Spanish (also known as Castilian in Spain) is a romance language of Spanish origin whose earliest written materials date from the 10th century. Spanish is a part of the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family which originated in northwestern Spain in the provinces of Old and New Castile. Spaniards tend to call their language español (Spanish) when comparing it with other international languages (e.g. versus French and English), but they refer to it as castellano (Castilian) in reference to the regional languages (like Catalan, Basque, and Galician). In Spain, the pronunciation of the North Castilian dialect is commonly accepted as the national standard. The Castilian dialect is the source of modern standard Spanish.
Latin American regional dialects are derived from Castilian though they differ in terms of their phonology. The Spanish language as a whole has more than 332 million speakers worldwide making it one of the world’s most widely used languages.
It is the official language of Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Equatorial Guinea. Spanish is also used by large populations residing in in Andorra, Belize, Gibraltar, and the United States.
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