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97-600: The original idea was conceived in 1922 by Vicente Clavel, director of Cervantes publishing house in Barcelona, as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes and boost the sales of books. It was first celebrated on 7 October 1926, Cervantes' birthday, before being moved to his death date, 23 April, in 1930. The celebration continues with great popularity in Catalonia, where it is referred to as Sant Jordi's Day or The Day of Books and Roses . In 1995, UNESCO decided that

194-833: A street festival on the Sunday closest to 26 April. In 2020, the 15th Annual Kensington Day of the Book Festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic . World Book Day is also celebrated in India on 23 April every year. It is commemorated in many parts of India to encourage & aware of people for reading & publishing books. Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( / s ɜːr ˈ v æ n t iː z , - t ɪ z / sur- VAN -teez, -⁠tiz ; Spanish: [miˈɣel de θeɾˈβantes saaˈβeðɾa] ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS )

291-639: A Mateo Vázquez . Viaje del Parnaso , or Journey to Parnassus , is his most ambitious verse work, an allegory that consists largely of reviews of contemporary poets. He published a number of dramatic works, including ten extant full-length plays: He also wrote eight short farces ( entremeses ): These plays and short farces, except for Trato de Argel and La Numancia , made up Ocho Comedias y ocho entreméses nuevos, nunca representados ( Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes, Never Before Performed ), which appeared in 1615. The dates and order of composition of Cervantes's short farces are unknown. Faithful to

388-636: A clash with Easter . In the United Kingdom and Ireland , World Book Day is a charity event in March , held annually on the first Thursday and coinciding with the release of special editions . The annual celebration on 23 April is World Book Night, an event organized by independent charity The Reading Agency . In Kensington , Maryland, the International Day of the Book is celebrated with

485-774: A common way for Catholics to gain spiritual merit. It is generally accepted Cervantes died on 22 April 1616 (NS; the Gregorian calendar had superseded the Julian in 1582 in Spain and some other countries); the symptoms described, including intense thirst, correspond to diabetes , then untreatable. In accordance with his will, Cervantes was buried in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians , in central Madrid. His remains went missing when moved during rebuilding work at

582-603: 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

679-472: A conventional pastoral romance that received little contemporary notice; despite promising to write a sequel, he never did so. Aside from these, and some poems, by 1605, Cervantes had not been published for 20 years. In Don Quixote , he challenged a form of literature that had been a favourite for more than a century, explicitly stating his purpose was to undermine 'vain and empty' chivalric romances . His portrayal of real life, and use of everyday speech in

776-724: A culture of reading in all ages and sharing UNESCO's values. UNESCO adopted the 31c/Resolution 29, in 2001, establishing the World Book Capital programme and naming Madrid as the first WBC city in 2001. The advisory committee is composed of UNESCO, the International Publishers Association , the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions , the International Authors Forum and

873-522: 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

970-482: 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

1067-457: A literary context was considered innovative, and proved instantly popular. First published in January 1605, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza featured in masquerades held to celebrate the birth of Philip IV on 8 April. He finally achieved a degree of financial security, while its popularity led to demands for a sequel. In the foreword to his 1613 work, Novelas ejemplares , dedicated to his patron,

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1164-478: 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

1261-514: A long poem, the Viaje del Parnaso ( Journey to Parnassus ); and Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses ( Eight Plays and Eight Interludes ). The novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda ( The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda ), was published posthumously in 1616. The cave of Medrano (also known as the casa de Medrano) in Argamasilla de Alba, which has been known since the beginning of

1358-559: A narrative tradition that includes Homer , Dante , Defoe , Dickens , Balzac , and Joyce . Sigmund Freud claimed he learnt Spanish to read Cervantes in the original; he particularly admired The Dialogue of the Dogs ( El coloquio de los perros ), from Exemplary Tales , in which two dogs, Cipión and Berganza, share their stories; as one talks, the other listens, occasionally making comments. From 1871 to 1881, Freud and his close friend Eduard Silberstein wrote letters to each other, using

1455-740: A position in the household of Giulio Acquaviva , an Italian bishop who spent 1568 to 1569 in Madrid, and was appointed Cardinal in 1570. When the 1570 to 1573 Ottoman–Venetian War began, Spain formed part of the Holy League , a coalition formed to support the Venetian Republic . Possibly seeing an opportunity to have his arrest warrant rescinded, Cervantes went to Naples , then part of the Crown of Aragon . The military commander in Naples

1552-508: 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

1649-514: A public ceremony in June 2015. No authenticated portrait of Cervantes is known to exist. The one most often associated with the author is attributed to Juan de Jáuregui , but both names were added at a later date. The El Greco painting in the Museo del Prado , known as Retrato de un caballero desconocido ( Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman ), is cited as 'possibly' depicting Cervantes, but there

1746-617: 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

1843-531: 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

1940-402: A small boat used for assaulting enemy galleys. The Marquesa lost 40 dead, and 120 wounded, including Cervantes, who received three separate wounds, two in the chest, and another that rendered his left arm useless, this last wound is the reason why he later was called " El Manco de Lepanto " (English: "The one-handed man of Lepanto", "The one-armed man of Lepanto"), a title that followed him for

2037-416: 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

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2134-666: 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 is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of

2231-454: 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

2328-761: 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

2425-417: Is no evidence for this. It has been suggested that the portrait The Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest , also by El Greco, may possibly depict Cervantes. However, The Prado itself, while mentioning, in passing, that "specific names have been proposed for the sitter, including that of Cervantes", and even "that the painting could be a self-portrait [of El Greco]", goes on to state that "Without doubt,

2522-503: Is no wide following for the view that Cervantes had converso origins. Cuban writer Roberto Echevarría asserts that the claims of Cervantes' converso origins are based on "very flimsy evidence", namely Cervantes' lack of social and financial progression in a time when such rewards were denied to most Spaniards regardless of social group. It is generally accepted Miguel de Cervantes was born around 29 September 1547, in Alcalá de Henares . He

2619-732: Is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn, 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

2716-844: 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

2813-813: 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

2910-535: Is the world's largest digital archive of Spanish-language historical and literary works. As listed in Complete Works of Miguel de Cervantes : Cervantes is generally considered a mediocre poet; few of his poems survive. Some appear in La Galatea , while he also wrote Dos Canciones à la Armada Invencible . His sonnets include Al Túmulo del Rey Felipe en Sevilla , Canto de Calíope and Epístola

3007-678: Is yet to be proven and no evidence has been published on the matter. By 1580, Spain was occupied with integrating Portugal , and suppressing the Dutch Revolt , while the Ottomans were at war with Persia ; the two sides agreed a truce, leading to an improvement of relations. After almost five years, and four escape attempts, in 1580 Cervantes was set free by the Trinitarians , a religious charity that specialised in ransoming Christian captives , and returned to Madrid. While Cervantes

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3104-459: The Julian calendar ; Shakespeare actually died 10 days after Cervantes died, on 3 May of the Gregorian calendar.) The World Book Capital (WBC) is an initiative of UNESCO which recognises cities for promoting books and fostering reading for a year starting on April 23, World Book and Copyright Day. Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital carry out activities with the aim of encouraging

3201-580: The Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto . This landmark sea battle, the most significant naval conflict since the Roman Battle of Actium (32 B.C.), stopped Muslim incursion into Europe, and for the first time allowed European Christians to feel that they were not to be overrun by Islam. According to his own account, although suffering from malaria, Cervantes was given command of a 12-man skiff ,

3298-516: 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)

3395-568: 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

3492-548: 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 is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which

3589-480: 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 is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout

3686-432: The 17th century, and according to the tradition of Argamasilla de Alba, was the prison of Don Miguel de Cervantes and the place where he conceived and began to write his famous work " Don Quixote de la Mancha ". Despite his subsequent renown, much of Cervantes' life is uncertain, including his name, background and what he looked like. Although he signed himself Cerbantes , his printers used Cervantes , which became

3783-404: 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,

3880-595: 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

3977-630: The Civic Hospital at Messina , Sicily. Although he returned to service in July 1572 in the Tercio de Figueroa , records show his chest wounds were still not completely healed in February 1573. Based mainly in Naples, he joined expeditions to Corfu and Navarino , and took part in the 1573 occupation of Tunis and La Goulette , which were recaptured by the Ottomans in 1574. Despite Lepanto,

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4074-523: The Count of Lemos, Cervantes promises to produce one, but was pre-empted by an unauthorised version published in 1614, published under the name Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda . It is possible this delay was deliberate, to ensure support from his publisher and reading public; Cervantes finally produced the second part of Don Quixote in 1615. The two parts of Don Quixote are different in focus, but similar in their clarity of prose and their realism. The first

4171-654: 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

4268-705: 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

4365-537: The International Booksellers Federation. it's about the worlds book day and not about the deaths it's all about the promoting to all about reading, readers and importance of reading books In Spain , Book Day began to be celebrated since 1926 every October 7, the date that Miguel de Cervantes was believed to have been born. But, it was considered more appropriate to celebrate this day in a more pleasant season for walking and browsing

4462-540: 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

4559-545: 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 the term castellano to define the official language of

4656-502: 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

4753-495: The World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on 23 April, as the date is also the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega , as well as that of the birth or death of several other prominent authors. (In a historical coincidence, Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same date —23 April 1616—but not on the same day , as at the time, Spain used the Gregorian calendar and England used

4850-457: 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

4947-462: The affairs of his recently deceased friend and minor poet, Pedro Laínez. There he met Catalina de Salazar y Palacios ( c.  1566 – 1626 ), eldest daughter of the widowed Catalina de Palacios; her husband died leaving only debts, but the elder Catalina owned some land of her own. This may be why in December 1584, Cervantes married her daughter, then between 15 and 18 years old. The first use of

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5044-465: The books in the open-air. Spring was much better than fall. So in 1930 King Alfonso XIII approved the change of celebration of the Book Day on April 23, the supposed date of the death of Cervantes. In Sweden , the day is known as Världsbokdagen ("World Book Day") and the copyright aspect is seldom mentioned. Normally celebrated on 23 April, it was moved to 13 April in the year 2000 and 2011 to avoid

5141-684: 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

5238-401: The colonies appear in his work. From 1596 to 1600, he lived primarily in Seville, then returned to Madrid in 1606, where he remained for the rest of his life. In later years, he received some financial support from the Count of Lemos , although he was not included in the retinue Lemos took to Naples when appointed Viceroy in 1608. In July 1613, he joined the Third Order Franciscans , then

5335-501: The common form. In later life, Cervantes used Saavedra , the name of a distant relative, rather than the more usual Cortinas , after his mother. Historian Luce López-Baralt claimed that it comes from the word shaibedraa that in Arabic dialect means "one-handed", his nickname during his captivity. Another area of dispute is his religious background. It has been suggested that not only Cervantes' father but also his mother may have been New Christians . Anthony Cascardi writes, "While

5432-446: 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

5529-480: The convent in 1673, and in 2014, historian Fernando de Prado launched a project to rediscover them. In January 2015, Francisco Etxeberria, the forensic anthropologist leading the search, reported the discovery of caskets containing bone fragments, and part of a board, with the letters 'M.C.'. Based on evidence of injuries suffered at Lepanto, on 17 March 2015 they were confirmed as belonging to Cervantes along with his wife and others. They were formally reburied at

5626-404: 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

5723-403: The fact that Spanish is often referred to as "the language of Cervantes". In 1569, Cervantes was forced to leave Spain and move to Rome , where he worked in the household of a cardinal . In 1570, he enlisted in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment, and was badly wounded at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571 and lost the use of his left arm and hand. He served as a soldier until 1575, when he

5820-480: The family disappears until 1564 when he filed a lawsuit in Seville . Seville was then in the midst of an economic boom, and Rodrigo managed rented accommodation for his elder brother Andres, who was a junior magistrate. It is contended that Cervantes attended the Jesuit college in Seville, where one of the teachers was Jesuit playwright Pedro Pablo Acevedo, who moved there in 1561 from Córdoba. However, legal records show his father got into debt once more and in 1566

5917-450: The family might have had some claim to nobility they often found themselves in financial straits. Moreover, they may have been of converso origin, that is, converts to Catholicism of Jewish ancestry. In the Spain of Cervantes' days, this meant living under clouds of official suspicion and social mistrust, with far more limited opportunities than were enjoyed by members of the 'Old Christian' caste." According to Charles D. Presberg, there

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6014-443: The family moved to Madrid . In the 19th century, a biographer discovered an arrest warrant for a Miguel de Cervantes, dated 15 September 1569, who was charged with wounding Antonio de Sigura in a duel. Although disputed at the time, largely on the grounds such behaviour was unworthy of so great an author, it is now accepted as the most likely reason for Cervantes leaving Madrid. He eventually made his way to Rome, where he found

6111-450: 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

6208-466: 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

6305-454: 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

6402-416: 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 the language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in

6499-423: 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,

6596-628: 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

6693-455: The most convincing suggestion has connected this figure with the Second Marquis of Montemayor, Juan de Silva y de Ribera, a contemporary of El Greco who was appointed military commander of the Alcázar in Toledo by Philip II and Chief Notary to the Crown, a position that would explain the solemn gesture of the hand, depicted in the act of taking an oath." The portrait by Luis de Madrazo , at the Biblioteca Nacional de España , painted in 1859,

6790-423: The name Cervantes Saavedra appears in 1586, on documents related to their marriage. Shortly before this, his illegitimate daughter Isabel was born in November. Her mother, Ana Franca, was the wife of a Madrid innkeeper; they apparently concealed it from her husband, but Cervantes acknowledged paternity. When Ana Franca died in 1598, he asked his sister Magdalena to take care of his daughter. In 1587, Cervantes

6887-498: 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

6984-654: 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 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

7081-493: The pen names Cipión and Berganza. In 1905, the tricentennial of the publication of Don Quixote was marked with celebrations in Spain; the 400th anniversary of his death in 2016, saw the production of Cervantina , a celebration of his plays by the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico in Madrid. Man of La Mancha , the 1965 musical, was loosely based on Cervantes' life. The Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library ,

7178-533: 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 ,

7275-564: The rest of his life. His actions at Lepanto were a source of pride to the end of his life, while Don John approved no less than four separate pay increases for him. In Journey to Parnassus , published two years before his death in 1616, Cervantes claimed to have "lost the movement of the left hand for the glory of the right". As with much else, the extent of his disability is unclear, the only source being Cervantes himself, while commentators cite his habitual tendency to praise himself. However, they were serious enough to earn him six months in

7372-403: The spirit of Lope de Rueda, Cervantes endowed them with novelistic elements, such as simplified plot, the type of descriptions normally associated with a novel, and character development. Cervantes included some of his dramas among the works he was most satisfied with. Spanish language This is an accepted version of this page Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano )

7469-537: 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

7566-444: 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,

7663-640: 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

7760-508: The war overall was an Ottoman victory, and the loss of Tunis a military disaster for Spain. Cervantes returned to Palermo , where he was paid off by the Duke of Sessa , who gave him letters of commendation. In early September 1575, Cervantes and Rodrigo left Naples on the galley Sol ; as they approached Barcelona on 26 September, their ship was captured by Ottoman corsairs , and the brothers taken to Algiers , to be sold as slaves , or – as

7857-585: 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 the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on

7954-638: 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 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

8051-560: Was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote , a work considered as the first modern novel . The novel has been labelled by many well-known authors as the "best book of all time" and the "best and most central work in world literature". Much of his life was spent in relative poverty and obscurity, which led to many of his early works being lost. Despite this, his influence and literary contribution are reflected by

8148-493: Was a resourceful individual with a keen eye for business. When Rodrigo was imprisoned for debt from October 1553 to April 1554, she supported the family on her own. Cervantes' siblings were Andrés (born 1543), Andrea (born 1544), Luisa (born 1546), Rodrigo (born 1550), Magdalena (born 1554) and Juan. They lived in Córdoba until 1556, when his grandfather died. For reasons that are unclear, Rodrigo did not benefit from his will and

8245-654: Was appointed as a government purchasing agent, Commissary of the Royal Galleons in Seville, obtaining wheat and oil for the doomed Spanish Armada . He became a tax collector in 1592 and was briefly jailed for 'irregularities' in his accounts, but quickly released. Several applications for positions in Spanish America were rejected i.e. to the Council of Indies in 1590, though modern critics note images of

8342-433: Was based on his imagination. The image that appears on Spanish euro coins of €0.10, €0.20 and €0.50 is based on a bust, created in 1905. Cervantes claimed to have written over 20 plays, such as El trato de Argel , based on his experiences in captivity. Such works were extremely short-lived, and even Lope de Vega , the best-known playwright of the day, could not live on their proceeds. In 1585, he published La Galatea ,

8439-419: Was captured by Barbary pirates ; after five years in captivity, he was ransomed, and returned to Madrid . His first significant novel, titled La Galatea , was published in 1585, but he continued to work as a purchasing agent, and later as a government tax collector . Part One of Don Quixote was published in 1605, and Part Two in 1615. Other works include the 12 Novelas ejemplares ( Exemplary Novels );

8536-689: 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

8633-622: 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

8730-713: 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")

8827-519: Was in captivity, both Don John and the Duke of Sessa died, depriving him of two potential patrons, while the Spanish economy was in dire straits. This made finding employment difficult; other than a period in 1581 to 1582, when he was employed as an intelligence agent in North Africa, little is known of his movements prior to 1584. In April of that year, Cervantes visited Esquivias , to help arrange

8924-559: Was more comic, and had greater popular appeal. The second part is often considered more sophisticated and complex, with a greater depth of characterisation and philosophical insight. In addition to this, he produced a series of works between 1613 and his death in 1616. They include a collection of tales titled Exemplary Novels . This was followed by Viaje del Parnaso , Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes , and Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda , completed just before his death, and published posthumously in January 1617. Cervantes

9021-549: Was rediscovered by English writers in the mid-18th century. The literary editor John Bowle argued that Cervantes was as significant as any of the Greek and Roman authors then popular, and published an annotated edition in 1781. Now viewed as a significant work, at the time it proved a failure. However, Don Quixote has been translated into all major languages, in 700 editions. Mexican author Carlos Fuentes suggested that Cervantes and his contemporary William Shakespeare form part of

9118-462: 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

9215-561: Was the case of Cervantes and his brother – held for ransom, if this would be more lucrative than their sale as slaves. Rodrigo was ransomed in 1577, but his family could not afford the fee for Cervantes, who was forced to remain. Turkish historian Rasih Nuri İleri found evidence suggesting Cervantes worked on the construction of the Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex , which means he spent at least part of his captivity in Istanbul . This

9312-522: Was the second son of barber-surgeon Rodrigo de Cervantes and his wife, Leonor de Cortinas ( c.  1520–1593 ). Rodrigo came from Córdoba, Andalusia , where his father Juan de Cervantes was an influential lawyer. Rodrigo was frequently in debt, or searching for work, and moved constantly. Leonor came from Arganda del Rey , and died in October 1593, at the age of 73; surviving legal documents indicate she had seven children, could read and write, and

9409-579: Was Álvaro de Sande, a friend of the family, who gave Cervantes a commission in the Tercio of Sicily under the Marqués de Santa Cruz . At some point, he was joined in Naples by his younger brother Rodrigo. In September 1571, Cervantes sailed on board the Marquesa , part of the Holy League fleet under Don John of Austria , illegitimate half brother of Phillip II of Spain ; on 7 October, they defeated

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