Spanish language
Spanish is a Romance language that developed on the Iberian Peninsula and is now spoken by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Spanish phonology: The sound system of Spanish, including its consonants, vowels, syllable patterns, and stress. Its shared sound patterns coexist with regionally distinctive pronunciations.
Vulgar Latin: The non-literary forms of Latin spoken across the Roman world, from which the Romance languages developed. Its regional speech forms supplied the foundation for Spanish.
Real Academia Española: A Spanish language academy founded in 1713 that publishes dictionaries and works with other Spanish-language academies. Its reference works help describe and coordinate written standards across countries.
Portuguese language: A Romance language originating in the western Iberian Peninsula and spoken chiefly in Portugal and Brazil. Its close relationship to Spanish makes similarities and limits of mutual understanding especially visible.
Spanish grammar: The rules and patterns governing Spanish words, sentences, agreement, and verb forms. Gender, agreement, and verb inflection give Spanish sentences much of their structure.
Visigothic Kingdom: A kingdom established by the Visigoths in much of the Iberian Peninsula after the Western Roman Empire declined. Its rule followed Roman political unity, though its linguistic impact on Spanish was limited.
Instituto Cervantes: A Spanish public institution founded in 1991 to promote Spanish language learning and Hispanic cultures internationally. It supports Spanish teaching and cultural programs beyond Spanish-speaking countries.
Catalan language: A Romance language spoken in parts of Spain, France, Andorra, and Italy. Its presence in Spain shows that Spanish is not the peninsula's only major Romance language.
Spanish verb conjugation: The changes in Spanish verb forms that express person, number, tense, mood, and aspect. Its extensive inflection marks distinctions that English often expresses with separate words.
Al-Andalus: The territories of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslim dynasties from the eighth century onward. Long contact with Arabic-speaking societies left a substantial Arabic vocabulary in Spanish.