Independents (26)
108-739: Opposition (33) The Honorable Senate of the Argentine Nation ( Spanish : Honorable Senado de la Nación Argentina ) is the upper house of the National Congress of Argentina . The National Senate was established by the Argentine Confederation on July 29, 1854, pursuant to Articles 46 to 54 of the 1853 Constitution. There are 72 members: three for each province and three for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires . The number of senators per province
216-542: A koiné language based on various northern varieties. When Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it "Mandarin", from its Chinese name Guānhuà ( 官话 ; 官話 ; 'language of the officials'). In everyday English, "Mandarin" refers to Standard Chinese , which is often called simply "Chinese". Standard Mandarin Chinese is based on Beijing dialect , with some lexical and syntactic influence from other Mandarin dialects. It
324-903: A Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. The local languages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived from Mexican Spanish , owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898. Mandarin Chinese Transcriptions: Mandarin ( / ˈ m æ n d ər ɪ n / MAN -dər-in ; simplified Chinese : 官话 ; traditional Chinese : 官話 ; pinyin : Guānhuà ; lit. 'officials' speech')
432-541: A combination of any of these is also common. In Malaysia , Mandarin has been adopted by local Chinese-language schools as the medium of instruction with the standard based on that of Singapore. However, it is not as widespread in daily life among the Malaysian Chinese community, as Hokkien speakers continue to form a plurality among the ethnic Chinese population and Cantonese serves as the common language (especially in commerce and local media). An exception
540-565: A common form of speech developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital, a language referred to as Old Mandarin. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms, such as the qu and sanqu poetry. The rhyming conventions of the new verse were codified in a rime dictionary called the Zhongyuan Yinyun (1324). A radical departure from
648-603: A considerable number of words from Arabic , as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin , the form of Latin in use at that time. According to
756-522: A dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants , known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes , which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ ). See History of Spanish (Modern development of
864-536: A final glottal stop . Many Mandarin varieties, including the Beijing dialect, retain retroflex initial consonants, which have been lost in southern varieties of Chinese. The Chinese capital has been within the Mandarin-speaking area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as a lingua franca for government officials and the courts since
972-482: A first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos ( Ilustrados ). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing. Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration after
1080-579: A large geographical area that stretches from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongjiang in the northeast. This is generally attributed to the greater ease of travel and communication in the North China Plain compared to the more mountainous south, combined with the relatively recent spread of Mandarin to frontier areas. Most Mandarin varieties have four tones . The final stops of Middle Chinese have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as
1188-478: A long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century. In the wake of the 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty , hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States. The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce. According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of
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#17327657428151296-455: A lower pitch and by the late Tang dynasty , each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials. When voicing was lost in all languages except the Wu subfamily, this distinction became phonemic and the system of initials and tones was rearranged differently in each of the major groups. The Zhongyuan Yinyun shows the typical Mandarin four-tone system resulting from a split of
1404-508: A primarily Hassaniya Arabic -speaking territory, Spanish was officially spoken as the language of the colonial administration during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Today, Spanish is present in the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as its secondary official language, and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf ( Algeria ), where the Spanish language is still taught as
1512-617: A second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system. While far from its heyday during the Spanish protectorate in Morocco , the Spanish language has some presence in northern Morocco , stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media. According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches 4.6% of
1620-531: A second language, largely by Cuban educators. The number of Spanish speakers is unknown. Spanish is also an official language of the African Union . Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization , it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as
1728-617: A separate top-level group, but this remains controversial. The Language Atlas of China calls the remainder of Mandarin a "supergroup", divided into eight dialect groups distinguished by their treatment of the Middle Chinese entering tone (see Tones below): The Atlas also includes several unclassified Mandarin dialects spoken in scattered pockets across southeastern China, such as Nanping in Fujian and Dongfang on Hainan . Another Mandarin variety of uncertain classification
1836-546: Is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which the language is also known as Castilian ( castellano ). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of
1944-416: Is cognate to the root word of satisfacer ("to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho ("satisfied"). Compare the examples in the following table: Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table: In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent
2052-714: Is a group of Chinese language dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China and Taiwan. The group includes the Beijing dialect , the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese , the official language of China and Taiwan. Because Mandarin originated in North China and most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as Northern Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 北方话 ; traditional Chinese : 北方話 ; pinyin : Běifānghuà ; lit. 'northern speech'). Many varieties of Mandarin, such as those of
2160-413: Is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world. Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences . Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese and the second most used language by number of websites after English. Spanish is used as an official language by many international organizations , including
2268-673: Is an accepted version of this page Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe . Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain , and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish
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#17327657428152376-518: Is apparently Gyami , recorded in the 19th century in the Tibetan foothills, who the Chinese apparently did not recognize as Chinese. Some northwestern Mandarin varieties in the Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund have undergone drastic changes in phonology, lexicon and grammar. A syllable consists maximally of an initial consonant, a medial glide , a vowel, a coda, and tone . In the traditional analysis,
2484-399: Is estimated that about 486 million people speak Spanish as a native language , making it the second most spoken language by number of native speakers . An additional 75 million speak Spanish as a second or foreign language , making it the fourth most spoken language in the world overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi with a total number of 538 million speakers. Spanish is also
2592-694: Is heavily influenced by Venezuelan Spanish. In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation of Mercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching in Brazil . In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President , making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In September 2016 this law
2700-567: Is in the state of Johor , where Mandarin is increasingly used alongside Cantonese as a lingua franca in part due to Singaporean influence. As in Singapore, the local colloquial variant of Mandarin exhibits influences from Cantonese and Malay. In northern Myanmar , a Southwestern Mandarin variant close to the Yunnanese dialect is spoken by local Chinese and other ethnic groups. In some rebel group -controlled regions, Mandarin also serves as
2808-820: Is lost after apical initials in several areas. Thus Southwestern Mandarin has /tei/ "correct" where the standard language has dui /twei/ . Southwestern Mandarin also has /kai kʰai xai/ in some words where the standard has jie qie xie /tɕjɛ tɕʰjɛ ɕjɛ/ . This is a stereotypical feature of southwestern Mandarin, since it is so easily noticeable. E.g. hai "shoe" for standard xie , gai "street" for standard jie . Mandarin dialects typically have relatively few vowels. Syllabic fricatives , as in standard zi and zhi , are common in Mandarin dialects, though they also occur elsewhere. The Middle Chinese off-glides /j/ and /w/ are generally preserved in Mandarin dialects, yielding several diphthongs and triphthongs in contrast to
2916-450: Is one of the official languages of Taiwan . The Taiwanese standard of Mandarin differs very little from that of mainland China, with differences largely in some technical vocabulary developed from the 1950s onwards. While the spoken standard of Taiwanese Mandarin is nearly identical to that of mainland China, the colloquial form has been heavily influenced by other local languages, especially Taiwanese Hokkien . Notable differences include:
3024-844: Is spoken by very small communities in Angola due to Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence. Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands , located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off
3132-813: Is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico . The language has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles , Miami , San Antonio , New York , San Francisco , Dallas , Tucson and Phoenix of the Arizona Sun Corridor , as well as more recently, Chicago , Las Vegas , Boston , Denver , Houston , Indianapolis , Philadelphia , Cleveland , Salt Lake City , Atlanta , Nashville , Orlando , Tampa , Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration. Although Spanish has no official recognition in
3240-498: Is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese ; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English , Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani ( Hindi - Urdu ); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers
3348-533: Is the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC), as well as one of the four official languages of Singapore , and a high-prestige minority language in Malaysia . It also functions as the language of instruction in mainland China and Taiwan. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations , under the name "Chinese". Chinese speakers refer to
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3456-542: Is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty. Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of "Mandarin" (or so-called "Northern dialects") in a broader sense. Within Chinese social or cultural discourse, there is not a "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects because of
3564-578: Is usually assumed to be derived from castillo ('castle'). In the Middle Ages , the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as Romance and later also as Lengua vulgar . Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as Romance castellano ( romanz castellano , romanz de Castiella ), lenguaje de Castiella , and ultimately simply as castellano (noun). Different etymologies have been suggested for
3672-545: Is wholly identical to the Beijing dialect . The written forms of Standard Chinese are also essentially equivalent, although simplified characters are used in mainland China and Singapore, while traditional characters remain in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Singapore has followed mainland China in officially adopting simplified characters. Mandarin is spoken across northern and southwestern China, with some pockets in neighbouring countries. Unlike their compatriots on
3780-607: The Cyrillic script . The classification of Chinese dialects evolved during the 20th century, and many points remain unsettled. Early classifications tended to follow provincial boundaries or major geographical features. In 1936, Wang Li produced the first classification based on phonetic criteria, principally the evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials. His Mandarin group included dialects of northern and southwestern China, as well as those of Hunan and northern Jiangxi . Li Fang-Kuei 's classification of 1937 distinguished
3888-524: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic, founded in 1949, retained this standard, calling it pǔtōnghuà ( simplified Chinese : 普通话 ; traditional Chinese : 普通話 ; lit. 'common speech'). Some 54% of speakers of Mandarin varieties could understand the standard language in the early 1950s, rising to 91% in 1984. Nationally,
3996-568: The Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. Spanish has historically had a significant presence on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba , Bonaire and Curaçao ( ABC Islands ) throughout the centuries and in present times. The majority of the populations of each island (especially Aruba) speaking Spanish at varying although often high degrees of fluency. The local language Papiamentu (Papiamento on Aruba)
4104-508: The Spanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s. Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English and Filipino , a standardized version of Tagalog . Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under
4212-820: The United Nations , European Union , Organization of American States , Union of South American Nations , Community of Latin American and Caribbean States , African Union , among others. In Spain and some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but also castellano (Castilian), the language from the Kingdom of Castile , contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician , Basque , Asturian , Catalan/Valencian , Aragonese , Occitan and other minor languages. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses
4320-558: The rime table tradition that had evolved over the previous centuries, this dictionary contains a wealth of information on the phonology of Old Mandarin. Further sources are the 'Phags-pa script based on the Tibetan alphabet, which was used to write several of the languages of the Mongol empire, including Chinese and the Menggu Ziyun , a rime dictionary based on 'Phags-pa. The rime books differ in some details, but overall show many of
4428-480: The "even" tone and loss of the entering tone, with its syllables distributed across the other tones (though their different origin is marked in the dictionary). Similarly, voiced plosives and affricates have become voiceless aspirates in the "even" tone and voiceless non-aspirates in others, another distinctive Mandarin development. However, the language still retained a final -m , which has merged with -n in modern dialects and initial voiced fricatives. It also retained
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4536-479: The 14th century. In the early 20th century, a standard form based on the Beijing dialect, with elements from other Mandarin dialects, was adopted as the national language . Standard Chinese is the official language of China and Taiwan , as well as one of the four official languages of Singapore . It is also used as one of the official languages of the United Nations . Recent increased migration from Mandarin-speaking regions of China and Taiwan has now resulted in
4644-475: The 18th century, and as a result the Northeastern Mandarin dialects spoken there differ little from the Beijing dialect . The Manchu people of the area now speak these dialects exclusively; their native language is only maintained in northwestern Xinjiang , where Xibe , a modern dialect, is spoken. The frontier areas of northwest China were colonized by speakers of Mandarin dialects at
4752-404: The 2021–2022 school year alone. The local business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects. Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population, a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely. Aside from standard Spanish,
4860-595: The 20th century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara , and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City . For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language . Spanish is the primary language in 20 countries worldwide. As of 2023, it
4968-424: The Beijing accent, and also take some elements from other sources, and deviate from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics . Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school-standard" Chinese are often quite different from the Mandarin varieties that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither
5076-654: The Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business. Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish. The Instituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish. The proportion of proficient Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the proportion of proficient speakers in other West and Central African nations of their respective colonial languages. Spanish
5184-705: The Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Proto-Basque , Iberian , Lusitanian , Celtiberian and Gallaecian . The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era , the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages — Mozarabic ( Andalusi Romance ), Navarro-Aragonese , Leonese , Catalan/Valencian , Portuguese , Galician , Occitan , and later, French and Italian . Spanish also borrowed
5292-517: The Mandarin group, pointing out that the Lower Yangtze dialects also retain the glottal stop. The southern boundary of the Mandarin area, with the central Wu , Gan and Xiang groups, is weakly defined due to centuries of diffusion of northern features. Many border varieties have a mixture of features that make them difficult to classify. The boundary between Southwestern Mandarin and Xiang is particularly weak, and in many early classifications
5400-596: The Northwestern dialects are the most diverse, particularly in the province of Shanxi . The linguist Li Rong proposed that the northwestern dialects of Shanxi and neighbouring areas that retain a final glottal stop in the Middle Chinese entering tone (plosive-final) category should constitute a separate top-level group called Jin . He used this classification in the Language Atlas of China (1987). Many other linguists continue to include these dialects in
5508-540: The Old Spanish sibilants) for details. The Gramática de la lengua castellana , written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija , was the first grammar written for a modern European language. According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I , she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire. In his introduction to
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#17327657428155616-526: The Qing dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber and beyond, there developed a literature in written vernacular Chinese ( 白话 ; 白話 ; báihuà ). In many cases, this written language reflected Mandarin varieties and since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin-speaking regions and beyond. Hu Shih , a pivotal figure of
5724-589: The Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms— español and castellano —are regarded as synonymous and equally valid. The term castellano is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn,
5832-592: The Southwest (including Sichuanese ) and the Lower Yangtze , are not mutually intelligible with the standard language (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion). Mandarin is by far the largest of the Chinese dialect groups ; it is spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over
5940-452: The State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on the other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the language castellano . The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by
6048-502: The U.S. population were of Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin. In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population. Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico , where it is also an official language along with English. Spanish is by far the most common second language in the country, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included. While English
6156-457: The administration of Ferdinand Marcos two months later. It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language. Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of
6264-802: The armed forces, and the diplomatic corps, among other federal posts. There are twenty-four standing committees made up of fifteen members each, namely: According to Section 55 of the Argentine Constitution , candidates for the Argentine Senate must: The titular president of the Senate is the vice president of Argentina . However, day-to-day leadership of the Senate is exercised by the provisional president . Current leadership positions include: 34°36′38″S 58°23′28″W / 34.6105°S 58.3910°W / -34.6105; -58.3910 Spanish language This
6372-414: The capital moved to Beijing in 1421, though the speech of the new capital emerged as a rival standard. As late as 1815, Robert Morrison based the first English–Chinese dictionary on this koiné as the standard of the time, though he conceded that the Beijing dialect was gaining in influence. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with
6480-684: The classic hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin , as happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon). Like the other Romance languages , the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin , which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War , beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages )—some distantly related to Latin as Indo-European languages , and some that are not related at all—were previously spoken in
6588-500: The consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v . Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboring Gascon extending as far north as the Gironde estuary , and found in a small area of Calabria ), attributed by some scholars to a Basque substratum was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it
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#17327657428156696-404: The country's constitution. In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language, and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system, with over 7,000 students studying the language in
6804-556: The country, coupled with a strong decline in usage of other Chinese variants. Standard Singaporean Mandarin is nearly identical to the standards of China and Taiwan, with minor vocabulary differences. It is the Mandarin variant used in education, media, and official settings. Meanwhile, a colloquial form called Singdarin is used in informal daily life and is heavily influenced in terms of both grammar and vocabulary by local languages such as Cantonese, Hokkien, and Malay. Instances of code-switching with English, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay, or
6912-469: The distinction between velars and alveolar sibilants in palatal environments, which later merged in most Mandarin dialects to yield a palatal series (rendered j- , q- and x- in pinyin ). The flourishing vernacular literature of the period also shows distinctively Mandarin vocabulary and syntax, though some, such as the third-person pronoun tā ( 他 ), can be traced back to the Tang dynasty. Until
7020-430: The early 20th century, formal writing and even much poetry and fiction was done in Literary Chinese , which was modeled on the classics of the Warring States period and the Han dynasty . Over time, the various spoken varieties diverged greatly from Literary Chinese, which was learned and composed as a special language. Preserved from the sound changes that affected the various spoken varieties, its economy of expression
7128-424: The empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known as Guānhuà . Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined. Officials varied widely in their pronunciation; in 1728, the Yongzheng Emperor , unable to understand the accents of officials from Guangdong and Fujian , issued a decree requiring the governors of those provinces to provide for
7236-510: The features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects, such as the reduction and disappearance of final plosives and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones. In Middle Chinese, initial stops and affricates showed a three-way contrast between tenuis , voiceless aspirated and voiced consonants. There were four tones , with the fourth or "entering tone", a checked tone comprising syllables ending in plosives ( -p , -t or -k ). Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with
7344-413: The first half of the twentieth century, wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled "A History of Vernacular Literature" ( Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ ). Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in many parts of South China spoke only their local variety. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of
7452-450: The following table: Spanish is marked by palatalization of the Latin double consonants ( geminates ) nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año , and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo ). The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably " fortified " to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with
7560-466: The former British colony of Belize (known until 1973 as British Honduras ) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2022 census, 54% of the total population are able to speak the language. Due to its proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existing native Spanish speaking minority, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government launched
7668-454: The grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire." From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America . Miguel de Cervantes , author of Don Quixote , is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). In
7776-585: The imperial court. The variant of Mandarin as spoken by educated classes in Beijing was made the official language of China by the Qing dynasty in the early 1900s and the successive Republican government. In the early years of the Republic of China , intellectuals of the New Culture Movement , such as Hu Shih and Chen Duxiu , successfully campaigned for the replacement of Literary Chinese as
7884-550: The language being one of the more frequently used varieties of Chinese among Chinese diaspora communities. It is also the most commonly taught Chinese variety . The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese mandarim , from Malay menteri , from Sanskrit mantrī , mantrin , meaning 'minister or counsellor') originally meant an official of the Ming and Qing empires. Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using
7992-556: The language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. Alongside English and French , it
8100-549: The language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward. Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken include Gibraltar and Andorra . Spanish is also spoken by immigrant communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and Germany . Spanish is an official language of the European Union . Today,
8208-404: The latter two groups as Xiang and Gan , while splitting the remaining Mandarin dialects between Northern, Lower Yangtze and Southwestern Mandarin groups. The widely accepted seven-group classification of Yuan Jiahua in 1960 kept Xiang and Gan separate, with Mandarin divided into Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern and Jiang–Huai (Lower Yangtze) subgroups. Of Yuan's four Mandarin subgroups,
8316-852: The lingua franca. The Dungan people of Kyrgyzstan , Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are descendants of Hui people who fled to the Russian Empire from Dzungaria in 1877 after the fall of Kashgaria to Qing forces and from the Ili valley after it was ceded to China in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg in 1881. About 500 speakers live in a compact area in Rovensky District, Saratov Oblast in Russia. The Dungan speak two dialects, descended from Central Plains Mandarin dialects of southeast Gansu and southwest Shaanxi, and write their language in
8424-694: The majority of the Spanish speakers live in Hispanic America . Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure —of Argentina , Bolivia (co-official with 36 indigenous languages), Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , Cuba , Dominican Republic , Ecuador , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua , Panama , Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní ), Peru (co-official with Quechua , Aymara , and "the other indigenous languages"), Puerto Rico (co-official with English), Uruguay , and Venezuela . Spanish language has
8532-403: The media, formal speech, and everyday life remains the local Cantonese because of their colonial and linguistic history. While Standard Mandarin is now the medium of instruction in schools throughout China, it still has yet to gain traction as a common language among the local population in areas where Mandarin dialects are not native. In these regions, people may be either diglossic or speak
8640-581: The medial, vowel and coda are combined as a final . Not all combinations occur. For example, Standard Chinese (based on the Beijing dialect) has about 1,200 distinct syllables. Phonological features that are generally shared by the Mandarin dialects include: The maximal inventory of initials of a Mandarin dialect is as follows, with bracketed pinyin spellings given for those present in the standard language: Most Mandarin dialects have three medial glides, /j/ , /w/ and /ɥ/ (spelled i , u and ü in pinyin), though their incidence varies. The medial /w/ ,
8748-463: The merger of retroflex sounds (zh, ch, sh, r) with the alveolar series (z, c, s), frequent mergers of the "neutral tone" with a word's original tone, and absence of erhua . Code-switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien is common, as the majority of the population continues to also speak the latter as a native language. Mandarin is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English , Malay , and Tamil . Historically, it
8856-411: The modern standard language as but not as Guānhuà . Linguists use the term "Mandarin" to refer to the diverse group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, which Chinese linguists call Guānhuà . The alternative term Běifānghuà ( 北方话 ; 北方話 ; 'Northern dialects'), is used less and less among Chinese linguists. By extension, the term "Old Mandarin" or "Early Mandarin"
8964-531: The mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese varieties, with great internal diversity, particularly in Fujian . However, the varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in pronunciation , vocabulary , and grammar , and many Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible. Most of northeast China , except for Liaoning , did not receive significant settlements by Han Chinese until
9072-734: The northwest of the African mainland. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands traces its origins back to the Castilian conquest in the 15th century , and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas, which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish. The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as
9180-686: The other six are Wu , Gan , and Xiang in central China and Min , Hakka , and Yue on the southeast coast. The Language Atlas of China (1987) distinguishes three further groups: Jin (split from Mandarin), Huizhou in the Huizhou region of Anhui and Zhejiang , and Pinghua in Guangxi and Yunnan . After the fall of the Northern Song (959–1126) and during the reign of the Jin (1115–1234) and Yuan (Mongol) dynasties in northern China,
9288-533: The population. Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla. Spanish also has a presence in the education system of the country (through either selected education centers implementing Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, or the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education). In Western Sahara , formerly Spanish Sahara ,
9396-456: The president's signature; bills introduced in the Senate must, in turn, be approved by the Chamber of Deputies for their submission to the president. The Senate must introduce any changes to federal revenue sharing policies, ratify international treaties, approve changes to constitutional or federal criminal laws, as well as confirm or impeach presidential nominees to the cabinet, the judiciary,
9504-467: The proportion understanding the standard rose from 41% to 90% over the same period. This standard language is now used in education, the media, and formal occasions in both mainland China and Taiwan , as well as among the Chinese community of Singapore . However, in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world , namely Hong Kong and Macau , the standard form of Chinese used in education,
9612-514: The republic is ex officio president of the Senate, with a casting vote in the event of a tie. In practice, the provisional president presides over the chamber most of the time. The Senate must obtain quorum to deliberate, this being an absolute majority. It has the power to approve bills passed by the Chamber of Deputies , call for joint sessions with the lower house or special sessions with experts and interested parties, and submit bills for
9720-501: The same time, and the dialects in those areas similarly closely resemble their relatives in the core Mandarin area. The Southwest was settled early, but the population fell dramatically for obscure reasons in the 13th century, and did not recover until the 17th century. The dialects in this area are now relatively uniform. However, long-established cities even very close to Beijing , such as Tianjin , Baoding , Shenyang , and Dalian , have markedly different dialects. Standard Mandarin
9828-399: The second-place party receiving the third seat. Historically, senators were indirectly elected to nine-year terms by each provincial legislature. These provisions were abolished in the 1994 constitutional amendment, and the first direct elections to the Senate took effect in 2001. Currently one-third of the members are elected every two years; there are no term limits. The vice president of
9936-442: The southeast coast, few Mandarin speakers engaged in overseas emigration until the late 20th century, but there are now significant communities of them in cities across the world. Most Han Chinese living in northern and southwestern China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The North China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over a wide area in northern China. In contrast,
10044-641: The standard language with a notable accent. However, since the start of the 21st century, there has been an effort of mass education in Standard Mandarin Chinese and discouragement of local language usage by the Chinese government in order to erase these regional differences. From an official point of view, the mainland Chinese and the Taiwanese governments maintain their own forms of the standard under different names. The codified forms of both Pǔtōnghuà and Guóyǔ base their phonology on
10152-530: The teaching of proper pronunciation. Although the resulting Academies for Correct Pronunciation ( 正音書院 ; Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn ) were short-lived, the decree did spawn a number of textbooks that give some insight into the ideal pronunciation. Common features included: As the last two of these features indicate, this language was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. This form remained prestigious long after
10260-415: The term castellano to define the official language of the whole of Spain, in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. "the 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
10368-537: The term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Occitan word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin * hispaniolus ('of Hispania'). Hispania was the Roman name for the entire Iberian Peninsula . There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal suggested that
10476-444: The theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal , local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos , and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo , where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century. In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese , and, according to some authors,
10584-640: The third most used language on the Internet , after English and Chinese. Spanish is the official language of Spain . Upon the emergence of the Castilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred. Hard policies imposing
10692-606: The two were not separated. Zhou Zhenhe and You Rujie include the New Xiang dialects within Southwestern Mandarin, treating only the more conservative Old Xiang dialects as a separate group. The Huizhou dialects have features of both Mandarin and Wu, and have been assigned to one or other of these groups or treated as separate by various authors. Li Rong and the Language Atlas of China treated it as
10800-715: The wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of their speakers. Speakers of forms of Mandarin other than the standard typically refer to the variety they speak by a geographic name—for example the Sichuan dialect and the Hebei dialect or Northeastern dialect , all being regarded as distinct from the standard language, with which they may not share much mutual intelligibility. The hundreds of modern local varieties of Chinese developed from regional variants of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese . Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been recognized. Aside from Mandarin,
10908-416: The written standard by written vernacular Chinese , which was based on northern dialects. A parallel priority was the definition of a standard national language ( traditional Chinese : 國語 ; simplified Chinese : 国语 ; pinyin : Guóyǔ ; Wade–Giles : Kuo²-yü³ ). After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation ,
11016-689: Was developed in the cities of Toledo , in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid , from the 1570s. The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages , including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida ). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o —which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in
11124-622: Was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages ). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista , and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus , much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic -derived words, make up around 8% of the language today). The written standard for this new language
11232-713: Was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h- , still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects, it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and neighboring Romance languages, there are many f -/ h - doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, though fondo means "bottom", while hondo means "deep"); additionally, hacer ("to make")
11340-610: Was greatly valued. For example, 翼 ( yì ; 'wing') is unambiguous in written Chinese, but has over 75 homophones in Standard Chinese . The literary language was less appropriate for documents that were meant to be performed or recited, such as plays or stories. From at least the Yuan dynasty plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels such as Water Margin , on down to
11448-597: Was raised from two to three following the 1994 amendment of the Argentine Constitution as well as the addition of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires' senators. Those changes took effect following the May 14, 1995, general elections . Senators are elected to six-year terms by direct election on a provincial basis, with the party with the most votes being awarded two of the province's senate seats and
11556-462: Was revoked by Michel Temer after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff . In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during the Spanish colonial period . Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in
11664-658: Was seldom used by the Chinese Singaporean community , which primarily spoke the Southern Chinese languages of Hokkien , Teochew , Cantonese , or Hakka . The launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979 by the government prioritized the language over traditional vernaculars in an attempt to create a common ethnic language and foster closer connections to China. This has led to a significant increase and presence of Mandarin usage in
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