Spanish (español^ⓘ) or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language originally from the northern area of Spain. It is the official language of Spain, most Latin American countries, and one of the official languages of Equatorial Guinea, in Africa. In total, twenty-five nations and territories use Spanish as their primary language. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.

Spanish originated as a dialect of Latin along the remote cross road strips among the Cantabria, Burgos, Soria and La Rioja provinces of Northern Spain. From there, its use gradually spread inside the Kingdom of Castile, where it evolved and eventually became the principal language of the government and trade. It was later taken to the Americas and other parts of the world in the last five centuries by Spanish explorers and colonists. The language is spoken by between 322 and 400 million people natively,^[13][7] making Spanish the most spoken Romance language and possibly the second most spoken language by number of native speakers.^[14][15] It is estimated that the combined total of native and non-native Spanish speakers is approximately 500 million, likely making it the fourth most spoken language by total number of speakers.^[13][7]

The language is spoken most extensively in the Americas, Spain and to a small extent in Africa and Asia Pacific. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the United States^[16] and by far the most popular studied foreign language in U.S. schools and Universities.^[17][18] Within the globalized market, there is currently an international expansion and recognition of the Spanish language in literature, the film industry, television and music.

Naming and origin

Spaniards tend to call this language [español] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Spanish) when contrasting it with languages of foreign states, such as French and English, but call it [castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Castilian), that is, the language of the Castile region, when contrasting it with other Spanish languages such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan. This reasoning also holds true for the language's prefered name in some Hispanic American countries. In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term [castellano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, as opposed to [las demás lenguas españolas] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (lit. the other Spanish languages). Article III reads as follow:

[El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. (…) Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas…] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)

Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (…) The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities…

Some philologists use "Castilian" only when speaking of the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, stating that it is preferable to use "Spanish" for its modern form. The subdialect of Spanish spoken in northern parts of modern day Castile is also called "Castilian" sometimes. This dialect differs from those of other regions of Spain (Andalusia or Madrid for example); the Castilian dialect is conventionally considered in Spain to be the same as standard Spanish.

The name castellano is however widely used for the language as a whole in Latin America. Some Spanish speakers consider castellano a generic term with no political or ideological links, much as "Spanish" is in English. Often Latin Americans use it to differentiate their own variety of Spanish as opposed to the variety of Spanish spoken in Spain, or vice-versa, to refer to that variety of Spanish which is considered as standard in this one.

Classification and related languages

Castilian Spanish has closest affinity to the other West Iberian Romance languages: Asturian ([asturianu] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), Galician ([galego] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), Ladino ([dzhudezmo/spanyol/kasteyano] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), and Portuguese ([português] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), as well as, in some ways, to Aragonese ([aragonés] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) and Catalan ([català] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)).

Catalan, an East Iberian language which exhibits many Gallo-Romance traits, is more similar to the neighbouring Occitan language ([occitan] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) than Spanish and Portuguese are to each other, in fact it wasn't until the earlies year of th 20th century, the catalan was considered a variant of the occitan language. Spanish and Portuguese share similar grammars and a majority of vocabulary as well as a common history of Arabic influence while a great part of the peninsula was under Islamic rule (both languages expanded over Islamic territories). Their lexical similarity is estimated at 89%.^[19] See Differences between Spanish and Portuguese, for further information.

Ladino

Ladino, which is essentially medieval Castilian and closer to modern Spanish than any other language, is spoken by many descendants of the Spanish Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century. In many ways it is not a separate language but a parallel dialect of Castilian. Ladino lacks Native American vocabulary which was influential during the Spanish colonial period, and it retains many archaic features which have since been lost in standard Castilian. It does, however, contain other vocabulary which is not found in standard Castilian, including vocabulary from Hebrew as well as Turkish and other languages spoken wherever the Sephardim settled.

Vocabulary comparison

Spanish and Italian share a very similar phonological system and do not differ very much in grammar. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%.^[19] As a result, Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible to various degrees. Mutual intelligibility with French and Romanian is lower (lexical similarity is respectively 75% and 71%^[19]) and for French "understanding" of Spanish from French speakers (with no knowledge of the language) falls at an estimated 45% - as much as English. The common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would.

Characterization

One defining characteristic of Spanish was the diphthongization of the Latin short vowels e and o into ie and ue, respectively, when they were stressed. Similar sound changes can be found in other Romance languages, but in Spanish they were particularly significant. Some examples:

• Lat. [petra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > Sp. [piedra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), It. [pietra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Fr. [pierre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Port./Gal. [pedra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "stone".
• Lat. [moritur] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > Sp. [muere] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), It. [muore] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Fr. [meurt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) / [muert] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Rom. [moare] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Port./Gal. [morre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "he dies".

More peculiar to early Spanish (as in the Gascon dialect of Occitan, and possibly due to a Basque substratum) was the mutation of Latin initial f- into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel which did not diphthongate. Compare for instance:

• Lat. [filium] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > It. [figlio] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Port. [filho] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Fr. [fils] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Occitan [filh] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (but Gascon [hilh] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) Sp. [hijo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (but Ladino [fijo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help));
• late Lat. [*fabulare] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > Lad. [favlar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Port. [falar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Sp. [hablar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help);
• but Lat. [focum] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > It. [fuoco] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Port. [fogo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Sp./Lad. [fuego] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help).

Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, for example:

• Lat. [clamare] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), acc. [flammam] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [plenum] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > Lad. [lyamar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [flama] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [pleno] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Sp. [llamar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [llama] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [lleno] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). However, in Spanish there are also the forms [clamar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [flama] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [pleno] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Port. [chamar] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [chama] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [cheio] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help).
• Lat. acc. [octo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [noctem] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [multum] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) > Lad. [ocho] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [noche] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [muncho] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Sp. [ocho] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [noche] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [mucho] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Port. [oito] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [noite] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [muito] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help).

History

The Spanish language developed from Vulgar Latin, with influences from Basque, and to some minor extent Celtiberian and Arabic, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, between Biscay and current Cantabria's corners, partly as strongly innovative and differing variant from its nearest cousin, Leonese speech, with a higher degree of Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin [vita] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [vida] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), palatalization (Latin [annum] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [año] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), and Latin [anellum] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [anillo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin [terra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [tierra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Latin [novus] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Spanish [nuevo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). Similar phenomena can be found in other Romance languages as well.

During the [Reconquista] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), this northern dialect from Cantabria was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in the northern coastal regions of Morocco.

The first Latin to Spanish grammar ([Gramática de la Lengua Castellana] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija. When Isabel de Castilla was presented with the book, she asked, "What do I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?," to which he replied, "Your highness, the language is the instrument of the Empire." ^{[citation needed]}

From the 16th century onwards, the language was brought to the Americas and Spanish East Indies by Spanish colonization. Also in this epoch, Spanish became the main language of Politics and Art across the major part of Europe. In the 18th century, French took its place.

In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara and parts of the United States, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City, that had not been part of the Spanish Empire.

For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Geographic distribution

Spanish language
A manuscript of the Cantar de mio Cid, 13th century
Overview
Pronunciation stress Orthography Names
History
Old Middle Influences
Grammar
Determiners Nouns gender Pronouns personal object Adjectives Prepositions Verbs conjugation irregular verbs
Dialects
Andalusian Andean Argentine Belizean Bolivian Canarian Caribbean Central American Chilean Colombian Costa Rican Cuban Dominican Ecuadorian Equatoguinean Guatemalan Honduran Mexican Murcian New Mexican Nicaraguan Paraguay Panamanian Peninsular Peruvian Philippine status Puerto Rican Rioplatense Saharan Salvadoran Standard Uruguayan Venezuelan
Dialectology
Seseo Yeísmo Voseo Leísmo Loísmo
Interlanguages
Llanito Jopara Judaeo-Spanish Portuñol Spanglish Castrapo Creoles Roquetas Pidgin Chavacano or Chabacano Palenquero or Palenque
Teaching
Hispanism RAE Instituto Cervantes

Spanish is one of the official languages of the Organization of American States, the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations, and the European Union.

The Americas

The vast majority of the world's Spanish speakers are located in the Americas. Of those countries with the largest numbers of Spanish speakers, only Spain is situated outside of the Americas. Mexico boasts the world's largest number of native speakers. At the national level, Spanish is the official language of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama , Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (co-official Quechua and, in some regions, Aymara), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language (co-official language English) in the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

The non-Spanish speaking Americas

Spanish holds no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize. However, it is the native tongue of about 40% of the population, and is spoken as a second language by another 15%.^[20][21] It is mainly spoken by Hispanic descendants who have remained in the region since the 17th century. However, English remains the sole official language.^[22]

Spanish has become increasingly important in Brazil due to proximity and increased trade with its Spanish-speaking neighbours, for example, as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc.^[23] In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, that makes Spanish available as a foreign language in the country's secondary schools.^[24] In many border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayan-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Portuñol is also spoken.^[25]

In the United States, 42.7 million people were of Hispanic heritage according to the 2005 census. Some 32 million people, or 12% of the whole population aged 5 years or older speak Spanish at home.^[26] The Spanish language has a long history in the United States but has recently been revitalised by heavy immigration from the countries of Spanish-speaking Latin America. Spanish, moreover, is also the most widely taught foreign language in the United States.^[27] Though the state has no formally designated "official languages," Spanish is formally recognized at the state level, alongside English, in the U.S. state of New Mexico, where it is spoken by almost 30% of the population. In total, the U.S. contains the world's fifth-largest Spanish speaking population.^[28]

Europe

Spanish is official in Spain, the country for which it is named and from which it originated. It is also spoken widely in Gibraltar, although English is used for official purposes.^[29] Likewise, it is spoken in Andorra though Catalan is the official language.^[30][31] It is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.^[32] Spanish is an official language of the European Union.

Asia

Although Spanish was an official language in the Philippines for over four centuries, it was never spoken by the majority of the population. Its importance fell in the first half of the 20th century following the US occupation and administration of the islands. The introduction of the English language in the Filipino government system put an end to use of Spanish as the official language. The language lost its status in 1987, during the Corazon Aquino administration. According to the 1990 census, there were 2,658 native speakers of Spanish.^[33] The number of Spanish speakers, however, are not available in the ensuing 1995 and 2000 censuses. Additionally, according to the 2000 census, there are over 600,000 native speakers of Chavacano, a Spanish based creole spoken in Cavite and Zamboanga. Many Philippine languages have numerous Spanish loanwords. See also: Spanish language in the Philippines

Africa

In Africa, Spanish is official in Equatorial Guinea (co-official French. It is also spoken in the territories of Peñón de Alhucemas, Ceuta, the Chafarinas Islands, Melilla, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, Western Sahara, and in the autonomous community of Canary Islands. It is spoken by small Spanish communities in Western Sahara and some members of Cuban communities of Angola and Nigeria. It is co-official with French and Portuguese in Equatorial Guinea, a small country of 500,000 people, where it is the prevalent language.^[34]. In Morocco, a former Franco-Spanish protectorate that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish.^[35]

Oceania

Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is also spoken by 3,000 inhabitants of Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. According to the 2001 census, there are approximately 95,000 speakers of Spanish in Australia, 44,000 of which live in Greater Sydney.

The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, since Marianas and Caroline Islands were Hispanic colonial possessions until late 19th century (see Spanish-American War), but Spanish has long since been forgotten. It now only exists as an influence on the local native languages.

Number of speakers by country

The following is a list of the numbers of estimated Spanish speakers in different regions of the world where Spanish has or once had a strong presence.

	Country	Native speakers[36]
1	Mexico	86,211,000
2	Spain	28,173,600 (1986)
3	Colombia	34,000,000
4	Argentina	33,000,000
5	Venezuela	21,480,000
6	Peru	20,000,000
7	Chile	13,800,000
8	Cuba	10,000,000
9	Ecuador	9,500,000
10	Dominican Republic	6,886,000
11	Guatemala	4,673,000
12	Honduras	5,600,000
13	Bolivia	3,483,700
14	El Salvador	5,900,000
15	Nicaragua	4,347,000
16	Paraguay	186,880
17	Costa Rica	3,300,000
18	Puerto Rico	3,437,120 (1996)
19	Uruguay	3,000,000
20	Panama	2,100,000

The following is a list of the numbers of estimated Spanish speakers in different regions of the world where Spanish is a minority language.

	Country	Speakers
1	United States of America	32,200,000(b)
2	Canada	245,000[37]
3	Belize	206,404[20]
4	Russia	34,678[citation needed]
5	Morocco	57,132 [citation needed](c)
6	Gibraltar	24,000 [citation needed](d)

(b) Only includes people of 5 years of age and older. Also, people who use the language at work or other settings but not at home are not included^[26]

(c) Although part of the Spanish Empire, Arabic language and Arabic culture remains the dominant cultural production in Western Sahara. Spanish is only spoken by expatriate Spanish speakers and people of Spanish ancestry.

(d) The majority of Gibraltarians are bilingual speaking English as well as Spanish due to Gibraltar's proximity to Spain. Despite both these languages being widely spoken by most (together with their creole, Llanito), English remains the only official language.

Variations

There are important variations among the regions of Spain and throughout Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly regarded as the national standard, although the characteristic weak pronouns usage called [[Loísmo|[laísmo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)]] of this dialect is deprecated. More accurately, for nearly everyone in Spain, "standard Spanish" means "pronouncing everything exactly as it is written",^{[citation needed]} an ideal which does not correspond to any real dialect, though the northern dialects get the closest to it. In practice, the standard way of speaking Spanish in the media is "written Spanish" for formal speech, "Madrid dialect" (one of the transitional variants between Castilian and Andalusian) for informal speech.^{[citation needed]}

Spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [usted] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), and in some parts of Latin America, [vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (the use of this form is called voseo). Generally speaking, [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) are informal and used with friends (though in Spain [vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is considered an archaic form for address of exalted personages, its use now mainly confined to the liturgy). [Usted] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is universally regarded as the formal address (derived from [vuestra merced] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "your grace") , and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers.

[Vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun in many countries of Latin America, including Argentina, Costa Rica, the central mountain region of Ecuador^{[citation needed]}, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, the Antioquia and Valle del Cauca states of Colombia and the State of Zulia in Venezuela. In Argentina, Uruguay, and increasingly in Paraguay, it is also the standard form used in the media, but the media in other countries with [voseo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) generally continue to use [usted] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) except in advertisements, for instance. [Vos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) may also be used regionally in other countries. Depending on country or region, usage may be considered standard or (by better educated speakers) to be unrefined. Interpersonal situations in which the use of vos is acceptable may also differ considerably between regions. For further information, see Voseo.

Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. The Spanish dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural for daily use, [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (formal or familiar, as the case may be, though [vosotros] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) non-formal usage can sometimes appear in poetry and rhetorical or literary style). In Spain there are two forms — [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (formal) and [vosotros] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (familiar). The pronoun [vosotros] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is the plural form of [tú] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in most of Spain, but in the Americas (and certain southern Spanish cities such as Cádiz or Seville, and in the Canary Islands) it is replaced with [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). It is remarkable that the use of [ustedes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) for the informal plural "you" in southern Spain does not follow the usual rule for pronoun-verb agreement; e.g., while the formal form for "you go", [ustedes van] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), uses the third-person plural form of the verb, in Cádiz or Seville the informal form is constructed as [ustedes vais] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), using the second-person plural of the verb. In the Canary Islands, though, the usual pronoun-verb agreement is preserved in most cases.

Some words can be different, even embarrassingly so, in different Hispanophone countries. Most Spanish speakers can recognize other Spanish forms, even in places where they are not commonly used, but Spaniards generally do not recognise specifically American usages. For example, Spanish mantequilla, aguacate and albaricoque (respectively, "butter", "avocado", "apricot") correspond to manteca, palta, and damasco, respectively, in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. The everyday Spanish words coger (to catch, get, or pick up), pisar (to step on) and concha (seashell) are considered extremely rude in parts of Latin America, where the meaning of coger and pisar is also "to have sex" and concha means "vulva". The Puerto Rican word for "bobby pin" (pinche) is an obscenity in Mexico, and in Nicaragua simply means stingy. Other examples include taco, which means "swearword" in Spain but is known to the rest of the world as the Mexican foodstuff. Pija in many countries of Latin America is an obscene slang word for penis, while in Spain the word signifies "posh girl" or "snobby". Coche, which means car in Spain, means pig in Guatemala^{[citation needed]} while carro means "car" in some Latin American countries and "cart" in others as well as in Spain.

The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), together with the 21 other national ones (see Association of Spanish Language Academies), exercises a standardizing influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar and style guides. Due to this influence and for other sociohistorical reasons, a standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.

Writing system

Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the character "ñ" (eñe), which represents the phoneme /ɲ/ and is regarded as a letter of its own distinct from "n", despite being typographically an "n" with a tilde. The digraphs "ch" ([che] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) and "ll" ([elle] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) are considered single letters, with their own names and places in the alphabet, because each represents a single phoneme (/tʃ/ and /ʎ/, respectively). However, the digraph "rr" ([erre doble] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), double "r", or simply [erre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) as opposed to [ere] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), which also represents a single phoneme /r/, was not similarly regarded as a single letter. Thus, the traditional Spanish alphabet had 28 letters (29 if one counted "w", which is only used in foreign names and loanwords):

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z.

Since 1994, the two digraphs are to be treated as letter pairs for collation purposes. Words with "ch" are now alphabetically sorted between those with "ce" and "ci", instead of following "cz" as they used to, and similarly for "ll". However, the names che, and elle are still used colloquially.

With the exclusion of a very small number of regional terms such as México (see Mexico: Toponymy), pronunciation can be entirely determined from spelling. A typical Spanish word is stressed on the syllable before the last if it ends with a vowel (not including y) or with a vowel followed by n or s; it is stressed on the last syllable otherwise. Exceptions to this rule are indicated by placing an acute accent on the stressed vowel.

The acute accent is used, in addition, to distinguish between certain homophones, especially when one of them is a stressed word and the other one is a clitic: compare [el] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("the", masculine singular definite article) with [él] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("he" or "it"), or [te] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("you", object pronoun), [de] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (preposition "of" or "from"), and [se] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (reflexive pronoun) with [té] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("tea"), [dé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("give") and [sé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("I know", or imperative "be").

The interrogative pronouns ([qué] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [cuál] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [dónde] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [quién] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), etc.) also receive accents in direct or indirect questions, and some demonstratives ([ése] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [éste] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [aquél] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), etc.) can be accented when used as pronouns. The conjunction [o] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("or") is written with an accent between numerals so as not to be confused with a zero: e.g., [10 ó 20] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) should be read as [diez o veinte] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) rather than [diez mil veinte] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("10, 020"). Accent marks are frequently omitted in capital letters (a widespread practice in the early days of computers where only lowercase vowels were available with accents), although the RAE advises against this.

In rare cases, "u" is written with a diaeresis ("ü") when it comes between "g" and a front vowel ("e" or "i"), to indicate that it should be pronounced, rather than silent as usual (e.g., cigüeña, "stork", is pronounced /θ̟iˈɰweɲa/; if it were written cigueña, it would be pronounced /θ̟iˈɰeɲa/).

Interrogative and exclamatory clauses are introduced with inverted question ( ¿ ) and exclamation marks ( ¡ ).

Sounds

The phonemic inventory listed in the following table includes phonemes that are preserved only in some dialects, other dialects have merged them (such as yeísmo); these are marked with an asterisk (*). Sounds in parentheses are allophones or dialectal variants.