Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languagesin the world today. Many countries speak spanish as the official language, inluding Spain and most of the countries in Central and South America. In fact there are many spanish speakers in the United States and in Europe as well.

Today spanish is spoken as a first or second language by an estimated one billion people. Additionally speakers of Portuguese and Italian can generally understand much of the language because of the high degree of overlap between the languages.

The Spanish language originally derived from Latin, with influence from Celt, Basque and Arabic languages. Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo). Similar phenomena can be found in other Romance languages.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish language was brought to the Americas, and many pacific islands by Spanish colonization. During this time Spanish became an important language of Politics and Art across western Europe. Gradually it was superceded by French in the 18th century.

In the 20th century, Spanish flourished in parts of the United States, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City, East Los Angeles, Miami and many places in Texas and the American Southwest, that had not been part of the Spanish Empire. As increasing numbers of hispanic immigrants settled in southern states like Arizona and California large areas of Spanish speaking peoples became part of the American cultural landscape.