in turn, is a diminutive form of castrum' 'fortress, castle'.

It shared borders with rival Moorish Iberia (to the south) and the Christian kingdoms of Leon (to the west) and Navarre and Aragon (to the east).

"Háblame en cristiano" is also a phrase used to ask for clarification in a conversation, when the topic of the discussion is not clear or is vaguely hinted at by one of the speakers.

[14] Occasionally the term refers to the language of Spanish Golden Age literature generally, rather than simply to that of Cervantes.

In the famous passage from his Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, Berceo says Quiero fer una prosa en roman paladino, / en cual suele el pueblo fablar con so vezino; / ca non so tan letrado por fer otro latino.

/ Bien valdra, como creo, un vaso de bon vino ("I want to write verse [sic] in clear vernacular, in which the townsfolk speak to their neighbor; for I'm not so learned as to make another in Latin.

[20][21] (Old Spanish paladino existed alongside its learned cognate palatino, which usually referred to the Palatine Hill of Rome.

Recently it has been popularized in public speeches by Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has used it frequently as an equivalent for "I will clearly state..."[citation needed] In Spain, the Royal Spanish Academy is a normative body that rules on the orthography and general usage rules of the language.

The Academy has used castellano since the 18th century, but since 1923, its dictionary and grammar are de la lengua española ("of the Spanish language").

La polémica sobre cuál de estas denominaciones resulta más apropiada está hoy superada.

[...] Aun siendo sinónimo de español, resulta preferible reservar el término castellano para referirse al dialecto románico nacido en el Reino de Castilla durante la Edad Media, o al dialecto del español que se habla actualmente en esa región.When naming the common language of Spain and of many nations of America, which is also spoken as a first language in other parts of the world, the terms Castilian and Spanish are [both] valid.

Article 3 reads in part: El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado.

The other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...This choice of words, however, varies depending on many factors, including the origin of the speaker or some political nuances.

[citation needed] However, they also frequently call it el castellano, either to assert their ownership or to distinguish it from the regional languages.

Both names are commonly used in parts of the world colonized by Spanish speakers, such as Latin America and the Canary Islands.

One reason for this is that many early Argentine settlers were Galician,[23] for whom castellano had long been associated with the Spanish state in addition to Castile.

The Governorate of New Castile (Gobernación de Nueva Castilla) was established in Lima, Peru in 1528, and Peruvian history classes still emphasize the Castilian origin of the first conquerors and settlers.

However, the fact that Castile is now a region subsumed within modern Spain has been the decisive factor in the preferential usage of español in an international context.

Some philologists use "Castilian" only for the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages and state that it is preferable to use "Spanish" for its modern form.

In the Americas, where Spanish is the native language of 20 countries, usage of castellano and español is sometimes reversed to refer to another nation.