Names given to the Spanish language
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eo:Kastilia lingvo es:Castellano pl:język kastylijski ro:Castelană Template:Spanish
There are two names given to the Spanish language: Spanish (español) and Castilian (castellano). Linguistically, Castilian means Spanish, as it is the medieval Spanish language of the Kingdom of Castile that spread across Spain and became the national language known virtually always as Spanish in English. But in Spanish itself, the term castellano is often used to refer to the language, at the expense of the term español (Spanish), and awareness of the term is growing in French and to a lesser extent in English.
To understand how two terms can refer to the same language, imagine that the English language were sometimes called English after the historical nation whose language it is, but also sometimes British after the modern state, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK), of which it is the official language. Recall that the UK formerly had overseas colonies, including British North America. How would they then refer to the language? What about the speakers of Welsh and other non-English languages spoken in the UK? This is almost exactly the situation with Spain and its historical center, Castile.
Spaniards tend to call the language español (Spanish) when contrasting it to languages of other states, such as in a list with French (francés), English (inglés), German (alemán), Chinese (chino), and so on. Castellano (Castilian) by contrast, is more often used when contrasting the language with other regional languages of Spain: Aragonese, Asturian, Basque, Catalan, Extremaduran, Galician, and so on. In this manner, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole State, opposed to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. other spanish languages). Article III reads as follows:
- El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. (...) Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas...
- Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State (...) Other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities...
The official Real Academia Española used castellano from the 18th century, but from 1923 its dictionary and grammar are de la lengua española. However, the Academy's use of one term or the other should not be taken to be a condemnation of the other.
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Bilingual regions of Spain
In the bilingual regions where such languages are spoken, there is obviously a daily need to make this contrast, and so the language is most often referred to as Castilian, particularly in the regional languages themselves (e.g. espanyol is virtually never used to refer to the Spanish language in Catalan: castellà is used instead.) This usage is often mirrored by English-speakers when referring to the linguistic situation in Spain.
For some, this use of the term castellano or Castilian is a political or cultural statement that Castilian is only the language of Castile and perhaps some areas that Castile colonised, but not the language of their region, where they consider the only legitimate language to be the regional one, i.e. Catalan, Basque, etc. This is a common belief in regionalist circles.
Conversely, some nationalist circles prefer the term español because they perceive their region as already separate from Spain, and therefore do not mind the language of Spain being called Spanish. In Basque-speaking regions, where the language is not romance — Basque is believed by many scholars to be a language isolate — some basque speakers might even use the term erdera (lit. foreign) specifically for Spanish, since for them it is the most present foreign language.
Monolingual regions of Spain
In monolingual regions of Spain, the implications are a little different. There, inhabitants do not have anything to prove, but still they must choose one of the two terms. Castilians themselves usually use the term español, thus legitimately presenting it as the national language (the Spanish constitution declares that all Spaniards have 'the right to speak Castilian and the duty to know it'). However, they also frequently call it castellano, thus implying it is their special language that the rest of Spain is just borrowing. Alternatively, they may of course use the term in order to distinguish between Castilian and the regional languages.
Outside of Castile, there are other regions of Spain that are monolingual (i.e. they only speak Spanish/Castilian); for example, Cantabria or Andalusia. In these areas, español may be used as in Castile to stress the national nature of the language, with a slightly different nuance: they are accepting another region's historical language as their national language, rather than asserting their own as one. The terms have otherwise much the same significance as in Castile.
The concept of a standard
The term castellano is occasionally used to imply more of a standard form than español does. For example, if someone mispronounces a word, they might be told ¡hable castellano!, i.e. 'Speak Castilian!', 'Speak properly!'. However, this nuance is not to be exaggerated, as it is perfectly possible that the term español or even cristiano ('Christian') could be used instead. Moreover, the term castellano is also commonly and correctly used to refer to dialects of Spanish that deviate dramatically from the standard.
Usage and implications today in former colonies
Both of the language's names are commonly used in parts of the world colonised by Spanish speakers, such as the Americas. As in Spain, the implications are complex. The most common term is español, generally considered to be a neutral term simply reflecting the country the language came from. For people who use this term, castellano may possibly imply greater correctness as it sometimes does in Spain, or it may merely be an alien term, referring to a region in a far-off country.
However, some Latin Americans prefer the word castellano. Reasons given generally include the idea that Spanish is an international language with historical origins in the old kingdom of Castile, and that the term español is imperialist, implying it is the language of Spain. One criticism of this reasoning is that Castile is the imperialist heart of Spain, and the engine that drove the colonisation of the Americas, so castellano is just as 'bad' in these terms as español. However, the fact that Spain is still a major nation-state, whereas Castile is now a region buried within Spain and internationally forgotten, is the deciding psychological factor.
In practice, the use of one term or the other tends to be a matter of local customs, rather than deep philosophical, sociological and political thought on the individual level.
Some constitutions avoid the issue by talking about "the national language".
Countries or regions where castellano ('Castilian') is generally preferred
Countries or regions where there is generally oscillation between the two
- Chile: The media uses the word español and the school subject is castellano.
Countries or regions where español ('Spanish') is generally preferred
Usage and misconceptions abroad
This complex linguistic situation is obviously not always grasped by non-Spanish speakers (or even by Spanish speakers themselves). Some believe that the term español is not used in Spanish, or only in Spain, and that the term Spanish is therefore wrong. So, it is not uncommon in some politically correct circles to write Castilian, Castillian or even Castellano in English texts, calling Spanish incorrect or imperialist. This can even lead to their rejecting the official ISO 639 code for Spanish (es) in favour of ca, with the consequence that Catalan then would have to be given ct.
Another use of Castilian in English is to distinguish between standard Spanish and dialects. As noted above, this distinction is made to some extent in Spanish, but not as far as some English speakers go — for example, websites with language selection screens giving the choice between Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish among other languages. However, it is possible to say that Spanish has many standards, one for each country where it is spoken.
In the Americas, where there are 20 countries whose native language is Spanish, usage of castellano and español is reversed when referring to another nation, for example: a Peruvian, talking about a Uruguayan, might say Yo hablo en español peruano, él habla en español uruguayo, pero los dos hablamos castellano ("I speak Peruvian Spanish, he speaks Uruguayan Spanish, but we both speak Castilian"). This odd usage comes from the historical association of español with the language that was brought to America by conquistadores, and later transformed in each nation through daily usage, and castellano as the basis for all variants.
Historical background to the various terms
History of the term 'Castilian'
Castile (in Spanish: Castilla) means Castle-land, from castiello plus the suffix -ia, giving Castiella, a form that survives in the Astur-Leonese language and can be seen in mediaeval Castilian texts such as the Lay of the Cid. Modern Spanish has transformed all words ending in -iello, -iella into -illo, -illa. The adjective derived from Castilla is castellano, or 'Castilian', in English. Castellano also means 'castellan', i.e. a castle master. There is a comic scene based on the play on words (Castilian/castellan) in Don Quixote.
The region was thus named because it was a frontier land controlled from a series of castles. It shared borders with rival Moorish and Christian kingdoms (Navarre and Aragon).
History of the term 'Spanish'
HISPANIA was the name given to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans when they discovered and later subjugated it. The name was previously Canaanite אי שפנים (ʾî šəpānîm), meaning 'coast of hyraxes', named by Canaanite-speaking Phoenicians who mistook Spain's large rabbit population for hyraxes that roamed the Iberian Peninsula in Ancient Times (Although today, the Spanish population of wild rabbits is not quite as abundant as it was then due to the introduction of the myxomatosis virus to mainland Europe in 1950.) The Romans called its inhabitants HISPANI (singular: HISPANVS), and the relevant adjective was HISPANICVS. These terms would naturally have developed into España, *espanos (singular: *espano) and *espánego in Castilian. In reality, only the first term exists in modern Castilian, as it seems that the Spanish borrowed the Occitan name for themselves, which was the name España plus the diminutive suffix -ol, from the Latin -VLVS or -OLVS. We can see this because if the native Castilian suffix had been used this would have given us *españuelo rather than español.
As the branches of Vulgar Latin began to evolve into separate Romance languages, the term that would evolve into español began to be used to refer to these derivative languages (especially as opposed to the Arabic and Hebrew of the Moorish and Jewish inhabitants of Iberia). It was at first a general term that embraced the various dialects of Iberian Romance spoken in the area, including the forebears of modern Portuguese, Galician, Castilian and Catalan. However, with the rise of Castile as a power, and its absorption of all surrounding regions into an ever-growing empire that eventually spread to the New World, the term España was eventually equated with the peninsular territories dominated by Castile. With this, the break with the Roman concept of Hispania was complete, and the term acquired its modern meaning of 'all of Iberia except for Portugal and Andorra'. Similarly, español came to be used to refer to the common language of this new country: Castilian.
The terms España and español spread to other languages. The English name 'Spain' is from the French Espagne. 'Spanish' is 'Spain' plus the English suffix -ish. The term continues evolving as other languages adapt these words to form their own name for Spain — for example, Japanese スペイン語 (Supein-go), 'Spanish language', and スペイン人 (Supein-jin), 'Spaniard', derive from the Japanese word for Spain, スペイン (Supein), which, in turn, derives from English 'Spain'. In Chinese though, the word is directly taken from Spanish (or perhaps even Latin) rather than English: they say 西班牙 (Pinyin phonetic symbols: xībānyá) for Spain and 西班牙语 (Pinyin: xībānyá yǔ) , or the abbreviation 西語 (Pinyin: xī yǔ) for the Spanish language.
While Espanyol is used in Tagalog and other languages of the Philippines, the word Kastila is more frequently used.
* denotes an unattested or hypothetical form.
History of the term 'Cristiano' (Christian)
During the presence of Moors in Hispania, Spanish was sometimes given the name cristiano to distinguish it from the Arabic and Hebrew languages. Spanish also marked Christians from "heathen" Amerindians. This term is still used today to refer to the language, though usually jocularly, and never in English.
The expression Hábleme en cristiano "talk to me in Christian", uttered to people not speaking Spanish is often felt as racist and insulting by inhabitants of the bilingual areas of Spain, such as Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia and the Basque Country.
History of the term 'Language of Cervantes'
Spanish is often referred to in educated circles as the 'Language of Cervantes' or lengua de Cervantes, in reference to the writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and in analogy with the expressions language of Shakespeare (English), language of Molière (French), language of Goethe (German), language of Dante (Italian), language of Camões (Portuguese), and the like.
Other terms
Gonzalo de Berceo, one of the earlier authors in Castilian, named his language román paladino (i.e., "plain Romance") "in which people talks to his neighbour". Now it used to mean "direct talking, without euphemisms".