Languages of Spain

Approximation to the mother or original languages of Spain. Castilian (green clear), spoken throughout the country, Galician (blue), Catalan/valencian (dark orange), Basque (grey), Aranese (red), Asturleonese (dark green) and Aragonese (yellow). The geographical boundaries between languages can be imprecise, especially between Castilian and Asturleonian and between Castilian and Aragonese.

Percentage of people who know the regional co-official language.

Several vernacular languages are spoken in Spain. Castilian or Spanish, the official language throughout the country, is the predominant mother tongue in almost all the autonomous communities of Spain and is spoken by 98.9% of the Spanish population. Six of the nineteen cities and autonomous communities of Spain They also have, along with Spanish, other official languages in their respective communities. Bilingualism to different degrees and in different communicative situations between Spanish and another language is a common practice for many Spaniards residing in one of these autonomous communities.

In 2019, according to the Pew survey, the languages spoken at home were Spanish in 81% of households, Catalan/Valencian in 12% (8% Catalan and 4% Valencian), Galician in 3%, Basque in 1% and the rest by other languages.

By autonomous communities, Galician can be spoken by 89% of the population of Galicia, Catalan by 85% of the population of Catalonia and 63.1% of the Balearic Islands, and Basque by 55.1% of the country Basque, Valencian 51.8% of the Valencian Community and in Navarra 21.7% can speak Basque. Regarding mother tongues only, Galician is that of 82.8% of residents in Galicia, Catalan is 55.5% in Catalonia and 42.9% in the Balearic Islands, Valencian is 35.2% in the Valencian Community, and Basque is the mother tongue of 33.7% in the Basque Country and 14.6% in Navarra.

Except for Basque, an isolated language, all the vernacular languages currently spoken in Spain are Romance languages, within the Indo-European language family. Most belong to the subgroup of Ibero-Romance languages, with the exception of Catalan/Valencian and Aranese belonging to the Occitan-Romance languages and Aragonese, whose assignment is disputed between one subgroup and another.

Spanish or Castilian

Native speakers (or native language) of Spanish in Spain and Andorra. The map does not show Spanish speakers as a second language.

Spanish or Castilian is the official language of the entire country and is spoken as the habitual and mother tongue by 80% of the Spanish population. Spain is, after Mexico, Colombia and the United States, the fourth country in the world with the largest number of Spanish speakers.

By cities and autonomous communities, Spanish is the only official language in Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Ceuta, the Community of Madrid, Extremadura, Melilla, the Region of Murcia, La Rioja and the non-Basque-speaking area of Navarra. It is co-official along with other languages in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country and the Basque-speaking area of Navarra. In all the bilingual autonomous communities, except Galicia, Spanish is currently the mother tongue of the majority of the population and the most used at home, although this is largely due to the migratory processes that have occurred since the middle of the century XX.

History

This predominance of Spanish began in the Middle Ages in the process of the Reconquest with the political, cultural and economic hegemony of, first the Kingdom of Castile (in whose environment it was born) and later of the Crown of Castile in the peninsular environment, with the cultural prestige that this entailed, although it was also spoken in part of the Crown of Aragon and in the Kingdom of Navarra, as well as the importance of becoming an auxiliary language (both commercial, communication and diplomatic) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In the following centuries, Spanish continued its expansive process at the expense of its bordering languages; This is shown in an accentuated way in the case of the Leonese and Aragonese languages, and also in the case of Euskera. During the second half of the XX century, Francoism removed regional languages from public life and favored the use of Spanish, what was added to the internal migratory processes that also occurred in this century and that contributed to the predominance of Castilian. This situation changed with the arrival of democracy in Spain and especially with the promulgation of the 1978 Constitution that recognized the co-official status of regional languages in their respective territories; From then on, the bilingual autonomous communities promoted various policies to normalize the use of their languages, a situation that has been especially successful in the educational field.

Co-official languages

Co-official languages in Spain, Andorra and France: Official Galician. Acknowledged but not official. Official Basque. Euskera recognized but not official. Orange. Official Catalan. Catalan historical but not official language. Official Valencian. Official Valencian, but not historical language.

The statutes of autonomy have established the following official languages in their respective territories: Catalan in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, Valencian in the Valencian Community, Galician in Galicia, Basque in the Basque Country and a part of Navarra, and Aranese in Catalonia. Catalan and Valencian are considered two varieties of the same language.

Catalan-Valencian-Balearic Islands

Catalan ("català") or Valencian ("valencià") is, together with Spanish, the official language in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community; in Aragon it has some official recognition, since the statute of autonomy defines its own languages and linguistic modalities as "one of the most outstanding manifestations of the Aragonese historical and cultural heritage and a social value of respect, coexistence and understanding". In these territories the official name of the language is "Catalan", except in the Valencian Community, where the official name is "Valencian".

• In Catalonia, the Catalan presents two main varieties: the central Catalan, spoken in the provinces of Barcelona and Gerona and in the eastern half of Tarragona, and the north-west Catalan, spoken in the province of Lérida and western half of the province of Tarragona. In Catalonia, Castilian is the mother tongue of the majority of the population (55.0%), Catalan is the mother tongue of 31.6%, and 3.8% consider both as their mother tongue, according to a survey conducted in 2008 by the Government of Catalonia. Castilian is predominant in urban areas, especially in the metropolitan region of Barcelona and in the Campo de Tarragona (where together 76 per cent of the Catalan population live), while Catalan is in the rest of the autonomous community.

• For its part, the Catalan spoken in Balearic Islands it is a variety of the Eastern Catalan that has very different features of the peninsular Catalan (among which stands out the preservation of the alternate use of the articles is/sa and/or the/la) and receives the name of balear. In the Balearic Islands, Spanish is the mother tongue of 47.7% of the population, Catalan of 42.6%, and 1.8% have the two languages as mother tongues, according to a survey conducted in 2003 by the Balearic Government. Castilian is the predominant language in the metropolitan area of Palma de Mallorca and in Ibiza, while Catalan is in Menorca and in the rural areas of Mallorca.

Map with different dialectal varieties.

• In the Valencian Community, it is commonly, traditional and official as Valencian to its own language, although linguistically it is considered as the Western dialectal variety of the Catalan language spoken in this autonomous community. During the centuryXX.the consideration of the Valencian language as a language other than the Catalan language or - on the other hand - as a variety of Catalan, has led to a debate known as the Valencian linguistic conflict. Even so, the Valencian Academy of the language in the opinion on the principles and criteria for the defense of the denomination and the entity of the Valencian-Catalan language recognized the unity of the Valencian-Catalan language while claiming the onomastic duality of it. In the Valencian Community two zones are linguistically distinguished: a Castilian monolingual (which represents 25% of the regional area and where 13% of the population live) and another Valencian/Cattlean bilingual (75% of the area, 87% of the population). In the bilingual area, Castilian is the language spoken in the home preferably by 54.5 per cent of the population, while the Valencian is 36.4 per cent and 6.2 per cent indistinctly uses both languages, according to a survey conducted in 2003 by the Valencian Generality. Castilian is predominant in the metropolitan area of Valencia, the metropolitan area of Alicante-Elche and to a lesser extent, in the metropolitan area of Castellón de la Plana, while the Valencian is predominant in the north of the province of Alicante, the south of Valencia and much of the province of Castellón.

In addition, within Spain Catalan is also spoken, but without being official, in the easternmost part of Aragon (known as the Aragon Strip) and in the region of El Carche, in the northeast of the Region of Murcia.

Overall, Catalan/Valencian is the preferred language spoken at home by approximately 4,452,000 Spaniards.

Galician

Extension and varieties of Galician language.

Speakers of Galician as the first language according to the population and housing censuses of the Galician Institute of Statistics.

Galician (galego) is co-official in Galicia (Spanish Constitution of 1978 art. 3.2. and Statute of Autonomy of Galicia art. 5). He also has "respect and protection" in Castilla y León, according to art. 5.3 of Organic Law 14/2007, of November 30, reforming the Statute of Autonomy of Castilla y León. Like Spanish, it forms part of the Ibero-Romanesque group of Romance languages and is closely related to Portuguese, with which it formed a linguistic unit (Galician-Portuguese) during the Middle Ages. In fact, according to some, it continues to form it today despite the differences that have arisen (see reintegrationism). Galician has three different blocks of speech that cross Galicia from west to east; They are the blocks: western, central and eastern, which in turn are subdivided into different areas. It is spoken, in addition to Galicia and northern Portugal, in western Asturias and the provinces of León and Zamora. Outside the northwest, there is the fala of the Jálama valley in Extremadura, related to Portuguese and therefore also to Galician.

In Galicia, Galician is the mother tongue of 42.2% of the population, Spanish of 31.7%, and 23.7% have both languages as mother tongues. On the other hand, 51, 9% of the population habitually uses Galician more than Spanish, while 47.4% habitually uses Spanish predominantly.

As in other Communities, Spanish is the most widely spoken language in urban areas, while Galician is in rural areas. Lugo and Ourense are the provinces in which more people use Galician as their habitual and predominant language, 69.6% and 60.8% respectively of the total population. La Coruña (52.5%) and Pontevedra (42%), where the least. As a whole, Galician is the preferred language spoken by approximately 1,332,000 people. Another 594,000 speak it interchangeably with Spanish, and approximately 621,000 make preferential use of the latter.

Basque

Euskera, Basque or Basque (euskara) is co-official with Castilian in the Basque Country and in the northern third of the Foral Community of Navarre. In addition, it should be noted that within Basque there are six dialects (euskalkiak), and a standardized variety, Euskera batúa.

Knowledge of the Basque language: More than 50% with language domain More than 10% with language domain

• In the Basque Country, the Basque is official throughout the autonomous community. In almost the entire province of Álava and in the western part of the province of Vizcaya this language has not been spoken for several centuries, so much of the population of this area is totally Spanish-speaking (66 per cent of the Alava population in 2011). The spoken varieties are: the Vizcaino in Vizcaya, north of Álava and west of Guipúzcoa; the Gipuzcoan in most of Guipúzcoa; and the high-navarro in the eastern end of Guipúzcoa. The data of the V Sociolinguistic Survey (2011) conducted by the Basque Government indicated that 32% of the population over 16 years of age was Basque-speaking bilingual (600 050 inhabitants), 17.2% Basque-Blingue passive (322 000) and 50.8 % was Spanish-speaking exclusively (951 000).

• In NavarraThe Basque is co-official in the call Basque area, constituted by municipalities located in the northwest of the autonomous community; the main existing dialectal variety is the high-navarra. South and east of this area, other municipalities form the call Mixed area (where its use is facilitated). Finally, the southern half of the territory is within the not vascophone, historically Romance language (navarroaragones in the Middle Ages, and later Spanish). In the group of Navarre, the last socio-linguistic study of the Navarro del Vascuence Institute in 2008 indicated that for the population of Navarre the percentage of euskera speakers was 11.9% (in addition to 6.2% additional population that does not speak Basque well despite having some knowledge), compared to 81.9 % of Navarros who were exclusively Spanish speakers.

Overall, Basque is spoken by almost a million Spaniards (2.15% of the population).

Occitan/Aranese

Aranese dialecto of the west-gascon that has official recognition in the Aran Valley.

Aranese (a variety of Gascon Occitan spoken in the Aran Valley, located in the northwest of the province of Lleida) is official in this valley and since 2006 throughout Catalonia with the new Statute of Autonomy. In the Aran Valley, Spanish is the mother tongue of 38.8% of the population, Aranese for 34.2% and Catalan for 19.4%, according to 2001 census data. Aranese is the mother tongue of about 2800 people, which represents 0.007% of the population of Spain.

Unofficial languages

Aragonese and Astur-Leonese (which may include, according to some authors, Cantabrian and even Extremaduran) belonging to the Western Romance group, are still spoken by a minority in some areas of Spain; both were declared endangered languages by Unesco at the end of the XX century.

The two languages are recognized in their respective regions, Aragonese is recognized as Aragon's "proper, original and historical language" through the Language Law; Asturleones is regulated by law in the Principality of Asturias and in Castilla y León, Leonese is considered part of the linguistic heritage through the new Autonomy Statute of Castilla y León.

Aragonese

Aragonese dialects in gray, blue and orange.

Aragonese (aragonés), also informally called fabla, was spoken in the Middle Ages in the Kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon and Valencia under the name Navarro-Aragonés. Currently the language is spoken mainly in the valleys of the Aragonese Pyrenees and, with a growing degree of Spanish, extends a little further south of the city of Huesca. In these areas it can be said that the Aragonese language is preserved, with greater or lesser vitality. Since the end of the XX century, a notable revitalization has taken place, such as the creation of associations that defend and promote the language, unification of agreed spelling rules, and even made an attempt to make it co-official in several municipalities of Alto Aragón.

There are several associations that regulate the language, among which stand out the Academia de l'Aragonés, the Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa, which are the but there is also the Sociedat de Lingüística Aragonesa. The language was initially regulated by the Academia d'a Luenga Aragonesa, inaugurated in May 2011, and later by the Aragonese Academy of Language. The 2009 Law of Languages of Aragon defines that the Aragonese and Catalan languages are "own original and historical languages" of the Autonomous Community of Aragon. A subsequent Language Law of 2013 modified some aspects of the 2009 law. The law does not explicitly declare the official status of these languages, as it was anticipated that the language law would, as provided by the Aragonese Cultural Heritage Law from 1999. It is estimated that it is spoken by about twelve thousand people. Its dialect varieties are:

• Central Aragonese (belstan, chistabino, tensino, pandicuto, bergotés);
• Eastern Aragonese (benasqués, grausino, ribagorzano, fobano, chistabino);
• Southern Aragonese (yesterdaybense, Somontanese).

Asturleonese

Map of the percentage of asturleon speakers by municipalities (2012).

Astur-Leonese is spoken in Asturias under the name of Asturiano or Bable (asturianu); with the name of Leonés (llionés), in part of the provinces of León and Zamora; and with the name of mirandés (mirandés), in the Portuguese region of Miranda do Douro. Some authors also include within this linguistic domain the Cantabrian or mountaineer of Cantabria, and also the speech of parts of Extremadura and the province of Salamanca (generally known as Extremadura); however modern authors such as Héctor García Gil do not include them within the Asturian nuclear linguistic domain. Their use is regulated by law in the Principality of Asturias and their spelling, lexicon and grammar by the Asturian Language Academy, which however does not of binding force for the other areas where it is spoken; In Castilla y León, the new Statute of Autonomy considers Leonese as part of the Community's linguistic heritage and, as such, establishes that it will be the object of protection and promotion by the institutions, leaving such measures at the expense of subsequent legal development; and in Miranda, where it has a spelling rule based on Portuguese phonetics, it is the only place in the entire linguistic domain where it is an official language. Astur-Leonese has several dialectal varieties, grouped into three main blocks or dialects: Western, spoken in Asturias, León, Sanabria (Zamora) and the Portuguese Miranda; the central one, in a good part of Asturias and the basis of Asturian regulations, and the eastern one. There is a debate in Asturias about a possible co-official status of Asturian, a proposal supported by some civil and political organizations.

According to a study carried out in 2003, Astur-Leonese would be the mother tongue of 17.7% of the population of Asturias, 20.1% would have Astur-Leonese and Spanish as mother tongues, while 58.6% of Asturians would have Spanish as their mother tongue.

Others

Other languages spoken by the Spanish population are Caló, a jargon with Spanish roots and Romani influences spoken in a very minority by the Roma community, Riffian, spoken in Melilla, and Arabic, spoken in both Melilla and Ceuta, in their dariya variant. In Asturias, in addition to Astur-Leonese, Galician-Asturian or Eonaviego is also spoken. There is even a case in which autochthonous Spaniards converted to Islam try to revive Andalusian Arabic as a second language.

Variants, modalities and enclaves

This section deals with aspects related to linguistic variation, transition areas and small enclaves of languages in the domain of another language.

Varieties of Spanish dialects

Spanish Dialectos in Spain.

Some of the main dialectal varieties of Spanish spoken in Spain:

• Northern Castilian Dialecto includes the group of dialectal Spanish patterns used in the northern half of Spain, in the area that goes from Cantabria in the north to Ávila and Cuenca in the south, limiting to the east with the Aragonese and the Catalan and the west with the Asturleon.
• You speak Andalusian, spoken in most of Andalusia, and in Ceuta and Melilla, with a great diversity of features that overlap along the dialectal domain. Much of the features of the American Spanish dialects and linguistic varieties come from the western Andalusian, due to the strong predominance of the Andalusians (especially from the current provinces of Huelva, Seville and Cadiz), among the European colonizers of the Spanish America, during almost the colonial period. Rasges such as ceceo/seseo, the aspiration of these finals, the fricativization of the Ch, the equalization of the l and r implosives, etc., that dominate large dialectal zones of American Spanish, are documented for the first time in Andalusia. Two large areas are often distinguished within the Andalusian region: Western and Eastern. The western area comprises the provinces of Huelva, Seville, Cadiz and the western part of the provinces of Córdoba (Valle del Guadalquivir), Malaga and Ceuta. The eastern area extends through the provinces of Jaén, Granada, Almeria and the eastern part of Córdoba and Malaga, even entering the province of Murcia and Melilla. The extension of the adscription of Andalusian dialect to speak of outside of Andalusia (Western Andalusia getting into the province of Badajoz or Eastern Andalusia getting into Murcia) or of certain striped areas of Andalusia depends on the criteria chosen to define the Andalusian dialect.
• You speak Canarian, which took much of the characteristics of the Andalusian in its sevillana variant (seseo, aspiration of the latter, exclusive use of You, etc.), due to the predominance of the Andalusians among the first conquerors and peninsular inhabitants. The linguistic modality spoken in the Canary Islands has influences of Portuguese and numerous Anglicisms.
• Dialecto murciano is the historical dialect of Spanish that includes the Region of Murcia, areas of the south of the province of Alicante and parts of the south and east of the province of Albacete. The traits present a great heterogeneity, finding themselves quite latinisms, arabisms, mozarabismos, aragonisms, occitanisms, catalanisms and arcaisms of romance. In the districts of the Campo de Cartagena and in the Vega Baja del Segura you have a presence of the seseo and in the talk of the Huerta de Murcia, called "panocho", numerous cases of ceceo. It has similar characteristics to those spoken by eastern Andalusia (provincias de Almería y Granada). Despite the existence of a living literature in murciano that bears fruit every little, it began a decline in itch since the beginning of the centuryXX., currently the most traditional, almost extinct and very marginalized talk. Most of the population currently speaks a transitional mode between the historical dialect and the standard in which the traits of one and another alternate, stand out more than others, have more or less predominance or some are more abundant and frequent than others.

• Castúo (midextremeño y Bajoextremeño), speak Castellanas with southern traffic traits with the lioness (or extremeño), in Extremadura.
• You speak riojanas, of Aragonian influence on the east, Basque on the north and asturleoness on the west.

In addition to the above there are some transitional dialects between the above areas.

• 

  (Bilingual areas)NorthernTransition DialectsAndaluz Dialecto

• 

  Dialecto extremeño

• 

  Dialecto manchego

• 

  Andaluz Dialecto

• 

  Dialecto murciano

Transitional linguistic modalities

Dialectology of Iberorromance and Occitanus.

Tourist office in Spanish-English bilingual.

Transitional speech refers to those that present features of two neighboring languages and that do not have sufficient lexical, grammatical or phonetic autonomy from them:

• The cantabri (from Asturleonés to Spanish), in Cantabria and in certain places of the eastern end of Asturias and western Vizcaya.
• The Extremeño or Altaextremeño (from Asturleon with Spanish in its southern variants, which is regarded as a language by certain organizations, especially international organizations, and therefore has its own ISO 639-3 code -ext in particular-), in the northwest and north-center of Cáceres and in some villages of the south of the province of Salamanca.
• The eonaviego (of the Asturleonian with the Galician), in the region of Asturias called Eo-Navia, although it is considered by the Royal Gallega Academy as Galician and by the Asturian Language Academy as a transition language (Gallego-Asturian).
• The Portuguese of Firrera, spoken in Herrera de Alcántara (province of Cáceres), dialectal variety of ancient Portuguese with a high degree of castellanization.
• The skirt of Jálama (called sometimes xalimegu o galaico-extremeño, spoken in the towns of Eljas, Valverde del Fresno and San Martín de Trevejo (located in the valley of Jálama, in the northwest of the province of Cáceres), presenting certain peculiarities in each of these villages. It is a linguistic modality of Galaico-Portuguese base with common features both Galician and Portuguese and with a great influence of Castilian and Alta-Extremeño.
• The Benasqués (from Aragonese to Catalan), generally classified among the Eastern Aragonese dialects, their status, however, is of transition with the Catalan dialects spoken in Aragon, even having some philologist like José Antonio Saura who defends that it is a micro-language with its own entity.

Linguistic enclaves

• the Catalan, in the most eastern regions of Aragon bordering Catalonia. It is a variety of the north-west Catalan and is spoken by about 30,000 people. See also Catalan Language in the Aragon Strip. It should be noted that under this heading a wide range of varieties and evolutions is actually collected, with different variations according to the geographical area.

• Attestinal form, the Valencian in some pedanias of the Sierra del Carche, saw of the northeast of the Region of Murcia bordered the Valencian Community. The Valencian was taken by some families of the farmers of the border adjacent to Alicante at the end of the centuryXIX and early centuriesXX., largely depopulating the area during the 1950s and 1960s. The pedancies in which it is considered that there is a presence of the Valencian had 697 inhabitants in 2006, of which an important part is English-speaking, due to the installation of British residents during the years 1990 and 2000.

• the Galician in some villages of the provinces of León and Zamora adjacent to Galicia. In the western part of Asturias, with the name of eonaviego, there is a great controversy about whether what is spoken is Galician or are talking about transition with the Asturleon as noted in the previous paragraph.

• the Portuguese, spoken in a minority way in the small town of Cedillo (province of Cáceres), and, in its dialect oliventino and with more decay, in the county of Olivenza (province of Badajoz), where it was the most spoken language until the 1940s, especially in its small villages and pedanías, but it is also preserved still among some older people of Olivenza itself. Also spoken in the small town of La Alamedilla (province of Salamanca).

Non-spoken and signed languages

Sign languages in Spain and Portugal, including the main geographical varieties of the LSE.

Island of La Gomera.

The signed languages of Spain are related and seem to form a group of related sign languages, which most specialists link to the family of signed languages derived from the old sign languages of France. Although formally the legislation distinguishes three different languages:

• Spanish Sign Language (LSE)
• Catalan Sign Language (LSC)
• Valencian sign language (LSCV).

It is not clear to what extent they represent distinctly different languages and not simply dialects of the same language. On the other hand, the Portuguese sign language is not related to these languages and seems to have a kinship with the sign language used in Sweden and Finland.

The whistle from La Gomera

In addition to the signed languages, which are natural languages, special forms of communication are frequently added, such as the Gomeran whistle, traditionally used on La Gomera and now formally included in the education of children and adolescents. It should be noted that the Gomeran whistle does not constitute a language in itself but a special procedure for encoding Spanish into whistles.

Alochthonous languages

Languages originated by migratory processes

Due to the strong immigration that Spain has received since the 1990s, relatively large communities of speakers of other languages have appeared. According to the 2006 INE census, 9.68% of the Spanish population is of foreign nationality. 34.5% of these come from Latin America, which is why the most widely spoken language among non-nationals residing in Spain is Spanish.

The languages most spoken by non-national citizens are, after Spanish, the following:

• The Arabic, mainly Moroccan Arab, is the majority language among immigrants from the Maghreb. In 2006, 618 332 Moroccan, Algerian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Tunisian and Iraqi nationals had registered in Spain. The Arabs are divided throughout Spain, although their presence is greater in Ceuta, Catalonia and Andalusia than in other communities.

• The Romanian, spoken by the large colony of Romanian origin (407 159 paved in 2006, the third largest) and by Moldovans (11 330). They are especially numerous in the Community of Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha, Aragon and the Valencian Community.

• The English, spoken mainly in the provinces of Malaga and Alicante by citizens originally from the United Kingdom. There are 315 122 registered in Spain (INE 2006) of British, Irish, American, Canadian or Australian nationalities. The British constitute more than 30% of the population in many municipalities of the Alicante and Malaga coasts, where they own newspapers and radio channels. Its presence is also significant in the Balearic Islands, the Region of Murcia and the province of Almería.

• The Germanspoken mainly in the Balearic and Canary Islands. In 2006, there are 173 651 registered citizens in Spain of German, Swiss or Austrian nationalities.

• The Berber languages, spoken by the 563 012 Moroccans residing in Spain. The rifice is the most spoken language among the immigrants of Melilla.

• The Portuguesespoken by Portuguese immigrants (mainly in Galicia and Leon) and Brazilians (shared throughout Spain). The registered in Spain of these two nationalities amount to 153 076 in 2006.

• The wuChinese language spoken by most Chinese immigrants in Spain, mainly from the province of Zhejiang. There are 104 681 citizens of Chinese nationality registered in Spain (2006).

• The Bulgarian. There are 101 617 Bulgarians registered in Spain, and it is the predominant foreign nationality in the provinces of Valladolid and Segovia.

• The French, present in Spain since the Modern Age through the colonies of French merchants settled in cities such as Cadiz, Seville, Alicante or Barcelona. After the Algerian Independence War, more than 30 000 pieds noirs (French of Algeria) were installed in Spain, mainly in the province of Alicante. In Spain there were in 2006 90 021 registered French nationality, 29 526 Belgian nationality and 15 385 Swiss nationality. There are also many immigrants from African countries who have been French or Belgian colonies and where French remain as an official or important language (Algeria, Morocco, Senegal...).

• The Quechua languages, spoken by immigrants from Andean countries settled in Spain.

• The sub-Saharan African languages, among which stand out by number of speakers the fula, wólof, mandinga and soninké.

Foreign languages studied as a second language

The most widely taught foreign language in Spain is English. It is followed by French and, to a lesser extent, by German and Italian. Until the 1970s, French was the most widely studied foreign language, but it was later surpassed by English. The usual offer in most Spanish educational centers is the compulsory study of English from 8 years of age (advanced to 6 years of age from the 2007/2008 course) and during secondary education (from 12 to 16 years) and Baccalaureate (from 16 to 18 years old), to which is added the possibility of optionally studying French during secondary education.

However, there is not a high percentage of people who master these languages. According to a survey carried out in 2005, only 27% of Spaniards said they had a sufficient level of English to hold a conversation in this language, and 12% to hold a conversation in French.

According to this same survey, 56% of Spaniards are only able to hold a conversation in their mother tongue (compared to an average of 44% in the European Union with 25 members); 44%, in at least one other language apart from their mother tongue; and only 17% in at least two languages other than their mother tongue. Note that this last data also includes, for example, the ability to speak Galician or Catalan by a person whose mother tongue is Spanish or vice versa.

Summary of all languages

Official language. Language recognized or protected but not official. Alien language.

Disappeared languages

The following are languages that were spoken in the past in the current Spanish territory in the Ancient Age, Middle Ages and Modern Ages. These include dead languages such as Latin and Mozarabic, and paleohispanic languages such as Iberian, Celtiberian, Lusitanian, and Tartessian.

Languages spoken in ancient times

Palaeo-Hispanic languages spoken on the Iberian peninsula about 300 a. C.

The only paleo-Hispanic or pre-Roman language that survives today is Euskera. The following languages disappeared with the advent of Latin:

• Galanic Celtic
• CeltiberIndo-European language of the Celtic branch. Other languages or dialects of the Celtic branch related to the Celtium, but worse documented, were spoken in the center, north and west of the Peninsula.
• LusitanoIndo-European language of filiation discussed. The most widespread theory is that lusitano was a language of the Celtic branch, but belonging to a subgroup other than the cellober. Thus, the Lusitans settled in the Peninsula at a time prior to the rest of the Celtic peoples, so the language quickly diverged from the rest of the Celtic languages. The Vetons, neighbors of the Lusitans, also seem to speak an Indo-European language related to the Lusitan.
• Tartésico, language of unknown filiation spoken in the pre-Roman era in western Andalusia.
• Aquitainethe modern Basque language.
• IberoUnestablished language of filiation. A theory diffused but with little evidence in his favor, is that he was related to the ancient aquitane (Basque hypothesis). The Iberian was spoken in the pre-Roman era in eastern Spain.
• Fenicio-punicoNorthwest semitic language. It was the pre-Roman language of Ibiza after the establishment of Phoenician colonizations towards the eighth century BC. Later, the Phoenician was the language spoken by the Carthaginians who settled in Spain in the third century BC. C.
• Ancient Greek dialects, varieties related to the classic Greek, spoken in the different Greek colonies of the Spanish Mediterranean, particularly on the northeast coast of the current Catalonia.
• LatinIndo-European language of the italic branch. The Romans settled for the first time in Spain in 218 B.C. and gradually conquered the Peninsula until the actual submission of the last pre-Roman villages in 17 B.C. His language, Latin, was expanding in the territories conquered by the romanization of the indigenous society and the arrival of new Latino people. At the end of the Roman Empire, Latin had displaced all the pre-Roman languages, except partly to the north in some areas far from the Roman power centers. All the languages currently spoken in Spain (except the Basque language, from the north) come from the vulgar Latin. Latin is still taught in high school, preserved in numerous inscriptions and already barely used in liturgical or similar acts.

Languages Spoken in the Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages, some languages were spoken that later disappeared when their last speakers were assimilated into the majority language of the territory:

• Go ahead., Germanic language spoken by the people of the Vandals, was absorbed by the arrival of other German peoples (and their tongues) such as the Visigoths (goths) and the Suevos (Western Germanic).
• Gothic It was the Germanic language that the Visigoths spoke and was relegated to the private sphere and gradually abandoned in favor of Iberian romances.
• British, spoken by the britanos arrived from Great Britain to the north of Galicia and Asturias, which expanded from Ferrol to the Navia River mainly and established a diocese of their own around Mondoñedo. He doesn't know when he stopped talking.
• Language Upper German Ancient, spoken by the Swedes who arrived in the Roman province of Gallaecia in 411 AD. It would be spoken at first of all by the humble mass of the Suevos, since it is more likely that the nobility was adopting Latin more quickly as time passed. Mainly spoken in the rural areas of the Swedish settlement and in the major cities of the Swedish Kingdom, such as Braga, O Porto or Lugo.
• Mozárabe is the name given to the ordinary romances between the population of Al-Andalus. It was basically a set of romances with a lot of Arabic language loans. Finally they were losing ground in the face of the advance of the Reconquest and its policy of repopulation in favor of the Christian Romance languages and, in the Emirate of Granada and the Taifas of Valencia and Denia (before becoming a unified Christian kingdom), before the Andalusian Arab.
• Andalusian Arab was the Arabic language variant spoken in Al-Andalus, during the almost eight centuries of Muslim domain. He ended up losing most of his speakers after the conquest of Granada and the subsequent expulsion of the Moors moving them to the Maghreb.
• Guanche, comprises a number of different Berber languages spoken in each of the Canary Islands for centuries before the Castro conquest of the archipelago.
• Navarroaragones, Romanesque language from which the Navarre romance and the current Aragonian language were derived.

Languages spoken in the Modern Age

• Tabarquino, variant of the ligur that was spoken in the centuryXVIII and probably early 19th on Tabarca Island about 20 kilometers from the city of Alicante. Among the island ' s current inhabitants there are still genoese surnames, on the other hand on the island of Carloforte and the town of Calasetta in the southeast of Sardinia there is an important colony of people who continue to speak the tobacco bleach.

Languages derived from languages spoken in Spain

The following linguistic varieties are not spoken in Spain, but derive directly from languages of Spain:

• Judeoespañol, the language, currently in the process of disappearance, spoken by the Jewish communities descendants of those who inhabited the Iberian peninsula until the expulsion of the Jews of 1492, the so-called Sephardic.
• The different Creole languages based on Spanish.