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Spanish language
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Spanish language Europe: Romance languages
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Spanish language summary
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Spanish language
Spanish language Map of Spanish language usage around the world.

Spanish language

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Also known as: Español
Written by
Rebecca Posner
Professor of Romance Languages, University of Oxford. Author of The Romance Languages: A Linguistic Introduction and others; editor of Trends in Romance Linguistics and Philology (5 vol.).
Rebecca Posner,
Marius Sala
Director, Institute of Linguistics, Bucharest, Romania. Coeditor of Enciclopedia limbilor romanice.
Marius Sala•All
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Spanish:
Español

Spanish language, Romance language (Indo-European family) spoken as a first language by some 360 million people worldwide. In the early 21st century, Mexico had the greatest number of speakers (more than 85 million), followed by Colombia (more than 40 million), Argentina (more than 35 million), the United States (more than 31 million), and Spain (more than 30 million). Spanish is the (or an) official language of 18 American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela) as well as of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ...(100 of 1117 words)

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