Spanish as a
first language is used worldwide by around 360 million people.
Countries using Spanish include Spain, Cuba, Latin American
countries and even some parts of the United States.
Spanish as a
second language is spoken by a further 420 million people.
Thus, Spanish is in the ranks with Mandarin-Chinese, English
and Hindi as the world's most widely spoken languages.
Spanish is also
spoken in other regions over the world. This is due to colonial
times, when the Spanish set up colonies in foreign parts
of the globe. Some of these places include Andorra, Belize,
Morocco, The Dutch Antilles, the Philippines, Trinidad and
Tobago, West Sahara, as well as the British colony in Gibraltar,
situated in Spain. Here in Gibraltar, Spanish is even the
official language, along with English.
Modern Spanish
is part of the Romance languages. Besides Spanish, the languages
forming part of this group that exist to this day include
Portuguese (also Brazilian Portuguese), French, Italian,
Romanian (including the Moldavian dialect), Catalan and
Galician.
