Although Spain looks like a single whole in the eyes of a tourist, in fact, it turns out to be a multi-ethnic country in which there are different customs, cuisines, cultural characteristics and, of course, languages. Castilian Spanish is officially recognized as the state in Spain, but its inhabitants speak several dozen more dialects.
Some statistics and facts
- Basques, Aragonese, Catalans, Galicians and Occitanians have their own languages, called semi-official.
- Franco's regime, which subjected national minorities to forcible assimilation, fortunately, did not achieve its goal and they all retained their ethnic characteristics and languages.
- In all territories of the country, Castilian is a standardized language that is used in official documents, courts, and on federal TV channels. The second official language of each region can be the dialect of national minorities and it is this language that people use in everyday life.
- About 27% of Spanish residents speak English, at least 12% - French and only 2% speak German.
- In the Balearic Islands, the state language of Spain is also adopted as an official one.
Castilian: history and modernity
The Castilian language, which the whole world calls Spanish, originated in the medieval kingdom of Castile and was actively exported to other countries and continents during the era of the great geographical discoveries.
It belongs to the Indo-European family of languages and has a written language based on the Latin alphabet.
Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese and the most common among the Romance languages. More than half a billion people can speak Spanish and 9/10 of its speakers live in the Western Hemisphere.
Tourist notes
In the tourist areas of Spain, in Barcelona, on the coasts of the Costa Brava and Costa Dorada, travelers usually do not have language problems. Most of the hotel and restaurant staff speaks English at the level of comfortable communication, and in many places the menu is even translated into Russian for the convenience of tourists from Russia. Audio guided tours are available in museums, and in information centers you can always find public transport schemes and city maps with directions in English and other popular languages of the world.
In the provinces, those who speak English are incomparably fewer and excursions to the outback are best planned with the participation of a Spanish-speaking guide or at least with a Russian-Spanish phrasebook in your pocket.
