Spanish language

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Spanish Castilian Espaol Castellano&
Pronunciation:	/espaol/ /kasteano/ - /kasteano/
Spoken&in:	Spanish speaking countries and territories: & Argentina & Bolivia & Chile & Colombia & Costa Rica & Cuba & Dominican Republic & Ecuador & El Salvador & Equatorial Guinea & Guatemala & Honduras & Mexico & Nicaragua & Panama & Paraguay & Peru & Puerto Rico & Spain & Uruguay & Venezuela and a significant number of the populations of & Andorra & Belize & Gibraltar and the & United States.
Total&speakers:	First languagea: 322 1 c. 400 million 2 3 4 Totala: 400500 million 5 6 7 aAll numbers are approximate.&
Ranking:	2 8 9 10 11 3
Language family:	Indo-European & Italic && Romance &&& Italo-Western &&&& Gallo-Iberian &&&&& Ibero-Romance &&&&&& West Iberian &&&&&&&Spanish Castilian&
Writing system:	Latin &
Official status
Official language in:	20 countries United Nations European Union Organization of American States Latin Union
Regulated by:	Association of Spanish Language Academies
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	es
ISO 639-2:	spa
ISO 639-3:	spa
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Spanish or Castilian is an Indo-European Romance language that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade. It was taken to Africa the Americas and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Today between 322 and 400 million people speak Spanish as a native language ^{12 6} making it the worlds second or third most-spoken language by native speakers depending on the sources. ^{13 14}