HJBXXX10.1177/0739986319899735Hispanic Journal of Behavioral SciencesArdila 899735research-article2020 Article Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 1 –21 Who Are the Spanish © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: Speakers? An sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986319899735DOI: 10.1177/0739986319899735 Examination of Their journals.sagepub.com/home/hjb Linguistic, Cultural, and Societal Commonalities and Differences Alfredo Ardila1,2 Abstract In this article, three different aspects of the Spanish-speaking community are analyzed: (1) The idiosyncratic characteristics of the Spanish language, (2) the social dimension of the Spanish speakers, and finally, (3) their cultural manifestations. Two major Hispanic subcultures are distinguished: Iberian Spanish culture and Hispano American culture. Initially, the distribution of Spanish speakers in the world and the major oral and written characteristics of Spanish language are presented. The social characteristics of the Spanish- speaking countries, including economic development, literacy, life expectancy, and Human Development Index, are later discussed. It is emphasized that they represent a group of countries with a significant degree of heterogeneity. Finally, the Iberian Spanish and the Hispano American cultures are analyzed. Five cultural elements are reviewed: (1) ethnic group, (2) language, (3) religion, (4) level of development, and (5) level of schooling. It is concluded that regardless that in Spain, there are important regional differences, it is possible to consider that there is a cultural background common to all Spaniards, which may have specific nuances in each region. Hispano America, on the other hand, from the point of view of its ethnic origin, is 50% descended from 1Sechenov University, Moscow, Russia 2North American Academy of Spanish Language, New York, NY, USA Corresponding Author: Alfredo Ardila, 12230 NW 8th Street, Miami, FL 33182, USA. Email: [email protected] 2 Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 00(0) Europeans, Indians, and Africans. The other 50% represents a mixture in varying proportions of these ethnic groups and other groups. It is concluded that in Hispano America there is a “base” culture (Hispanic culture) that presents a great variability according to the particular country and region. This base culture emphasizes socially oriented values, such as solidarity, some temporary flexibility, and similar cultural values. Keywords Spanish language, Spanish-speaking countries, Iberian Spanish culture, Hispano American culture The Spanish Language Spanish, like every language in the world, has certain specific characteristics, from the phonological, lexical, and grammatical point of view. Its writing system also has distinctive aspects. The Spanish-speaking countries are many, but they basically include Spain and Hispano America. Spanish in the World It is difficult to know the exact number of Spanish speakers in the world. There are—as also observed with other languages—different estimates. According to Ethnologue, Spanish is spoken in the following countries and territories: Germany, Andorra, Argentina, Netherlands Antilles, Arabia, Australia, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, the United States, Philippines, Finland, France, Equatorial Guinea, Gibraltar, Guatemala, Honduras, Cayman Islands, Israel, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Morocco, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Ethnologue reports that the languages with the highest number of native speakers (in millions) in the world are as follows: Chinese Mandarin (918); Spanish (460); English (379); Hindi (341); Arabic (319). According to Ethnologue, Spanish is spoken in 31 different countries. The Instituto Cervantes (2018) estimates that there are 480 million native speakers, Ardila 3 and 100 million more who speak Spanish as a second language, with a total of approximately 580 million speakers. The countries in the world with the largest number of Spanish speakers are as follows: Mexico: 130 million; Colombia: 50 million; United States: 49 million; Spain: 46 million; Argentina: 44 million. Many of the Spanish speakers are bilingual, and their dominant language often is not Spanish. For instance, in the United States, for Hispanics second- generation persons frequently the primary language (L1) is Spanish, but because they attend school in English, English becomes the dominant lan- guage. Specific bilingualism depends on the region: bilingualism in Latin America is usually with a native language (e.g., in Paraguay, with Guaraní, in Peru, with Quechua). In Spain, bilingualism often occurs with a Spanish national language (e.g., Catalan), or with a language from neighboring coun- tries (e.g., French), while bilingualism in the United States is almost exclu- sive with English. As in all the world languages, Spanish presents certain variations in its oral production, although its writing system is unified and governed by the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, which includes 23 national academies, corresponding to the different Spanish-speaking coun- tries. The Royal Spanish Academy of Language (Real Academia Española) plays a coordinating role in these different academies. Spanish is considered a solidly unified language, despite the high number of its speakers (Moreno- Fernández & Otero-Roth, 2006). The differences between the Spanish spo- ken in Argentina, Mexico, and Spain are minimal and their speakers can communicate with each other in a percentage close to 100%. In many countries of the world where it is not an official language, Spanish is spoken in varying percentages of the population. Table 1 presents some examples. Spanish belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, italic subfam- ily, and is specifically a Romance language (along with others, such as Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, and some others). Its classi- fication is, according to Ethnologue, Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo- Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Ibero-Romance, West Iberian, and Castilian. From the point of view of the rhythm of the language, Spanish belongs to the group of the “syllable-timed” languages (each syllable is produced with 4 Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 00(0) Table 1. Percentage of Spanish Speakers in Some Countries (According to Instituto Cervantes, 2018). Native Limited Country Population speakers knowledge Total % Andorra 77,280 31,419 28,334 59,753 77.3 Algeria 42,200,000 175,000 48,000 223,000 0.53 Australia 25,308,000 117,498 374,571 492,000 1.94 Brazila 209,000,000 460,018 96,000 556,000 0.27 Canada 37,300,000 410,670 298,000 709,670 1.90 Israel 9,100,000 130,000 45,000 175,000 1.92 Morocco 35,700,000 6,586 1,664,000 1,670,586 4,68 Norway 5,300,000 13,000 24,000 37,000 0.70 Philippinesb 100,900,000 3,325 461,680 465,505 0.46 Switzerland 8,500,000 124,000 — 124,000 1.45 European Union 512,500,000 1,400,000 30,975,000 32,375,000 6.31 (except Spain) Total in the 7,500,000,000 480,000,000 100,000,000 580,000,000 7.73 world Note. aSpanish is the most important foreign language in Brazil. In 2005, the “Spanish Law” was passed in that country, which obliges all secondary schools to offer this language as an elective school subject. It is expected that in the future the number of Spanish speakers will increase considerably. bIt is difficult to know the precise number of Spanish speakers in the Philippines. At the beginning of the 20th century, Spanish was the official language and 10%–15% of the population spoke Spanish. Since then, a policy of de-Hispanicization of the country and expansion of English has been followed. However, Spanish continued as an official language until the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution and, as a compulsory subject in universities, until 1987. Probably today the number of native speakers is very low, but many people speak Spanish as a second language. There is also a Creole Spanish called “Chabacano,” which is located especially in the south of the country, with about 1 million speakers. an approximately equal duration, even though each word has an accented syl- lable; Berg, 1991), as opposed to the “stress-timed” languages (the syllables may have different duration, but the time between two sets of stresses is simi- lar; for example, English). Origin Spanish is derived, like other Romance languages, from vulgar Latin. Specifically, it originated about 1,000 years ago in the northern part of Spain and became the official language of the Kingdom of Castilla. Subsequently, it extended to the south of the Iberian Peninsula as a result of the Reconquista of Spain (Lapesa, 1968; Penny, 2002). With the discovery and conquest of Ardila 5 America, it spread to a large part of the new continent. The contact with the native American languages resulted in the introduction into Spanish of vari- ous words, known in Spanish as “Americanisms” some of which are only used in very specific areas. Spanish or Castilian? Frequently, Spanish and Castilian are used as synonyms. Castellano (Castilian) is the original name of the language, but with the unification of Spain in the 16th century, the name “Spanish” tended to spread. Currently in Spain the denomination “Castilian” is preferred, to distinguish it from other Spanish languages (e.g., Catalan, Galician, Basque), but the term “Spanish” is pre- ferred when it is opposed to a foreign language. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the name “Castilian,” to differentiate it from other Spanish lan- guages. The denomination used by the Academies of the Language is “Spanish” (Association of Academies of the Spanish Language) and the offi- cial dictionary of the language is called Dictionary of the Spanish Language (2015). In Latin America, the terms “Spanish” and “Castilian” are used as syn- onyms, although there are preferences in their denomination according to the country and even according to the historical moment. For example, in Colombia, there was until recently a clear preference for the term “Castilian,” but nowadays the term “Spanish” tends to be preferred.