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119-897: The Essequibo River ( Spanish : Río Esequibo ; originally called by Alonso de Ojeda ; Río Dulce ) is the largest river in Guyana , and the largest river between the Orinoco and Amazon . Rising in the Acarai Mountains near the Brazil–Guyana border , the Essequibo flows to the north for 1,014 km (630 mi) through forest and savanna into the Atlantic Ocean. It has a total drainage basin of 156,828 km (60,552 sq mi) and an average discharge of 5,650 m/s (200,000 cu ft/s). Territory near

238-585: A rift or a graben that permitted the water to flow into the Rio Branco. By the early 19th century it had dried up completely. Geologic research suggests that, thousands of years ago, conditions existed for the formation of a lake. Sedimentary rock in this region, known as the Takutu Basin or the Takutu Formation , dates back to the late Paleozoic , roughly 250 million years ago, and

357-604: 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. Lake Parime Lake Parime or Lake Parima

476-414: A completely revised edition of Mercator's Atlas in 1608, it included a map of South America featuring Lake Parime with the majority of the lake located south of the equator, and with Manoa again along the northern shore, although not quite so far east. Cartographer Guillaume Delisle was among the first to cast doubts on the lake's existence. In a map of Guyana printed in 1730, he included an outline of

595-603: 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

714-562: A distance of at least 80 km north. This could be caused by calculation errors or other mistakes. Possibly he followed a different branch of the river more in the South of Guyana. To further investigate this, additional research is necessary, preferably in the original reports of Robert Hermann Schomburgk from his expedition in 1837/38. For the accurate determination of the headwaters and their proper classification, further extensive geological and hydrological studies are necessary. In 2018, with

833-522: 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

952-482: 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

1071-691: A force inland along the banks of the Essequibo River, reaching what he wrongly believed to be Lake Parime . The next year Kemys, in command of the Darling , continued the exploration of the Guiana coast and the Essequibo River. The first European settlement in Guyana was built by the Dutch along the lower part of the Essequibo in 1615. The Dutch colony of Essequibo was founded in 1616 and located in

1190-412: A graduate of Yale and a law student, published an account of his travels in Guiana in which he investigated evidence for the existence of El Dorado and Lake Parima. The book described a journey to Guiana he had made in 1819–20 during which he questioned a "Charibe chief" named Mahanerwa about the existence of the lake. Mahanerwa drew a map in the sand, and stated that a large body of water lay southeast of

1309-689: A journey up the Caura River and the Paragua River . According to Humboldt: Arimuicaipi, an Indian of the nation of the Ipurucotos, went down the Rio Carony , and by his false narrations inflamed the imagination of the Spanish colonists. He showed them in the southern sky the Clouds of Magellan , the whitish light of which he said was the reflection of the argentiferous rocks situate in

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1428-815: A length of from two hundred to two hundred and fifty miles, and a breadth of about fifty miles. Out of it flow the rivers Parima and Takutu into the Rio Negro and the Amazon; the Cuyuni , the Siparuni , and the Mazaruni , into the Essequibo; and the Paragua into the Orinoco. A single step backwards in our geographical knowledge is much to be regretted, and all who take interest in that science ought to aid in preventing

1547-478: 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

1666-565: A long way from the small flakes of gold of the Manaus, to the [golden] roofs of the town of Manoa, & that there is nonetheless far from the glitter of this metal, ripped from the waters of the Yquiari, to the fable of Parime gold; one cannot deny that on the one hand greed & concern of Europeans who wanted by any force to find what they were looking for, and on the other, clever liars & exaggerating Indians [who], interested in sending away

1785-692: A mission to the West Indies for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales , sailed his 200-ton ship, the Lion's Claw , some 320 kilometres (200 mi) up the Amazon, then took a party of canoes up the Oyapock River in search of Lake Parime, negotiating thirty-two rapids and traveling about 160 km (100 mi) before they ran out of food and had to turn back. In March 1617, Raleigh and Kemys returned to Venezuela in search of Lake Parime and El Dorado. The expedition failed to uncover any new evidence of

1904-508: 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

2023-567: A remarkably accurate hand-drawn map of his route from the coast through the interior of Northern Brazil. La Condamine then gave the map to the French geographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville . Lake Amucu was incorporated into his Carte de l'Amerique Meridionale in 1748. In 1740, Don Manuel Centurion, Governor of Santo Tomé de Guayana de Angostura del Orinoco in Venezuela, hearing a report from an Indian regarding Lake Parima, embarked on

2142-617: 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

2261-531: 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

2380-649: A small lake as a source of the Takutu River , designating it only "Lac". Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland considered Lake Amucu in the North Rupununi , which had been visited by the German surgeon Nicholas Horstman, to be the Lake Parime described by Sir Walter Raleigh. In his Relation historique du voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent (1825), Humboldt found that Lake Amucu

2499-409: A stereoscope to interpret the physical features and the geology of the region prior to making four expeditions into the field to check their observations. On Expedition III they explored the entire Essequibo basin. They travelled separately in two outboard-powered canoes, each team comprising a geologist and five Amerindians. Starting at Kanashen, they canoed up all the major eastward flowing tributaries:

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2618-581: A surgeon from Hildesheim, Germany , who was secretly commissioned by the Dutch Governor of Guiana ( Laurens Storm van 's Gravesande ), traveled up the Essequibo River accompanied by two Dutch soldiers and four Indian guides. In April 1741 one of the Indian guides returned reporting that in 1740 Horstman had crossed over to the Rio Branco and descended it to its confluence with the Rio Negro. Rumors at

2737-673: A total distance of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km). A Guyanese-German expedition in Guyana in April and May 2013 followed the course of the Sipu River to detect the still unknown headwaters of the Essequibo. It was sponsored by the French-German TV Company ARTE and was organized by Duane De Freitas (Rupununi Trails) and the film production team of Marion Pöllmann and Rainer Bergomaz (Blue Paw Artists). The responsible scientist for remote sensing , geodesy and mapping

2856-546: 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

2975-416: 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

3094-505: Is a legendary lake located in South America . It was reputedly the location of the fabled city of El Dorado , also known as Manoa, much sought-after by European explorers. Repeated attempts to find the lake failed to confirm its existence, and it was dismissed as a myth along with the city. The search for Lake Parime led explorers to map the rivers and other features of southern Venezuela, northern Brazil, and southwestern Guyana before

3213-413: 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

3332-673: 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

3451-454: 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

3570-761: 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

3689-780: 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

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3808-813: 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

3927-498: 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

4046-429: Is the site of numerous pictograms and petroglyphs dating to between 9000 and 12000 years ago or less than 4000 years ago. Designs 10 metres (33 ft) above the ground on the sheer exterior face of the rock were probably painted by people standing in canoes on the surface of the now-vanished lake. Gold, which was reported to be washed up on the shores of the lake, was most likely carried by streams and rivers out of

4165-578: 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

4284-749: The Amazon River is joined by the Rio Negro. They followed the Negro upstream to where it is joined by the Rio Ireng that forms the border between Brazil and Guyana . After following the Ireng for a few tens of kilometers they hovered about 40 miles across the North Savannas of Guyana to the Rupununi River, which they followed to its confluence with the Essequibo River at Apoteri. The Essequibo

4403-665: The Potaro River ) along the route of the Essequibo, and its 20-kilometre (12 mi) wide estuary is dotted with numerous small islands. It enters the Atlantic 21 kilometres (13 mi) from Georgetown , the capital city of Guyana. The river features Murrays Fall , Pot Falls, Kumaka Falls, and Waraputa Falls. Its many tributaries include the Rupununi , Potaro, Mazaruni , Siparuni , Kuyuwini , Konawaruk and Cuyuni rivers. For over 30 kilometres (19 mi) from its mouth,

4522-568: 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)

4641-508: 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

4760-820: 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

4879-618: The 19th century ended the missionary settlements. At this time, Britain needed to have a colony, besides Trinidad, to serve the large trade sailboats on their large travel trading route around South America. Venezuela claims that the Essequibo is the true border between it and Guyana, claiming all territory west of it. The boundary was set between Venezuela and Guyana's then colonial power, Great Britain in 1899 through an arbitration proceeding. A letter written by Venezuela's legal counsel, named partner Severo Mallet-Prevost of New York City law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle alleged that

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4998-404: 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,

5117-595: 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

5236-480: The Amazon and the Orinoco and made geographical, geological and botanical reports. He described the coast of Guiana in detail in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596) and says that indigenous people of Guiana traveled inland by canoe and land passages towards a large body of water on the shores of which he supposed was located Manoa, Golden City of El Dorado. One of these rivers leading south into

5355-415: The Atlantic coast via the Amazon River , charting its course and making scientific observations. In his subsequent account of this journey, Abbreviated Relation of a Journey made in the Interior of South America (1745), Condamine discussed the existence of Lake Parime, stating that although the Indians had extracted "small flakes" of gold from the rivers, these stories had been greatly exaggerated to concoct

5474-410: The Dutch colonial era. Sloth Island is an eco-tourism island in the river. The main tributaries from the mouth: tributary tributary (km) (km) (m/s) The river has a very rich fauna. More than 300 fish species are known from the Essequibo basin , including almost 60 endemics . This may be an underestimate of the true diversity, as parts of the basin are poorly known. For example, surveys of

5593-523: 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

5712-426: The Essequibo' followed the main channel and investigated tributaries until they reached the watershed. There, 20 metres away from the Brazilian border, they logged what is now acknowledged to be the furthest source of the Essequibo River. GPS co-ordinates: N1° 24.5243' , W59° 16.5107' The team then began their world-first descent of the Essequibo River. The team of nine paddled back to Kanashan, aka Gunns Strip, where

5831-577: 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

5950-416: The Kuyuwini, Kassikaityu, Kamoa and Sipu rivers, as well as the Chadikar River which on the basis of its north-south trend and a larger flow of water is considered to be the source of the Essiquibo rather than the eastward flowing Sipu River. In his memoirs Richard Johnson records how he had a line cut through the forest to a small hill near the Chodikar headwaters so that he could stand on the border defined by

6069-576: The Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, Schomburgk dismissed Van Heuvel's propositions: Mr. Van Heuvel visited the coast regions of Guiana without penetrating into the interior, and his conclusions respecting this lake rest only upon what he learned from some Indians, whose language he did not understand, and upon the maps of Sanson , D'Anville and others of the last century; and although fully acquainted with Humboldt's writings, "who," he says, "effaced without sufficient grounds that wondrous lake," Mr. Van Heuvel has fully restored it, and gives to it

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6188-424: 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

6307-434: The Orinoco. Van Heuvel superimposed this drawing onto John Arrowsmith 's 1840 map of British Guyana , claiming that much of this body of water, some 250 miles (400 km) in length, was likely a "temporary inundation " but that "water must fill the savannah " for half the year at least and probably more. Van Heuvel considered Lake Parima and Lake Cassipa to be identical. In his 1848 edition of Raleigh's The Discovery of

6426-417: The Portuguese authorities, and that they had "entered into the Portuguese service". In August 1743 Charles-Marie de La Condamine met and conversed with Horstman, who appeared to be living freely with the Portuguese in Pará , and Horstman gave him his fragmentary diary, titled "Journey which I made to the Imaginary Lake of Parima, or of Gold, in the Year 1739." Horstman states that on May 8, 1740, We entered

6545-443: 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,

6664-485: The Russian and British judges on the tribunal had acted improperly and granted the lion's share of the disputed territory to Britain due to a political deal between Russia and the United Kingdom. As a result, Venezuela has revived its claim to the disputed territory. In August 1995, at Omai mine there was an acid spill in the river by the Canadian gold mining company Cambior . An estimated 4 million cubic metres (140,000,000 cu ft) of waste laced with cyanide

6783-411: The Second Voyage Thereto , published in 1606. How much of Raleigh's work is true and how much is fabricated remains unclear: His account indicates that he only succeeded in navigating up the Orinoco as far as Angostura (what is now Ciudad Bolívar ), and did not come close to the supposed location of Lake Parime. Raleigh says of the lake: I have been assured by such of the Spaniards as have seen Manoa,

6902-400: 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

7021-502: 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

7140-622: The Wai Wai members returned home and Romel Shoni and Anthony Shushu joined the expedition. This team, accompanied later further downriver by Fay James ( Macushi people), then paddled the remaining distance to the mouth of the Essequibo where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. This expedition lasted a total of 10 weeks. Team members: Laura Bingham (expedition leader), Ness Knight, Pip Stewart, Peiman Zekavat (film director), Jon Williams (cameraman), Nereus Chekema, Nigel Isaacs, Jackson (Elijah) Marawanaru, Aron Marawanaru, James Suse, Fay James, Romel Shoni, and Anthony Shushu. Spanish language This

7259-477: The White Sea, ought to be within three or four days' walk from this place. On asking the Indians whether there was such a place or not, and describing that the water was fresh and good to drink, an old Indian, who appeared to be about sixty, said that there was such a place, and that he had been there ... [but] probably the Lake Parima they talked of was the Amazons ... In crossing the plain at the most advantageous place you are above ankle-deep in water for three hours;

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7378-399: 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

7497-515: The basin connected with the Atlantic via the Takutu Graben . The geologic history of the Takutu Graben is known to have one phase of volcanic activity and three sedimentary depositional phases. Rifting due to tectonic plate divergence took place "in a lake or delta environment in the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic periods, between 200 million and one hundred and fifty million years ago." Starting around 66,000 years ago, sea level rise and more humid conditions created flooded zones north of

7616-566: 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

7735-460: The confluence of the Rio Negro and the Solimões River , in what is now Roraima. Seasonal flooding was probably misidentified as a lake by some observers. The drainage system of the Rupununi Savannahs is unable to carry a high volume of surface runoff and as a result, most rivers flood in the wet season . In a few places ground water drainage is impeded by clay, and ponds and lakes persist for several months. Roraima's well-known Pedra Pintada

7854-446: 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

7973-404: 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

8092-415: The dissemination of such absurdities. In spite of well-publicized evidence disproving the existence of Lake Parime, the 1853 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica described the lake under the entry for "America:" The Tucano and Piratapuia tribes of the upper Rio Negro tell a story of the Nhamini-wi (the "narrow path"). The Nhamini-wi was a pre-Columbian road that traveled from the mountains in

8211-413: The exploration of the Guianas in earnest in 1594 and described the city of Manoa, which he believed to be the legendary city of El Dorado , as being located on Lake Parime far up the Orinoco River in Venezuela . Much of his exploration is documented in his books The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana , published first in 1596, and The Discovery of Guiana, and the Journal of

8330-450: 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

8449-466: 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

8568-425: The geographical apparatus serving to adorn the fable of El Dorado, the lake Parima, which ... reflected the image of so many sumptuous edifices, has been religiously preserved by geographers. In 1812 Charles Waterton independently came to the same conclusion and proposed that seasonal flooding of the Rupununi savannah could be Lake Parime. Waterton wrote: According to the new map of South America, Lake Parima, or

8687-604: 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

8806-487: The hovercraft were laid down at intervals ahead of the expedition, by boat on the Rio Negro, by plane in the North Savannas and by float-plane on the Essequibo. As there were no reliable maps of the route, navigation in Guyana was done by 1:60,000 scale aerial photographs and by scouting rapids in a motorised inflatable dinghy ahead of the CC7. This was the first expedition to travel by river, land, and sea from Manaus to Georgetown,

8925-461: The imperial city of Guiana, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, that for the greatness, for the riches, and for the excellent seat, it far exceedeth any of the world, at least of so much of the world as is known to the Spanish nation. It is founded upon a lake of salt water of 200 leagues long, like unto Mare Caspium . According to Raleigh, the lake itself was the source of the gold possessed by

9044-587: The interior of Guiana was the Essequibo . Kemys wrote that the Indians called this river "brother of the Orenoque [Orinoco]" and that this river of Essequibo, or Devoritia, lyeth Southerly into the land, and from the mouth of it unto the head, they pass in twenty days: then taking their provision they carry it on their shoulders one days journey: afterwards they return for their canoas, and bear them likewise to

9163-661: The lake and ended with the death of Raleigh's son Walter and the suicide of Captain Kemys. Between 1689 and 1691 the Jesuit priest Samuel Fritz traveled along the Amazon and its tributaries, preparing a detailed map at the request of the Royal Audiencia of Quito . Fritz was skeptical of the existence of a golden city, but thought that Lake Parime probably did exist, and included it prominently in his map . In November 1739, Nicholas Horstman (sometimes spelled "Hortsman"),

9282-616: The lake more to the southeast of the Orinoco River and north of the Amazon River , often situating it south of the mountains that border Venezuela , Guiana, and Brazil . However, by the late 18th century, failure to confirm the lake's existence led to its removal from most maps. A 1792 map of the Rio Branco by José Joaquin Freire shows no sign of a lake, although there is now a Parimé River . In early 1611 Sir Thomas Roe , on

9401-621: The lake's existence was definitively disproved in the early 19th century. Some explorers proposed that the seasonal flooding of the Rupununi savannah may have been misidentified as a lake. Recent geological investigations suggest that a lake may have existed in northern Brazil, but that it dried up some time in the 18th century. Both Manoa ( Arawak language ) and Parime ( Carib language ) are believed to mean "big lake". Two other mythical lakes, Lake Xarayes or Xaraies (sometimes called Lake Eupana), and Lake Cassipa, are often depicted on early maps of South America. Sir Walter Raleigh began

9520-480: The lake, in which we spent this entire day, and the next likewise, and after having passed an island, again dragging the canoe and also the cargo, we entered the great lake, called by the Indians Amucu, in which we proceeded constantly over reeds, with which the lake is entirely filled, and it has two islands in the middle... The water is black in the lake and white in the river. Horstman also gave La Condamine

9639-477: The lake, then replaced it with the notation: "It is in these regions that most authors place the Lake Parime and the City of Manoa of El Dorado." Delisle reluctantly included a lake in southwestern Guyana on several subsequent maps, but did not name it or the city of Manoa. The lake was printed on maps throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and up until the early 19th century. Some cartographers and naturalists moved

9758-516: The lake. So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the White Sea. Its existence at best seems doubtful; some affirm that there is such a place, and others deny it." In 1840 explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk visited Pirara on the shores of Lake Amucu. He stated that the flooded Rupununi savannah which linked the Amazon and Essequibo River drainages was probably Lake Parime: The geological structure of this region leaves but little doubt that it

9877-556: 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

9996-549: 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,

10115-694: 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

10234-468: The middle of the Laguna Parima. This was describing in a very poetical manner the splendour of the micaceous and talcy slates of his country! During his expedition, "several hundred persons perished miserably" and Centurion failed to confirm the existence of either a lake or a city. Between June and September 1743 the scientist and geographer Charles de La Condamine traveled from Quito to

10353-458: The myth of a golden city: The Manaus were neighbors of a large lake, & even several Great Lakes; because they are very frequent in a low country [which is] subject to flooding. The Manaus pulled gold from the Yquiari & seized small flakes: these are real facts, which were used in exaggeration, giving rise to the fable of the city of Manoa & Golden Lake. If we find that there is still

10472-734: 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

10591-437: The people of Manoa: Most of the gold which they made in plates and images was not severed from the stone, but on the lake of Manoa, and in a multitude of other rivers, they gathered it in grains of perfect gold and in pieces as big as small stones. In 1596 Raleigh sent Lieutenant Lawrence Kemys back to Guyana, to gather more information about the lake and the golden city. Kemys mapped the location of Amerindian tribes between

10710-533: 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 ,

10829-570: The region of the Essequibo River that later became part of British Guiana . The Dutch colonists remained on friendly terms with the Native American peoples of the area, establishing riverside sugarcane and tobacco plantations . The Dutch deterred many attacks from the British, French and Spanish for nearly two centuries, though they would later cede their territory to the British in 1814. The Independence war of Venezuela beginning in

10948-630: The remainder of the way is dry, the ground gently rising. As the lower parts of this spacious plain put on somewhat the appearance of a lake during the periodical rains, it is not improbable but that this is the place which hath given rise to the supposed existence of the famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado ... On asking the old officer if there were such a place as Lake Parima, or El Dorado, he replied, he looked upon it as imaginary altogether. "I have been above forty years," added he, "in Portuguese Guiana, but have never yet met with anybody who has seen

11067-574: The river is argued over by Venezuela and Guyana. The river is administered by Guyana after being previously colonized by the British . Historically, Venezuela has claimed the Essequibo River as their most eastern border, though in practice it was under Dutch control . The river runs through the Guianan moist forests ecoregion. The average annual rainfall in the catchment area is 2,174 mm. There are many rapids and waterfalls (e.g., Kaieteur Falls on

11186-411: The river's channel is divided by the large flat and fertile islands of Leguan , about 28 square kilometres (11 sq mi), Wakenaam , about 44 square kilometres (17 sq mi), and Hogg Island , about 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi). Fort Island is off the eastern side of Hogg Island . Fort Zeelandia is located on the island, and was the seat of government of the country during

11305-455: The road eastward and ended up in Roraima , Brazil , in the plains north of Boa Vista . Upon examining the region Brazilian geologists Gert Woeltje and Frederico Guimarães Cruz along with Roland Stevenson found that on the hillsides encircling the area, a horizontal line can be seen at a uniform level approximately 120 metres (390 ft) above sea level. He proposed that this line represents

11424-594: The side of a lake, which the Iaos call Roponowini, the Charibes, Parime: which is of such bigness, that they know no difference between it and the main sea. There be infinite numbers of canoas in this lake, and (as I suppose) it is no other than that, whereon Manoa standeth. As a result of Raleigh's work, maps began to appear depicting El Dorado and Lake Parime. One of the first was the elder Jodocus Hondius ' Nieuwe Caerte van het Wonderbaer ende Goudrycke Landt Guiana , which

11543-579: The source at 0°41`northern latitude, while not giving a longitude. In 1908 the German-American ichthyologist Carl H. Eigenmann traveled on river Essequibo and confluent Potaro. He described 336 fish species in these rivers. As part of a British Technical Assistance project "Operation El Dorado", geologists Dr. Jevan P. Berrangé and Dr. Richard L. Johnson made the first topographic and geological maps of Guyana south of latitude 4 degrees north. They examined 1:60,000 scale panchromatic aerial photos with

11662-480: The support of the First Lady, Sandra Granger , a group consisting of five Wai-wai , two English, one Iranian, and one South African located the furthest source of the Essequibo River. They built upon information and experience from the above 2013 Guyanese German expedition alongside topographical maps, local Wai Wai knowledge, GPS, and machetes to follow the Sipu River to its source. The multinational team 'Running

11781-415: 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

11900-610: 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

12019-444: 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,

12138-768: 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

12257-531: The time held that Horstman had planted the Dutch flag on the shores of Lake Parime; however, later explorers determined that he had in fact visited Lake Amucu on the North Rupununi . Nothing further was heard until late November 1742, when the other guides returned, reporting that Horstman and one of the Dutch soldiers had spent four months in a village on the Pará River , where they were discovered and arrested by

12376-546: The two systems. The first European discovery was by the ships of Juan de Esquivel , deputy of Don Diego Columbus , son of Christopher Columbus in 1498. The Essequibo River is named after Esquivel. In 1499, Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda explored the mouths of the Orinoco and allegedly were the first Europeans to explore the Essequibo. Alonso de Ojeda called it "Rio Dulce" which means Sweet River in Spanish . In 1596 Lawrence Kemys , serving as second-in-command of Walter Raleigh 's British expedition to Guiana, led

12495-464: The uncomfortable visitors, might alter & deface [the facts] to the point of making them unrecognizable. The history of the discoveries of the new world provides more than one example of similar metamorphoses. During his journey La Condamine met and conversed with Nicholas Horstman and determined that he had found Lake Amucu in approximately the location of the reputed Lake Parime. On the map of his own travels included in his book , La Condamine placed

12614-511: The upper Mazaruni River found 36–39 species (variation in number due to taxonomy ), of which 13–25% still were undescribed in 2013. At least 24 fish species are restricted to Mazaruni River alone. During floods the headwaters of the Branco River (a part of the Amazon basin ) and those of the Essequibo are connected, allowing a level of exchange in the aquatic fauna such as fish between

12733-409: The water level of an extinct lake that existed until recent times. Researchers who studied it found that the lake's previous diameter measured 400 kilometres (250 mi) and its area was about 80,000 square kilometres (31,000 sq mi). In the early 14th century, this giant lake began to drain because of epeirogenic movement . In June 1690, a massive earthquake opened a bedrock fault , forming

12852-434: The watershed, and when he told his line-cutting team that they were looking south across the forest into Brazil his foreman disagreed on the basis that "there are lots of nightclubs in Brazil." After mapping the tributaries the two teams joined forces and travelled down the Essequibo to its confluence with the Rupununi river at Apoteri. On February 26, 1971, an expedition set off by hovercraft from Manaus in Brazil where

12971-581: The west where the "house of the night" was located. The trail began at axpeko-dixtara , or the "lake of milk" in the east. In 1977 artist and explorer Roland Stevenson found ruins north of the Rio Negro in the Uaupés River basin that are believed to be the remnants of the Nhamini-wi. Led by indigenous guides Stevenson found old and collapsed stone walls that were dotted every twenty kilometers along an east-to-west line. Stevenson followed traces of

13090-723: Was Prof. Dr. Martin Oczipka from the University of Applied Sciences Dresden (HTW Dresden). The expedition was only realizable with the support of the Guyanese government and the indigenous tribe of Wai-Wai-Amerindian settling in the very south of Guyana. With the support of the Wai-Wai, satellite maps, topographic maps, GPS and a small drone, the source valley was discovered in 2013. The coordinate determined by expedition teams in 2013 deviates by approximately 40`, which corresponds to

13209-636: 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

13328-622: 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

13447-713: 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")

13566-464: Was in the same vicinity as the Lake Parime (or Roponowini) described to Raleigh, and was also a "large inland sea" when flooded; he noted that: All fables have some real foundation; that of El Dorado resembles those myths of antiquity ... No man in Europe believes any longer in the wealth of Guiana and the ... town of Manoa and its palaces covered with plates of massy gold have long since disappeared; but

13685-593: Was once the bed of an inland lake which ... broke its barrier, forcing for its waters a path to the Atlantic . May we not connect with the former existence of this inland sea the fable of the Lake Parima and the El Dorado? Thousands of years may have elapsed ... still the tradition of the Lake Parima and the El Dorado survived ... transmitted from father to son. In 1844 the American author Jacob Adrien van Heuvel,

13804-494: Was published in 1598. Hondius' map depicts an elongated Lake Parime south of the Orinoco River, with the majority of the lake positioned south of the equator, and with Manoa on the northern shore, towards the eastern half of the lake. Manoa is noted as "the greatest city in the entire world". Hondius' map was subsequently copied by Theodore de Bry and published in his popular Grands Voyages in 1599. When Hondius published

13923-539: Was released into the river causing much destruction. The spill was preceded by a smaller sodium cyanide spill in May that killed hundreds of fish. Sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society the German researcher Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1804-1865) investigated the river Essequibo and followed its course to the south-west, while Sipu River flows to a westerly direction. He specified the coordinates of

14042-462: 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

14161-824: Was then traversed down to its mouth near Georgetown . The primary purpose of the expedition was filming for the BBC series " The World About Us " with the episode "The Forbidden Route" broadcast in November 1971. The secondary purpose was to demonstrate the abilities of a new type of small hovercraft, the Cushioncraft CC7 , thereby promoting sales of this British invention. The expedition team comprised Bob Saunders (BBC producer and team leader), Tommy Tomlinson (CC7 pilot), Jevan Berrangé (navigator and logistics consultant), Len Chrisophers (hovercraft engineer), Peter Smith (sound recordist), and Tony Morrison (cameraman). Fuel dumps for

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