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Mexican Spanish and some other Latin American dialects have adopted from the native languages the voiceless alveolar affricate [ts] and many words with the cluster [tl] (originally an affricate [tɬ]) represented by the respective digraphs tz and tl , as in the names Azcapotzalco and Tlaxcala.
Old Spanish (roman, romançe, romaz; [3] Spanish: español medieval), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance spoken predominantly in Castile and environs during the Middle Ages. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in Old Spanish is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140–1207).
Map of languages and dialects in Spain. The term Castilian Spanish is used in English for the specific varieties of Spanish spoken in north and central Spain. This is because much of the variation in Peninsular Spanish is between north and south, often imagined as Castilian versus Andalusian. [7]
A notable exception is the Department of Nariño and most Costeño speech (Atlantic coastal dialects) which feature the soft, fricative realizations common to all other Hispanic American and European dialects. Word-final /n/ is velar in much Latin American Spanish speech; this means a word like pan (bread) is often articulated ['paŋ].
Thus, some Latin American countries formerly under Spanish rule have retained the custom of calling it castellano, while others eventually switched to calling it español, with many different factors influencing the final choice. In English, the term Spanish relates both to the language and to the nation.
The sequence /tl/ is not a valid onset in Castilian Spanish, unlike Latin American Spanish (particularly Mexican Spanish, where /tl/ is much more common). Thus, in Spain, words like Atlántico and atleta are pronounced according to the syllabication At-lán-ti-co and at-le-ta.
As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. [12] [13] Alongside English and French, it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world. [14] Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social ...
Spanish continues to be used by millions of citizens and immigrants to the United States from Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas (for example, many Cubans arrived in Miami, Florida, beginning with the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and followed by other Latin American groups; the local majority is now Spanish-speaking).