History of the Spanish Language Essay -- history, official language

A language, much like a person, is molded over time by different experiences, and is influenced by the languages which surround it. History has taught us time and time again that all it takes is one action to change the course of a language. During the battle of Hastings, King Harold II was shot in the eye by the Norman invaders; resulting in the Norman-French language all but taking over English in the 11th century AD. This seemingly insignificant event would forever change the way that English is spoken. Similar to English, Spanish is from the Indo-European family of languages. Unlike English however, Spanish is derived from a category of the Romance Languages, of which it is the most widely spoken today. The Spanish language is also known as Castilian, which is the dialect from which Modern Spanish is derived, and originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Spain. Today, Spanish is the official language of: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish has evolved, in a multilingual environment, over the course of the last 2000 years, beginning with Vulgar Latin, it evolved into medieval Castilian in the 8th century, it then became Early Modern Spanish during 15th century, finally it became Modern Spanish from the 16th century on. The Second Punic war, beginning in 218 BC, was the second major war between the Roman Empire and the Carthage. Around the same time, the Roman Empire deployed troops to the Northeastern peninsula of Spain to keep reinforcements, from the Carthaginian South, from getting to Hannibal’s armies in Italy to assist them. In A Histor... .... An Introduction to Vulgar Latin,. Boston: D.C. Heath &, 1907. Google Scholar. 21 Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. Green, Jennifer L. "The Development of Maritime Law in Medieval Spain: The Case of Castile and the Siete Partidas." The Historian 58.3 (1996): 575. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . Penny, Ralph J. A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. Rodriguez Gonzalez, Felix. "Anglicisms in Contemporary Spanish. An Overview (1)." Atlantis, Revista De La Asociacià ³n Espaà ±ola De Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos 21.1-2 (1999): 103. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. .