More about Spanish
Spain is the third largest country in Europe.
The Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and two North African enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla also belong to Spain.
The country is made up of different geographical regions, each with its own language and culture.
There are different dialects of Spanish; for example in southern Spain people tend to drop the final ‘s’ sounds of words. There are also different languages: Castilian (Spanish), Catalan, Gallego and Basque. Forty per cent of Spanish people are bilingual in Spanish and another local language.
Castilian
is known outside Spain as 'Spanish' and is the common language in all of Spain. Besides Spain and Latin America, Spanish is also spoken in the Philippines, Morocco, Ecuatorial Guinea and the United States.
Catalan
is spoken by about 9 million people living in Catalonia, in the Pyréné Orientales in France, some parts of Aragón, Valencia, the Balearic Islands and the city of Alghieri in Sardinia.
Gallego
is the language spoken in Galicia; it sounds similar to Portuguese.
Basque
is very different from Spanish or any other European language. Possibly a prehistoric language that survived the Indo-European colonization of Europe. |
