It is estimated that Castilian is currently the mother tongue or familiar language of more than 32 million residents of Spain out of a total of about 39 million, and that it exclusively occupies about 82% of the territory, while the rest is shared with the other languages spoken for centuries in Spain and having, with the exception of Basque, its same origin. The 1978 Constitution legally established the relationship between Castilian and other languages.
According to the art. 3, point 1, “Castilian is the official language of the state”; but at the same time it should be noted that “the other Spanish languages will also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their statutes” (point 2) and that “the richness of the various linguistic modalities of Spain is a cultural heritage that will be the subject of special respect and protection “(point 3). All this is taken up, in fact, in the statutes of autonomy of Catalonia (1979, art.3), Basque Provinces (1979, art.6), Galicia (1981, art.5), Valencian Community (1982, art.7) and Balearics (1983, art. 3), which affirm the co-officiality of the language “proper to the Community” and of Castilian. In the case of Navarre, according to the Ley de Reintegración y Amejoramiento del Régimen Foral (1982, art. 9), Castilian is “the official language” of this autonomous community, but so is Basque in its Basque-speaking areas (Northwest of the province). In other statutes, such as that of Aragon (1982, Art. 7) and Asturias (1982, Art. 4), it ensures protection at the Community language mode (fablas and bable respectively). For Spain religion and languages, please check ezinereligion.com.
It is not yet possible to assess the extent and results of the processes necessary for linguistic standardization, which are already underway in the bilingual Autonomous Communities. As has been observed, an adequate organization in the teaching of languages and the non-coincidence between the political-administrative boundaries of some of the Communities (established on the basis of the provincial division in force, drawn up in 1833) and those of the respective linguistic areas are probably, the main problems.
As for the name of the official language of the state, although the constitutional text and that of the various statutes specify that of ” Castilian ” (and this is the name generally preferred by the speakers of the bilingual autonomous communities), it continues to be very common, d ‘accord with tradition, the indistinct use of’ ‘Spanish’ ‘, especially among monolingual speakers of Castilian. Also in the technical linguistic use the term ” Spanish ” is used very frequently as it seems more appropriate for the express reference to the ” common language ”, a linguistic entity that is not identifies more with the variety used in the region of its ancient origins and which understands and reflects the contributions of all its users regardless of their origin. It also allows us to remember an important internal differentiation of the language on the phonic level: in fact, the use of ‘Castilian Spanish’ technicality is widespread among specialists, distinct from ‘Atlantic Spanish’ also known as’ Spanish with an evolutionary tendency. ” or ” with an Andalusian trend ”. The first alludes to a type of language more specific to the northern half of the Spain, including the bilingual areas, and also to the inland areas and highlands of America (except for the “ seseo ”), more homogeneous and with a more conservative and firm pronunciation in consonantism.
As for the general use, as happens in other Romance languages, the most striking aspect in the current language is the presence, mainly due to the means of communication, of a large number of foreignisms, mainly Anglicisms, which are of particular interest the lexical-semantic level. In turn, the abundance of these words with final consonants different from the traditional ones (- l, – n, – r, – s, – d, – z) and the imitation, in this case, of foreign ways of forming the plural (consonant + – s) have repercussions on a phonic and morphological level, generating types of singular and anomalous plurals (robot, robots). The maintenance of this situation coexists, according to the levels of use, with the adaptation to the inherited phonomorphological norms: the Diccionario della Real Academia (1992 21) reports, for example, club (this is the form in use) and clube, pl. clubes ; boicot and boicoteo (pl. boicoteos ; cfr. boicotear), but only complot, etc.
