Talk:Spanish language: Difference between revisions

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==Major changesLimits inof thethis 19thpage century?==

Regarding this recently deleted, and then undeleted, statement: ''The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as a second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system.'' This means that the way Spanish is spoken as a second language in one particular non-native area is relevant for this page. Apparently it is more relevant because of the presence of 2 Spanish cities in North Africa, which probably means that it is even more relevant for places like the US, Brazil or several Caribbean nations. Should we include, for instance, that students of Spanish from the US have trouble with the /ɾ/ - /r/ difference and they often get rid of the distinction in their Spanish? Or that Brazilian students of Spanish tend to pronounce both those sounds as velars? All that, I insist, in '''this''' particular page, and not for instance in [[Spanish as a second or foreign language]], or other pages. I don't think that is a wise policy, the probability of someone reading this page to find out about that sort of details is, well, roughly zero. [[User:Jotamar|Jotamar]] ([[User talk:Jotamar|talk]]) 00:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

The century referred in the sentence "By the 19th century the consonantal system of Castilian Spanish underwent the following important changes.." must be an error. I guess it refers to 14th or 15th century, and at most 16th century, because when Spanish was brought to America, all these changes had been done.

:Succintly outlining diglossic dynamics and language contact (and attrition) in the US in this page would be great, tbh. I am not sure if the context solely relates to "learners" in an academic setting. The current emphasis in this article favours speaking about the language in places in which it is not very spoken (plus counting up to the last speaker and not nuancing in any way whatsoever the "sovereign country" frame), instead of speaking about the languages in the places in which the language is spoken ''a lot'', such as the Americas. In this sense, outlining dynamics of language contact and sociolinguistics in regard of some major indigenous languages of the Americas such as Guarani, Quechua or Aymara would be ace. The geographical area of linguistic transition between vernacular languages in North Africa, which is perhaps more relevant ''within'' those two cities than beyond those two cities, is interesting in a context of talking about the geographical distribution of a given language, and is perhaps less abrupt than most of the Portuguese-Spanish transition area in the Iberian Peninsula. Something about language contact in Uruguay-Brazil could be perhaps worth mentioning. All of this, of course, framing/focusing information in this article in terms of the language which this article deals about--Asqueladd ([[User talk:Asqueladd|talk]]) 20:37, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

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::That's not to say that at some point content may not be redirected to a more specific article, but frankly, the intimidating table entitled "Spanish speakers by country" full of original research and lopsided numbers should go first.--Asqueladd ([[User talk:Asqueladd|talk]]) 22:26, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

:::In addition to relevance, another concern of mine is that, being the only mention of traits of Spanish as a second language in all of the page, the text in question might easily mislead readers into thinking that Spanish is a native language in Northern Morocco. --[[User:Jotamar|Jotamar]] ([[User talk:Jotamar|talk]]) 23:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

::::I think the text talks about Northern Africa which deals about Spain and Morocco and it does not frames it in terms of native language. It is written thinking as those cities and its Moroccan hinterland as a region with a gradient. There are inhabitants (as well as workers: a flux of up to 30,000 vehicles a day in the Melilla-Nador-Selouane axis) in those two cities who do not have Spanish as a native language. As I said that gradient is perhaps more relevant within those Spanish cities ("Spain") than beyond them ("Morocco") but it exists both within and beyond. The source does not make a distinction either.--Asqueladd ([[User talk:Asqueladd|talk]]) 19:56, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

== ¿what's the source of the .castilian red and .spanish blue name map? ==

==Semivowel or not?==

.i found a similar map where .el .salvador, .peru, and .chile are shaded in .castilian red:

Why is the "u" in the sequence "ui" a semivowel in words like "ruido", "agüita", but not in "destruido", "argüido", etc? [[User:Fibonacci|Fibonacci]]

[https://moverdb.com/es/castellano-vs-espanol/ Mapa de "Castellano" frente a "Español" para referirse al español - MoverDB.com] [[User:Brawlio|Brawlio]] ([[User talk:Brawlio|talk]]) 03:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

:I'm not sure they are, actually. But many people pronounce them as if "u" and "i" were in different syllables (the name for that situation when two vowels usually forming a diphthong are in fact separated is "hiatus"). Both "destruido" and "argüido" should have an orthographic accent over the "i" to mark hiatus. [[User:Pablo-flores|Pablo-flores]] 01:22, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

:I am from Chile and we rarely refer to the language as "Español", almost always as "Castellano," in school textbooks and casual conversation. This might be changing with immigrants from other parts of South America who prefer to use "Español". I would support changing the map to the one you linked to, or one that has Chile with dashes.

::No, they don't. They should, that's true, but they don't. Check the [http://buscon.rae.es/diccionario/drae.htm DRAE], and search the corresponding verbs. [[User:Fibonacci|Fibonacci]]

:Sources:

:- Chilean General Education Law from 2009, Article 30, no. 2, declaring that "Lengua Castellana" is the primary language of instruction: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1006043&idParte=

:- Textbook from the Ministry of Education for "Castellano" as a school subject:https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/bitstream/handle/20.500.12365/411/MONO-341.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

:- Textbook from 1967 also highlighting "Castellano", showing that this is the historically relevant term: https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/handle/20.500.12365/19723?show=full [[User:Diegojosesalva|Diegojosesalva]] ([[User talk:Diegojosesalva|talk]]) 19:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

::I answered this on the Spanish Wikipedia, but for the Philippines the source is page 236 of ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=xq_Lr-47DVUC&pg=FC La lengua española en Filipinas]'' by the Spanish linguists Antonio Quilis and Celia Casado-Fresnillo. 85% of their respondents referred to the language as "español"; the remainder used "castellano". This maps with contemporary (although anecdotal at this point) use of the two terms in English and the Philippine languages. --[[User:Sky Harbor|<b style="color: #0066ff">Sky Harbor</b>]] ^{([[User talk:Sky Harbor|<b style="color:#0066ff">talk</b>]])} 17:34, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

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==También and compadre have /n/ (arch)phoneme==

== why the language hieararchy is going down to right? ==

Some people think that también = /tam'bjen/. If this were true, then school children wouldn't spell *tanbien. There are 5500 occurences of *tanbien in Google, and also 355 of *tanvien.

i dont understand the idea about the language hierarchy goes down while veering off to right denoting the standar level of linguistic classification. so wheres the people can understand that curiousities? [[Special:Contributions/182.253.54.75|182.253.54.75]] ([[User talk:182.253.54.75|talk]]) 08:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

:Not true; they spell "tanbien" because they get confused with "tan bien". [[User:Fibonacci|Fibonacci]]

:It's a branch of a tree, like the one at [[Italic languages#Classification]], just a single branch. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 10:22, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

== Scope of speakership ==

:And because a Spanish speaker usually can't manage to pronounce a phonetic /n/ before /b/, so children read "nb" as /mb/ automatically. Of course "nv" is also /mb/. "Tan" + "bien" = "también" is just plain phonetic assimilation, not the resurfacing of an arch-phoneme. As for "compadre" etc., it's generally considered that there's a "con-" morpheme with an allomorph "com-" motivated by phonetic reasons. [[User:Pablo-flores|Pablo-flores]] 01:37, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[[User:Salvabl]], in again restoring the text {{tq|Spanish is spoken across all consonants}}, gives the rationale {{tq|Spanish, like French, is spoken across all continents. However, the sentence that the user Largoplazo is defending is objectively false, since Spanish is an official language in Europe, the Americas, Oceania and Africa}}.

:And then, it could be said that correlación and irreparable have /n/ archphoneme, and [r:] is an allophone of /n/. Why is that? The "con-" morpheme has also an allomorph "cor-", motivated by phonetic reasons (as in "correlación"). The same is true for the morpheme "in-" ("intocable", "infalible") and its allomorph "ir-" ("irrompible", "irreparable"). But the affirmation is clearly ridiculous, since "irreparable" has nothing remotely similar to a /n/ phoneme. Then, why is the other one an archphoneme? Because it's not. --[[User:Fibonacci|Fibonacci]] 05:21, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

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Spanish is not a language of anywhere in Oceania, unless one counts the trivial case of Easter Island, but Oceania isn't actually a continent.

==Inverted question marks==

&iquest;Are there any other languages that use inverted question and exclamation marks? I know that not even [[Catalan]] does so. - [[user:Montrealais|montr&eacute;alais]]

Salvabl, for that matter, ignores Antarctica.

:I don't know, but Spanish does the same with exclamation marks. Another notable point is that the paired question or exclamation marks enclose only the ''actual question'' and not the entire sentence, as in English. ''Esta muerto ¿Verdad?'' He's dead, right? ''Me preguntaron -- ¿De donde vienes?'' They asked me, "Where are you coming from?"

:There's also the tricky business of yes/no questions, which I can't quite handle. [[User:Ortolan88|Ortolan88]]

Salvabl seems to be misunderstanding the meaning of the word "across". A language spoken by around one-fourth of one percent of the people of Africa in a few spots that are all along the continent's northwest coast is not spoken across Africa. A language spoken by a remnant community in the Philippines is not spoken across Asia.

I knew this (having just come back from an advanced Spanish course in [[Valladolid]]), but thanks. - [[user:Montrealais|montr&eacute;alais]]

The text I'm objecting to conveys the impression that Spanish is spoken in appreciable numbers in locations ranging from Cairo to Cape Town, from Beirut to Beijing, from Perth to Pohnpei, from Madrid to Moscow. That impression is false. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 18:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

:But [[Catalan]] does use ''inverted'' (the preferred term is ''opening'') question and exclamation marks. They just happen to be optional, unlike in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] -- [[user:Perique des Palottes|Perique des Palottes]]

:Spanish is one of the languages of Oceania, since it is an official language on [[Easter Island]]. This is uniform with the information that can be found, for example, in the [[Oceania]] article's infobox. And I think that labeling it as "trivial" is just subjective pov. What is the reason for that? its size? Would it be appropriate to label the [[Vatican City|Vatican City State]] as "trivial"?

Oh really, that's very interesting. I didn't see them at all when I was in Catalonia (except for in Castilian text, of course) so I assumed they just weren't used. Could you tell me what kind of context they are used in? - [[user:Montrealais|montr&eacute;alais]]

:Apart from that, you have stated that "Oceania isn't actually a continent". I know that the way to distinguish/count the continents varies, but if you consider that the continent is Australia (and not Oceania), then.. in which continent are the [[Pitcairn Islands]] located?

::I guess they are optional, just that. That is to say: some people use them, some people don't (although some people may have some personal criteria regarding its use). [[User:Marco Neves]] P.S. Just out of curiosity, some Portuguese authors (mainly 19th century ones) use the inverted marks in very long sentences, but that's very rare and some Portuguese may live without seeing them. Actually, new editions of those works delete those marks, in spite of the fact that I've seen a contemporary writer use it in a very very long sentence (to clarify it).

:And regarding the meaning of the word "across", no misunderstanding will occur, as the context provides enough information. It is as if we read the sentence "''There are approximately 3,500 species of snake spread across all continents''". It is correct, but it does not imply that there are snakes on the island of Ireland, in the Svalbard archipelago or on the vast frozen plains of northern Canada (but on the continents on which they are located).

:::Opening question or exclamation marks are generally never used in catalan. They're recommended only for very long sentences or when the beggining and end of the question might be unclear. [[xevi]]

:The sentence is about the continents where Spanish is spoken, not where it is official, and this should not be changed if consensus is not reached. But in this case, the main reason why I object the change is because it is not accurate, due to the different ways of distinguishing/counting continents, as well as for ignoring the Easter Island, which breaks the uniformity of information with several Wikipedia articles such as [[Polynesia]] (where Spanish, just like French, is one of the languages included in the first footnote of the article), [[Oceania]], etc. [[User:Salvabl|Salvabl]] ([[User talk:Salvabl|talk]]) 11:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

::The Pacific Islands aren't located on any continent. Continents and countries have nothing to do with each other. A continent is a geological feature. Countries are political entities that occupy space. A country can be entirely within one continent, be split over multiple continents, or not occupy space on any continent at all. Oceania is a conventional grouping in the same way as a couple of its parts are, like Polynesia and Micronesia, or in the same way as the West Indies.

::As for "across", it doesn't make sense to say that something that's false should be in the article as long as the true information that makes its falsehood plain comes later. In your snake example, "across" is appropriate. It indicates that, ''despite'' exceptions, snakes are found in most areas. If, out of all of Europe, there were snakes ''only'' in the Alps, then to say they are found "across" Europe would be false. In Asia, Oceania, Africa, and Europe, the places where Spanish is spoken ''are'' the exceptions. Saying that Spanish is spoken "across Asia" because a small community in the Philippines speaks it it isn't at all like the snake example, it's nonsense. "Across" doesn't mean whatever you want it to mean. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 13:02, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

:::Whether or not Oceania is a real continent doesn't matter - Spanish is in fact spoken (non-trivially/by significant numbers) on at least some portion of every other continent.

:::Even if we decide against saying that Spanish is spoken on every continent in the lede, we should still avoid counting continents. In some areas it's conventional to consider the Americas a single continent, in others they're two different continents, this article's lede doesn't need to take a side.

:::I think [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] might be right to object to the word "across" (although the same wording is also found on [[French language]]) {{endash}} there shouldn't be any problems with replacing it with something like "on", right? [[User:Erinius|Erinius]] ([[User talk:Erinius|talk]]) 09:24, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

:Also, seeing as this dispute is basically about how to quickly go over the geographical extension of Spanish, I thought I'd see how some other sources do this. This is basically a list of convenience, from whatever sources I had on hand.

:* "{{main other|{{error|This template should not be used in mainspace}}|{{#switch:<!--

-->|h|horizontal|ldots=…<!--

-->|v|vertical|vdots=⋮<!--

-->|mh|midline horizontal|cdots=⋯<!--

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-->|dr|down-right diagonal|ddots=⋱<!--

-->|laotian=ຯ<!--

-->|mongolian=᠁<!--

-->|thai=ฯ<!--

-->|#default=...}}}}there are more than 400 million native or near-native speakers of Spanish in the world, distributed across every continent except Antarctica. Spanish is the official language in twenty-one countries plus Puerto Rico; is the de facto first language for most of Gibraltar (Fierro Cubiella 1997; Kramer 1986); still maintains a small foothold in the Philippines{{main other|{{error|This template should not be used in mainspace}}|{{#switch:<!--

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-->|dr|down-right diagonal|ddots=⋱<!--

-->|laotian=ຯ<!--

-->|mongolian=᠁<!--

-->|thai=ฯ<!--

-->|#default=...}}}}" John Lipski, "Geographical and Social Varieties of Spanish: An Overview", in ''The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics''

:* "Spanish is spoken in Europe, Latin America, certain areas of Africa, the United States, and to some extent in the Philippines." Manuel Díaz-Campos' introduction to the ''Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics''

:* "Spanish is a world-wide international language spoken on four continents and is established as the official language in 22 countries: Spain; Mexico, {{main other|{{error|This template should not be used in mainspace}}|{{#switch:<!--

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-->|laotian=ຯ<!--

-->|mongolian=᠁<!--

-->|thai=ฯ<!--

-->|#default=...}}}} and Panama (Latin America); Equatorial Guinea (west Africa); and the Philippines (south-east Asia)" - Elena Fernández de Molina Ortés and Juan M. Hernández-Campoy, "Geographic Varieties of Spanish", ''The Cambridge Handbook of Spanish Linguistics''

:* "It is an official language in Spain, nineteen Latin American republics and Puerto Rico (see Map 22.2), as well as Equatorial Guinea in Africa. There is residual use in the Philippines and frequent use in many parts of the USA{{main other|{{error|This template should not be used in mainspace}}|{{#switch:<!--

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-->|#default=...}}}}" - Tuten, Pato and Schwarzwald, "Spanish, Astur-Leonese, Navarro-Aragonese, Judaeo-Spanish", in ''The Oxford Guide to the Romance Linguistics''

:* "Spanish has today become a world language with more than 350 million speakers who are concentrated in Spain and the Americas, but who are also to be found in Africa and Asia" - Ralph Penny's ''A History of the Spanish Language'', 2nd edition, Introduction chapter

:[[User:Erinius|Erinius]] ([[User talk:Erinius|talk]]) 04:27, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

::Thank you very much for providing such valuable information.

::Apart from the problem caused by the different ways of distinguishing/counting continents, that make the number variable.. even if the continents where Spanish is an official language were listed one by one, there would still be a part of [[Chile]] (the [[Easter Island]]) that would not be covered in the list, and where Spanish is an official language.

::But, apart from that, there is no need to further complicate this, since at no time has there been a consensus for the initial sentence of the fourth paragraph to address the continents where there are countries in which Spanish is an official language. The sentence is about where the Spanish language is spoken, not about where it is official.

::However, I consider appropriate the suggestion made by @[[User:Erinius|Erinius]] to replace the word "across" with "on", since reducing a possible ambiguity always improves the article. [[User:Salvabl|Salvabl]] ([[User talk:Salvabl|talk]]) 02:09, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

:::I'm glad we could reach a consensus on "on". {{Re|Largoplazo}} do we also have a consensus on not counting/numbering continents? [[User:Erinius|Erinius]] ([[User talk:Erinius|talk]]) 18:58, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

::::It isn't spoken in Australia. There's no sense in having the article say something that will strike many readers as false outright, in the vain expectation that they'll come here and find this special pleading for the fringe convention of treating Oceania as a continent while pretending Australia isn't one, and that they'll buy into it. And all because one person wants to make this superlative claim about the speakership of the language despite the reality that it falls short, even if just by a little bit. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 20:59, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

:::::Yes, "Spanish is spoken on all continents" is either false by the usual (anglosphere, at least) listing of continents or it's vacuous (sure, there are some Australians who can and do speak Spanish when Down Under, and at any time there are bound to be some folks in Antarctica who speak Spanish). The statement is puffery, reads like PR promo. [[User:Barefoot through the chollas|Barefoot through the chollas]] ([[User talk:Barefoot through the chollas|talk]]) 21:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

::::::I was actually willing to concede Antartica (for "on", not "across"), insofar as Argentina and Chile claim chunks of it and, more to the point, have resident populations there, including families and schools. But I can understand if others are reluctant. Your last sentence is what I was driving at; I agree. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 00:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

:::::::Right. And the question about the Chilean and Argentine populations is how permanent the residents are. Supposedly there have been only 11 people born in Antarctica, suggesting a) that families don't stay long, b) there's little -- more likely no -- native population. Unsurprisingly, populations greatly reduce during the winter. I suppose the issue turns on what the definition of "Spoken on continent X" is meant to be. It's easy (and facile) to engineer it to include or exclude Spanish on Antarctica. Native American code talkers served in the Pacific, North African, and European theaters in WW2, and no doubt chatted amongst themselves. Was e.g. Navajo spoken in/on [overseas ___location]? [[User:Barefoot through the chollas|Barefoot through the chollas]] ([[User talk:Barefoot through the chollas|talk]]) 18:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

:::''"Spoken on all continents"'' is not real information, it is rather a slogan for some sort of ''linguistic jingoism''. --[[User:Jotamar|Jotamar]] ([[User talk:Jotamar|talk]]) 23:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

::::{{Re|Largoplazo}} Good point on Australia – I hadn't really thought too hard about considering it as a continent.

::::I guess the current claim does seem like puffery and should probably be removed – also, it's not like "nationsonline.com" is the best source to use, nor does it support the "all continents" claim anyway. Do we want to keep some kind of brief overview of Spanish's geographic distribution in the lede? It already mentions Spanish originating in Spain and then being introduced "to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas". Is that enough? [[User:Erinius|Erinius]] ([[User talk:Erinius|talk]]) 03:37, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

:::::The easiest solution might be to just remove "Spanish is spoken on all continents" and move what would then be a stranded footnote up into the appropriate spot in the first paragraph. [[User:Barefoot through the chollas|Barefoot through the chollas]] ([[User talk:Barefoot through the chollas|talk]]) 05:36, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

::::::Sounds good to me. [[User:Erinius|Erinius]] ([[User talk:Erinius|talk]]) 20:39, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

:::::::Where do we stand as of now? {{Re|Salvabl}} I'm good with [[U:Barefoot through the chollas|Barefoot through the chollas]]' suggestion, and I imagine everyone else who commented here would be. There's no longer any consensus in favor of keeping "spoken on all continents" it seems. What do you think? [[User:Erinius|Erinius]] ([[User talk:Erinius|talk]]) 01:43, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

::::::::As you says, consensus is against Salvabl's position, and that's all that's required to proceed. Let's remove the sentence, and I'm fine with Chollas' specific recommendation. [[User:Barefoot through the chollas]], do you want to do the honors, finding a suitable spot for the footnote? [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 02:23, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

:::::::::Done. Deleted the continents bit, and moved the note to the end of the sentence beginning ''Spanish is the official language of''. If anyone has a better place for it, by all means feel free to adjust. (Separately, I executed what might pass superficially as a stylistic tweak: vocabulary ''derived from Latin'' to ''Latin in origin''. If anyone disagrees, we can discuss it and find better wording; I'm aware that ''in origin'' can be as misleading as ''derived from''.) [[User:Barefoot through the chollas|Barefoot through the chollas]] ([[User talk:Barefoot through the chollas|talk]]) 16:16, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

:::::::::If there is sufficient common consensus to reduce any possible ambiguity or inaccuracy, then such a change should be implemented. I have no problem with that. The point is that I considered the existence of different ways of distinguishing/counting [[continent]]s sufficient reason to keep the disputed statement, taking into account the notion of [[Oceania]] as a continent (which, although not common, also exists in the English-speaking world).

:::::::::In any case, this criteria shall then be taken into account also for other articles of languages that can be regarded as global (similar wording can be found on the article of [[French language]]), in order to avoid any possible bias; since it would not make sense that a change implemented in order to make this article's content more accurate, could result in a biased lack of uniformity of criteria.

:::::::::I am going to add a link to this discussion in the [[French language]] article (in a edit summary), as it is necessary to remove the analogous statement in that article, since French language is not spoken on the [[Australia (continent)|Australian continent]]. [[User:Salvabl|Salvabl]] ([[User talk:Salvabl|talk]]) 02:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

== American centric ==

<b>Pablo.cl:</b> I don't like the sentence "Spanish is a language with inverted question marks". Typography is not language. Pablo Neruda spoke and wrote in Spanish. However he didn't use "¿". Did he use non-standard Spanish? I think it was non-standard typography.

This article seems very American centric, ignoring the language’s actual origin. Furthermore it also seems to be USA centric, with it’s description often longer than any other nation despite not even having spanish as the first official language [[User:DirkjanenBert|DirkjanenBert]] ([[User talk:DirkjanenBert|talk]]) 20:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

:The proper use of punctuation is defined in grammars. If '''standard''' Spanish is the one defined by any of the Academies, Neruda certainly (I never heard so, though) didn't follow a fully standard usage. Had he used ! instead of ? and vice versa, it would be even less standard. For another prestijious author engajing in non-standard usaje, see [[Juan Ramón Jiménez]]'s elimination of ''g'' with ''j'' pronunciation. -- [[User:Error|Error]]

:Given that approximately 90% of Spanish speakers are in the Americas, a concentration on Spanish in the Americas is to be expected, regardless of its origin in Spain. As for being US-centric, I haven't done my own assessment but if it is, then you make a good point. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 13:11, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

::<b>Pablo.cl:</b> There is a simple way to know whether Neruda used "¿" or not: read any of his books in Spanish.

== Spanish in Philippines ==

On the other hand, note that Spanish relies in tones for indicating questions. Compare "No sé qué comiste" with "¿Qué comiste?". In English, grammar shows the difference: "I don't know what you ate" and "What <i>did</i> you <i>eat</i>?".

Given that Spanish holds constitutional recognition in the Philippines, it would be appropriate to reflect this in the Quick Facts dropdown. I suggest creating a new category within the infobox to properly display this information. A similar approach has already been taken on the Arabic language Wikipedia page, as Arabic also enjoys constitutional recognition in the Philippines.

:English as well may use just tone for marking questions. Right? -- [[User:Error|Error]]

On another note, considering the unique role and constitutional recognition of Spanish in the Philippines, it may be worth reflecting this on the language map. While it shouldn’t be shaded the same as countries where Spanish is currently official, perhaps a distinct color or pattern (e.g., stripes) could be used to denote its significance. [[User:Alexigj|Alexigj]] ([[User talk:Alexigj|talk]]) 23:19, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

::<b>Pablo.cl:</b> The problem is that the question tone in Spanish is not redundant. English can do with no question marks at all. When you say "Do you ...", you already know it's a question. On the other hand, in those few cases that grammar doesn't show it's a question, it would be nice to have a beginning question mark

::A: I invited John.

::B: ¿You invited John? Are you getting crazy? ¿Insane?

::A: ¿Why the aggresiveness? Do you fear John?

::B: ¿Fear? Why do you think I fear him? ¿Transference, perhaps?

:::Getting offtopic, I have always wondered why (in any language) the ? appeared before the [[¿]]. I think the ¿ makes its sibling redundant.

:::And, about English, is there any dialect which removes (most) tone? Maybe [[Jamaican English]]? -- [[User:Error|Error]] 02:07, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

::<b>Pablo.cl</b> 28 Aug 2003: I agree with the parent post. In fact, there was a language used by an ape tha only had "¿", but no "?"

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==Spanish syntax==

<b>SamIam</b>: This entry is an excellent discussion of the phonology of Spanish. However, there is no discussion of Spanish's syntax.

I am thinking something along the lines of "Spanish verbs have eight simple tenses (this includes the imperative), and seven compound tenses (some compound tenses are very rare). Additionally, the verbs have a present progressive form, a participle form, and an infinitive form. The seven simple tenses are: The present tense, two past tenses, a future tense (which is falling out of favor, especially in the Americas), a conditional tense, and two subjunctive tenses.

: About the "fall out of favor", is there a word or article about the fear of the future (fear of the irrealis?) that several languages have experienced? -- [[User:Error|Error]] 00:27, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

:'''Pablo.cl''': What about the form -aré, -eré meaning not future but expectation, hope, or something like that.

:¿No me estarás leseando? = I think you might be teasing me

:Tendremos que comer = Maybe we should eat

The present tense, like most non-English languages, describes both habitual events and events which the speaker is presently doing.

One past tense describes events which happened one or a finite number of times in the past; the other past tense is used to describe habitual events in the past.

The two subjunctive tenses are used to describe doubts, possibilities, emotions, and events which may or may not occur. [...]

Some linguists have theorized that Spanish verbs, when describing motion, emphasize the direction of motion. For example, <i>subir</i> means "to go up", <i>bajar</i> means "to go down". This contrasts with English verbs which are more likely to show the method of motion ("Sliding" vs. "Tumbling").

All Spanish nouns have one of two genders: masculine or inclusive and feminine or exclusive. Most adjectives, all pronouns, and all articles indicate the gender of the noun they reference [...]"

:There are also some epicenes. Noun that can take both genders in some circunstances: el arte, las artes; el mar, la mar; el aceite, la aceite (dialectal); el Internet, la Internet. -- [[User:Error|Error]]

<b>Pablo.cl</b> 28 Aug 2003: epicenes are: la jirafa macho, la jirafa hembra, el rinoceronte macho, el rinoceronte hembra.

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I think there are some major problems with the description of the Spanish verb.

# Why are the indicative and subjunctive described as modes and not moods?

# I studied Spanish grammar for several years and I've never heard of "imperfect future", "co-preterit" and "post-preterit" before. This terminology has been translated directly from Spanish. I think it's confusing for readers not fluent in Spanish.

# The past perfect tense isn't used to express past habitual events, the imperfect tense is used to do that. The Spanish past perfect works in exactly the same way as the English version.

# It might be useful to mention [[grammatical_aspect|aspect]], that is the progressive and perfective nature of the tenses.

I referred to this excellent website [http://www.econ.jhu.edu/people/tchaidze/SPANGRAM/tenses.html#correspondence Usage of tenses] to check I wasn't barking up the wrong tree. [[User:Dduck|Dduck]] 20:28, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I just finished some amendments to [[Grammatical person]], and a Spanish speaker may wish to check what I wrote there; I used Spanish as an example of a language that uses a third person word to politely refer to people in the second person. I am uncertain about the use and distribution of ''usted, ustedes, vos, vosotros'', and that information might be profitably added to this article. -- [[User:Ihcoyc|Smerdis of Tlön]] 21:57, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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==Castilian or Spanish? The situation in Spain==

a)I feel that it would be better to start the article with "the spanish or castilian language" as both are synonyms. Later, the writer can state (as usual)that for simplicity "spanish" will be used in the rest of the article.

b)In Spain the offical term is castilian, and there seems to be no division on how to call the language just by where people live. '''Castilian'''' is prefered, but people known that '''spanish''' is synonym of castilian.

:How is it official? From memory, the [[RAE]] has used both forms in different moments of history. Some American constitutions [[weasel]]ly talk about the "''lengua nacional''". -- [[User:Error|Error]] 01:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

c)Schools teach castilian language, AFAIK.

:What do you mean? The subject is ''Lengua española'' in Spanish school. -- [[User:Error|Error]] 01:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

::No, it isn't. In Spain, the subject is "lengua castellana". This is the mother tongue subjects in most regions and the second language subject in Catalonia (where "llengua catalana" is the mother language subject for almost every student, including those whose mother tongue is Spanish) and in some schools in some other regions. --[[User:Marco Neves|Marco Neves]] 21:47, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[[User:Thewikipedian|The Wikipedian]], March 23rd, 18:54 (GMT+1)

:::[http://wwwn.mec.es/educa/jsp/plantilla.jsp?id=8203&area=sistema-educativo You are right for ESO]. However in ''[http://wwwn.mec.es/educa/jsp/plantilla.jsp?id=602&area=ccuniv&contenido=/ccuniv/html/direct_generales/troncal/filohisp.html Filología Hispánica]'' it is ''Lengua Española''. -- [[User:Error|Error]] 02:58, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:When dealing with Spanish/ [[Castilian language]], mind the different meanings of "Castilian" and the different uses among Spanish speakers. Also mind that the English usage and the Spanish one don't have to match. -- [[User:Error|Error]] 01:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The name in ''Spanish'' may be disputed as to whether to use "castellano" or "español", but in ''English'', the name of the language is "Spanish". In English, "Castilian" means the kind of Spanish spoken in "Castille". It might also be used to describe standard Spanish as spoken in Spain, but it's not used to describe Spanish as spoken outside of Spain. [[User:Nohat|Nohat]] 04:05, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

Further, I think [[User:Thewikipedian]] is confounding the issue by using English translations of Spanish words to refer to Spanish usages. For example in this sentence

:'''Castilian'''' is prefered, but people known that '''spanish''' is synonym of castilian.

I assume what is meant is ''castellano'' is preferred, but people know that ''español'' is a synonym of ''castellano'', but this is unclear as English terms are used to describe Spanish usage. I don't think there's any valid evidence that the term "Castilian" is used to refer to the Spanish language, as a whole, in English.[[User:Nohat|Nohat]] 04:11, 2004 Mar 25 (UTC)

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Forgive my ignorance ...but, isn't this issue also extendable to the english language itself?

I mean, how is it that the english variant spoken in the UK is called "british english" and not simply "british"?

Why is it possible to refer to the english language as a whole as "english" and not "british"?

For the time being, I will rename any references to the spanish language from "Castilian" to "spanish" in the [[Spain]] wiki, so that it does not lead to further confussion.

(I must say that I'm surprised that unlike in spanish, english does not consider synonyms "castilian" and "spanish".

[[user:TheWikipedian|thewikipedian]] 16:41 GMT+2

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==Separate Grammar Page==

Hello everyone. I'm pretty new to Wikipedia so I apologize for my ignorance in advance. I was looking around at language pages here and I found the one for [[Finnish language]] that redirects users to a separate [[Finnish language grammar|Finnish grammar]] page that gives great detail about all the different grammatical forms and uses. It seems that much information is lacking on the grammar section of this page, and I was wondering if it would be worth creating a [[Spanish grammar]] page and moving the grammar section here to that page, allowing it to become a more complete discussion of Spanish grammar. I'd be happy to contribute to such a page, but I don't want to make such a large change as a new user without asking people's opinions, so let me know what you think. -- [[User:Jrdioko|Jrdioko]] 02:07, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

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==one of the oldest languages in the world==

Any problem if I remove ''Basque '''- one of the oldest languages in the world -'''''? Saying that Basque is old implies that today's and BC Basque are the same language, which is like saying that Spanish is Latin.

It's all in the interpretation, but comparing the "age" of Basque with that of English or Spanish is different.

-- [[User:Error|Error]] 02:00, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

:: You're right, but it was meant to emphasize that Basque is not Spanish, which seems to be the belief of some people, as strange as it may seem.

--[[User:Marco Neves|Marco Neves]] 23:10, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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== Sound bites ==

Possibly this has already occurred and nobody has time, or possibly the people who wrote it know their stuff so well they don't see the need for it, but: I would love to be able to listen to little recordings demonstrating the various pronunciation concepts discussed in this article. I find it all very interesting (well done!) but, not speaking Spanish and not having any education in languages in general, I find it difficult to follow without hearing exactly what is being talked about. [[User:Rkundalini|Rkundalini]] 15:36, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

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== Oh dear ==

I fear there are two many uneducated people contributing to this article. The way the language is described is not exactly methodical. I've just had to remove a comment that vosotros coming from vos + otros is a folk etymology. It is obviously not! — [[User:Chameleon|Chameleon]] 08:07, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

== Help with article ==

Necesito la ayuda de algunos latinoamericanos. ¿Soléis decir &laquo;castellano&raquo; o &laquo;espa&ntilde;ol&raquo;? Id a poner el nombre de vuestro país en la lista que está en [[Names given to the Spanish language]]. — [[User:Chameleon|Chameleon]]

:Bien, ya aporté. --[[User:Fibonacci|Fibonacci]] 17:45, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

==MadriD==

Something could be said about the pronunciation of final ''d'': "madrid", "[[madriz]]", "madrí", "madrit".

But I don't see where to wedge it in.

::The '''correct''' pronounciation is "madrid" (soledad, honestidad,etc). But of course you can hear ""madrit" and specially "madrí": there is common than some spanish speakers don't pronounce final consonants like d and s ( as example, chileans).

[[User:Baloo rch|Baloo rch]] 17:54, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

:::It is not a full d but a &edh;

:::Anyway, the pronunciations of final d should be mentioned.

:::-- [[User:Error|Error]] 00:42, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

==Substantivos ambiguos==

I'm not and expert in linguistics but as spanish native speaker i doubt '''ázucar'' is a good example of an ambiguous substantive.

The article says that a vacilant substantive has not definied gender. But for me, azucar is belongs to female gender. If you put an adjetive to ''azúcar'', you have to decline in its female form: el azúcar rubiA, azúcar refinadA. I've never heard azúcar rubiO, azúcar refinadO, and for me it seems the use of the article ''el'' is to avoid ''cacofonía'' on some female susbtantives article that begin with and a (ha).(el hacha está oxidadA).

[[User:Baloo rch|Baloo rch]] 17:55, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

:[[Azúcar Moreno]] is a popular music duo in Spain.

:I checked my shelves and sugar is labelled "azúcar blanco", but "azúcar blanquilla" seems a trade term.

:Maybe ''mar'' or ''aceite'' are better examples.

:-- [[User:Error|Error]] 00:35, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)