The Languages of Spain

Language is probably the most obvious difference between Spain and the U.S. I would hope that all of you reading this know that the national language in Spain is Spanish, but, what you may not know is there are several regional languages spoken throughout the country as well. Below is a map of Spain which shows the regional languages and where they are spoken.

The regional language spoken where I am currently living is called Catalan. Roughly put – Catalan is a mix between Spanish and French. Even though the people whom live in the Catalunya region speak Spanish, they prefer to speak their regional language of Catalan…I assume this is true for the other regional languages as well. Now being an engineer that enjoys simplifying all processes I encounter, I thought and you may be thinking as well – why are the regional languages still spoken if there is no visible need for them?

That question got me a nice history lesson by a fellow co-worker named Jordi. In summary of the discussion we had – The Roman Republic ruled for approximately 500 years (27 AD – 476 BC) and during those years, the Roman Empire expanded throughout all of Western Europe as well as parts of the Middle East and North of Africa. The most common language spoken in the Roman Republic was Latin (Greek was also a prevalent language) and when the Romans expanded their territory they forced their beliefs, politics, culture and language on their newly conquered people .  That being said, the Latin language was spread throughout all of Western Europe; since there were no textbooks to teach the Latin correctly, the language was skewed and interpreted differently throughout different regions of the Roman Empire. From this, several languages were created (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, Portuguese, etc. – commonly referred to as the Romance Languages). The size of these regions varied based on the size of the population and connections the people had with other nearby regions. The main city in each region becomes the hub and the people ordinarily lived close to these main cities because that is where all of the resources, goods, and services could be found. So depending on the population of these main cities and the stretch of their control, the regions created varied in size and population (as can be seen by the map of Spain’s regions). In the 15th century, Spain united the 4 regions shown above and the national language became Spanish, but the regions kept their respective languages and have continued to speak them. Following the uniting, Spain became the leading power throughout the 16th and part of the 17th century exploring, discovering, and conquering the new world as well as many other parts of the world.

So to conclude the history lesson – Regional languages are still spoken today to preserve the culture of each region, because even today, there is significant cultural differences between the regions of Spain. I was also told that the people in the Cataluyna region want to secede from Spain / Madrid and become independent because the differences in views of the people are so significant; but, this most likely will not happen (at least not in the foreseeable future).

Quick note about education – students in Spain are taught a minimum of 5 years of English and usually a few years of another language or two…I wonder why the U.S. doesn’t have a similar educational requirement?