martes, 14 de septiembre de 2010

Castellano vs Español

When I go abroad I say that I speak Spanish.
Spanish means "español" but, in fact, I never say "Yo hablo español" but "castellano".


That´s funny.
Around 9 different languages are spoken in Spain. Most of them are as official as "Spanish" and they are Spanish, of course! I mean, they are from Spain indeed: Catalonian, Galician, Aranese, Basque, Asturleonese, Aragonese... and all of them are languages of Spain. In America is also usually called Castellano instead of Español, but both words are right.

"Castilla" is a great region in Spain which is currently divided in 3 regions (Castilla León, Castilla la Mancha and Madrid, which has its own region because of its capital status as happens, for instance, in Vienna or Brussels).
When all kingdoms of Iberican peninsula got united, the language of Castilla got spread over the other kingdoms even they kept their own languages. So nowadays, 6 Spanish regions have coofficial languages.

Most of them have 2 official languages but Catalonia have 3. Other languages are spoken in other regions altought they are not official yet, for instance
Asturleonese and Aragonese.
And, yes, all of them were born and are spoken in Spain, weren´t they?


San Millán de la Cogolla, a small town which is located in the Region of La Rioja, is considered the birthplace of Castellano/Spanish. There were written the first words in Spanish and the first Spanish Grammar (by Elio Antonio de Nebrija), which dates from 1492.

more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mill%C3%A1n_de_la_Cogolla
http://www.fsanmillan.es/index.jsp

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