Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
A Romance language belonging to the Indo-European family which is spoken by approx. 300 million speakers in Spain, Central and South America, the Canary Islands, the United States, and other countries. The basis for the standard language is the Castilian dialect, which developed from the variety of Vulgar Latin spoken in Spain during the time of the Roman Empire. Castilian Spanish was spoken only in the northern Cantabrian provinces until the Arabs were expelled from Spain during the ‘reconquista.’ Some characteristic features of Castilian Spanish include the development of [f] to [h] (possibly due to a Basque substratum), the change of [kt] to [t∫] (Lat. factum >Sp. hecho ‘done’) as well as the introduction of the phoneme /x/ (Lat. filius>Sp. hijo [ixo] ‘son’). The standard language has a so-called ‘prepositional accusative’ for persons (Veo a Felipe ‘I see Felipe,’ but Veo et libro ‘I see the book’); the lexicon contains numerous Arabic elements. The dialect structure of central and southern Spain (Andalucia) became increasingly leveled due to the influence of Castilian Spanish, while the northern regions show stronger dialectal variation (Leon, Aragon; Catalan, Portuguese, Galician). The Spanish spoken in South America, which in the written language diverges only slightly from European Spanish, is based phonetically and morphologically on Andalucian.
References
Amastae, J. and L.Elias-Olivares (eds) 1982. Spanish in the United States. Cambridge.
Entwistle, W.J. 1962. The Spanish language, together with Portuguese, Catalan, and Basque, 2nd edn. London.
Holtus, G., M.Metzeltin, and C.Schmitt (eds) 1992. Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik, vol. 6, 1. Tübingen.
King, L.D. 1992. The semantic structure of Spanish: meaning and grammatical form. Amsterdam and Philadelphia.
Lang, M.F. 1990. Spanish word formation. London.
Stevenson, C.H. 1970. The Spanish language today. London.
Whitley, M.S. 1986. Spanish/English contrasts. Washington, DC.
Grammars
Alcina, J. and J.M.Blecua. 1975. Gramática española. Barcelona.
Butt, J. and C.Benjamin. 1988. A new reference grammar of Modern Spanish. London.
Coste, J. and A.Redondo. 1965. Syntaxe de l’espagnol moderne. Paris.
Marcos Marin, F.
1980. Curso de gramática española. Madrid.
Real Academica Española. 1973. Esbozo de una nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid.
History and dialectology
Cotton, E. and J.Sharp. 1986. Spanish in the Americas. Georgetown, KY.
Lapesa, R. 1942. Historia de la lengua española. Madrid. (9th edn 1981.)
Lipski, J. 1994. Latin American Spanish. London.
Menéndez Pidal, R. 1926. Orígenes del español. Madrid. (6th edn 1968.)
Penny, R. 1991. A history of the Spanish language. Cambridge.
Vidal Sephiba, H. 1986. Le Judéo-espagnol. Paris.
Zamora Vicente, A. 1960. Dialectología española. Madrid. (2nd edn 1970.)
Dictionaries
Corominas, J. and J.A.Pascual. 1980–91. Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols. Madrid.
Moliner, M. 1970/1. Diccionario del uso del español, 2 vols. Madrid. (2nd edn 1984.)
Real Academia Española. 1992. Diccionario de la lengua española, 21st edn. Madrid.
Bibliographies
Bialik Hubermann, G. 1973. Mil obras de lingüística española e hispanoamericana. Madrid.
Solé, C.A. 1970. Bibliografía sobre et español en America 1920–1967. Georgetown, KY.
Romance languages
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