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What is the Language Index?
Have you ever wondered why foreign languages are so different from your own? Or what sounds their speakers produce? Or how they say "the big book"? Then the Language Index is for you.
The mission of the Language Index is to capture the richness of the world's languages and to make it accessible to anyone interested in science and beyond.
General Information
With around 300 million speakers Spanish is the third largest language community in the world (following Chinese and Russian). It is the largest language group among the Romance languages. In Spain itself there are approximately 38 million speakers of Spanish. Spanish is the official language in most countries in South and Central America. Other languages on the Iberian Peninsula beside Castilian: Catalan, Galician, Aranesian, Portuguese, Basque.
Spanish belongs to the Romance (Italic) branch of the Indo-European language family.
One major phonological difference between Castilian and Latin American dialects, the variety presented here, is the absence of a voiceless dental fricative (/θ/ as in English thing) in the Latin American dialects.
Typological Details
Family Membership
- Indo-European
- Italic
Parameters
| Syntactic: | SVO, Prepositions, Noun - Adjective, Noun - Genitive |
| Morphological: | Exclusively Concatenative, Strongly Suffixing |
| Miscellaneous: | Decimal System, Six Basic Color Catgeories |
Speaker
| Name: | Diego Alejandro M. S. |
| Age: | 20 |
| Community: | Bogota |
| Occupation: | Student |
| National Ancestry: | Colombia |
| Year Interviewed: | 2010 |
Play a welcome message spoken by Diego Alejandro M. S.:
Morphology and Syntax
A Complex Passage
The speaker tells the story 'The Northwind and the Sun'.
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger,
El viento norte y el sol pele-aban sobre cual de ellos era el más fuerte
the wind North and the sun fight-PST.3.PL about who of them was the more strong
when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.
cuando acerto a pas-ar un viajero en vuelto en ancha capa.
when come along-INF a traveler wrapped in wide cloak.
They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off
Convin-ieron en que quien antes lograra oblig-ar al viajero a quitar-se la capa
Agree that who first succeeded force the traveler to unwrap-REFL the cloak
should be considered stronger than the other. The North Wind blew as hard as he could,
sería considerado más poderoso. El viento norte sopl-ó con gran furia
would be.considered more powerful. The wind North blow-PST.3.SG with great force
but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;
pero cuanto mas sopl-aba más se arrebuj-aba en su capa el viajero;
but the more blow-PST.3.SG the.more himself wrap-PST.3.SG in his cloak the traveler;
and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly,
por fin el viento norte abandonó la empresa. Entonces brill-ó el sol con ardor
finally the wind North abandoned the attempt. Then shine-PST.3.SG. the sun with heat
and immediately the traveler took off his cloak. And so the North
e immediatemente se despojó de su capa el viajero; por lo que el viento
and immediately himself unwrapped from his cloak the traveler; because of that the wind
Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.
norte hubo de reconoc-er la superioridad del sol.
North had recognize-INF the superiority of.the sun.
The Numbers
Numbering rules
- Digits and numbers from zero to fifteen are specific words, namely cero [0], uno [1], dos [2], tres [3], cuatro [4], cinco [5], seis [6], siete [7], ocho [8], nueve [9], diez [10], once [11], doce [12], trece [13], catorce [14], quince [15]. Sixteen to twenty-nine are regular numbers, i.e. named after the ten (or the twenty) and the digit. Diez y seis [10 and 6] is phonetically shortened with an apocope as dieciséis. The same applies up to twenty-nine: diecisiete [10 and 7], dieciocho [10 and 8],..., veintinueve [20 and 9].
- The tens have specific names based on the digits roots except for ten and twenty: diez [10], veinte [20], treinta [30], cuarenta [40], cinquenta [50], sesenta [60], setenta [70], ochenta [80] and noventa [90].
- The same applies for the hundreds where one word is created by removing the space between the multiplier and the hundred word: cien [100] (plural cientos), but doscientos [200], trescientos [300], cuatrocientos [400], quinientos [500], seiscientos [600], setecientos [700], ochocientos [800], novecientos [900].
- Tens and units are linked with y (and), as in treinta y cinco [35].
- The Spanish language uses the long scale for big numbers where every new word greater than a million is one million times bigger than the previous term. Thus, um billón is 1012 (equivalent to the US trillion), and the US billion (109) is called mil millones, or one thousand million.
Monophthongs
Auditory Judgements by J. Handke, VLC Project Manager
Diphthongs
Diego's diphthongal system is non-exceptional. The onsets of the downgliding diphthongs are - as usual - in the mid position.
Auditory Judgements by J. Handke, VLC Project Manager
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar |
Retro- flex |
Alveolo-Palatal | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyn- geal |
Glottal | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tap or Flap | ɾ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affrikate | ʧ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | θ | ð | s | ʝ | h | |||||||||||||||||
| Lateral Fricative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Approximant | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Note that /h/ is realized as [h] in Diego's variety of Spanish. Furrthermore, /s/ is voiced in intervocalic position.
Auditory Judgements by J. Handke, VLC Project Manager
Writing System
- Phonographic
- Alphabetic
- Latin/Roman
- Alphabetic
| A a | B b | C c | Ch ch | D d | E e | F f | G g | H h | I i |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | be | ce | che | de | e | efe | ge | hache | i |
| J j | K k | L l | Ll ll | M m | N n | Ñ ñ | O o | P p | Q q |
| jota | ka | ele | elle | eme | ene | eñe | o | pe | cu |
| R r | S s | T t | U u | V v | W w | X x | Y y | Z z | |
| erre | ese | te | u | uve | uve doble doble u doble ve | equis | i griega ye |
zeta |
Ch (che) and Ll (elle) were also considered letters of the Spanish alphabet, however in 1994 the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) decreed that these letters would no longer be treated as separate letters in dictionaries.
Contributors
Developmental Aspects of this VLC Language Index Entry:
- Native Language Assistance:
- Diego Alejandro M. S. (Bogota, Colombia)
- Auditory Judgements:
- Jürgen Handke (VLC Project Manager)
- Phonetic Transcription:
- Jürgen Handke (VLC Project Manager)
- Speaker: Diego Alejandro M. S. (Bogota, Colombia)
- Recorded in August 2010 (VLC Studio)
- References:
- Of Languages and Numbers (http://www.languagesandnumbers.com)