Download - The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special
![Page 1: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
The top 10 reasonswhy Spanish is special
![Page 2: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
1. Spanish is a major world language
![Page 3: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• More than 400 million people speak Spanish as a first
language, making it the #2 language in the world, after
Mandarin Chinese and ahead of English.
• Spanish is an official language in 21 countries in Europe,
Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas.
• It is the #3 language on the Internet, judging by its number
of Internet users (according to InternetWorldStats.com).
![Page 4: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
2. Spanish is proudly international
![Page 5: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• Every Spanish-speaking country (including the U.S.A.) has a
Spanish language Academy whose members are professors,
writers, journalists, and so on.
• Representatives of these Academies from around the world meet
periodically to debate language issues. For example, in 1994 they
voted to eliminate ch and ll from the Spanish alphabet.
• They also publish grammar guides and dictionaries that
incorporate both European and Latin American Spanish.
• No other international language has a comparable system.
![Page 6: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
3. Military might, not cultural clout,made Spanish a national language
![Page 7: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• Most European languages spread from long-established cultural
centers (London, Paris, Moscow, etc.).
• In other cases a famous writer, such as Dante (Italian) or Martin
Luther (German) set the national standard.
• In contrast, Spanish originated in the provincial city of Burgos, the
hometown of El Cid, Spain’s national hero, in the region of Castile.
• As the Catholic armies gradually retook Spain from its Moorish
occupiers, Castilian Spanish came to dominate the country.
• Madrid became the capital city only late in this process.
![Page 8: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
4. Spanish is the only language that uses the upside-down ¡ and ¿ marks
![Page 9: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• The ¡ and ¿ marks were invented by the Real Academia Española
(the official academic body of the Spanish language) in 1754.
• The goal was to give readers a heads-up at the beginning of an
exclamation or question.
• This followed a failed attempt to use the regular ! and ? marks for
this purpose.
• No other language has ever adopted ¡ and ¿.
![Page 10: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
5. Spanish doesn’t use apostrophes
![Page 11: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• Apostrophes are used in all other Western Romance languages: French
(e.g. j’ai for je + ai), Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian.
• They are also used in English and most other languages written in the
Roman alphabet (some exceptions are Polish and Hungarian)…
• … and in some languages written in other alphabets (Greek, Ukrainian).
• Essentially, Spanish doesn’t need the apostrophe because it doesn’t
drop sounds.
![Page 12: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
6. Spanish is one of the few languageswith the th sound
![Page 13: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• The th sound (as in English thing), which linguists write as /θ/, is a
hallmark of Castilian Spanish, spoken in Madrid and northern Spain.
• This sound is as rare worldwide as the clicks of African languages like Zulu.
• It evolved in the 15th - 17th centuries when the Old Spanish ts and dz
sounds merged into a kind of an s, which then moved forward in the
mouth to form th.
• In contrast, in southern Spain and the New World these sounds merged
with regular s.
• Other changes at the same time eliminated the z sound (but not the letter
z) and created the /x/ sound heard at the beginning of José and genial.
![Page 14: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
7. Spanish has many ways to talk about the past
![Page 15: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• The previous slide shows eight common grammatical
forms that are used to talk about the past in Spanish.
• Of the 64 languages studied by linguist Östen Dahl, only
Kikuyu, a Bantu language of Africa, had a comparable
number of past tense expressions.
![Page 16: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
8. Spanish has two perfectly grammatical alternative sets of endings for a single verb form (the imperfect subjunctive)
• Ojalá que fuera/fuese rico.
‘I wish I were rich’.
• Quería que hubiéramos/hubiésemos venido.
‘She wished we had come.’
• Dudé que me amaran/amasen.
‘I doubted that they loved me.’
![Page 17: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• The -ra form of the imperfect subjunctive (as in fuera,
hubiéramos, and amaran on the previous slide) is both more
recent and more common than the -se form.
• However, they are both understood throughout the Spanish-
speaking world, and can even alternate within a single sentence.
• This is the only case I’m aware of, in any language, of this kind of
duplication.
![Page 18: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
9. Spanish vocabulary comes from everywhere!
![Page 19: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• Latin gave Spanish its initial vocabulary, and in the last millenium has
continued to be an active source of new borrowings.
• Other sources of Spanish vocabulary include Celtic, Basque, Arabic,
Visigothic, Greek, French, other Romance languages, English, and the
indigenous languages of Latin America.
• Approximately 1/3 of Spanish vocabulary comes from its initial Latin
core, 1/3 from later Latin borrowings, and 1/3 from other sources.
![Page 20: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
10. En means both ‘in’ and ‘on’
La fruta está en el tazón.‘The fruit is in the bowl.’
El tazón está en la mesa. ‘The bowl is on the table.’
![Page 21: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
• It’s unusual for a language to combine the notions of ‘in’
and ‘on’. Spanish (and Portuguese) are well-known
exceptions.
• Some languages even break down the notion of ‘on’ into
finer categories, such as ‘resting on a supporting surface’
(like the bowl on the table) versus ‘permanently attached’
(like a handle on a door).
![Page 22: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
SUMMARY
• 1-3: Spanish is special from a social perspective. It is a major world language that is proudly international, and that gained prominence for military rather than cultural reasons.
• 4-5: Written Spanish is special because it uses ¡ and ¿ and not the apostrophe.
• 6: Spoken Castilian Spanish is special because it has the th sound.• 7-8: Spanish grammar is special because it has so many ways to talk
about the past, including two versions of the imperfect subjunctive.• 9-10: Spanish vocabulary is special because it comes from so many
different sources. A specific vocabulary oddity is the merger of the ‘on’ and ‘in’ concepts in the Spanish preposition en.
![Page 23: The top 10 reasons why Spanish is special](https://reader034.vdocument.in/reader034/viewer/2022050613/588925da1a28ab77528b6147/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
www.spanishlinguist.us
You can now pre-orderJudy Hochberg’s book
¿Por qué? 101 Questions about Spanish(Bloomsbury Academic Press)