Languages Spoken in Spain: Official and Regional

What the rest of the world calls Spanish is, in Spain, more precisely called Castilian (castellano), and it is the only language that is official across the whole country. It is the mother tongue of the great majority of Spaniards and, with nearly 500 million native speakers worldwide, one of the most spoken languages on earth. It is the language of Spain's literature, from Cervantes' Don Quixote to the poetry of Federico García Lorca, and the common tongue that connects every region.

Spain's constitution makes Castilian the official language of the state, while giving several other languages co-official status in their own regions, meaning they are used alongside Castilian in government, schools and the media there. These are fully fledged languages, not dialects.

Catalan is a Romance language spoken by millions in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and, as Valencian, in the Valencia region.

It developed from the Latin brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans and has a long literary tradition, from the medieval classic Tirant lo Blanch to modern writers such as Mercè Rodoreda.

In Barcelona you will hear it everywhere alongside Spanish, and it is a full language, not a dialect of Spanish, with its own grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

Valencian (valencià) is the name used in the Valencia region for the same language as Catalan, and it is co-official there.

Speakers and linguists recognise small differences from the Catalan of Catalonia in pronunciation, vocabulary and spelling, and Valencian has its own strong literary tradition and a distinct regional identity, but the two are varieties of one language rather than separate languages.

Basque, or Euskara, is the most remarkable of Spain's languages, because it is a language isolate: it is not related to Spanish, to any Romance language, or to any other known language in the world.

It was spoken in the region long before Indo European languages such as Latin arrived, which makes it a rare survivor of pre Roman Europe.

It is co-official in the Basque Country and parts of Navarre, and after decades of decline it is now taught in schools and supported by Basque-language media, so the number of speakers is growing again among the young.

Galician (galego) is co-official in Galicia, in the green north-west of Spain.

Like Spanish and Portuguese it developed from the Latin of the Romans, and it is especially close to Portuguese, with which it shares medieval roots; in the Middle Ages it was a celebrated language of poetry.

After a long period in which it was mainly a spoken, rural language, it saw a cultural revival from the 19th century and is today a strong marker of Galician identity.

Two further regional languages survive but without co-official status.

Asturian (also called Bable) is spoken in Asturias, and Aragonese in the Pyrenean valleys of Aragon. Both are distinct Romance languages descended from the Latin of the peninsula, not dialects of Spanish, and both are now endangered, spoken less by younger generations.

Regional programmes, school classes and cultural groups are working to keep them alive, and Asturian in particular has a rich tradition of folk songs and stories.

The languages spoken in Spain start with Castilian Spanish, the only nationwide official language, alongside several co-official regional languages: Catalan (and its Valencian variety), Galician and Basque, plus Aranese Occitan in the Val d'Aran. Basque stands out as a language isolate, unrelated to any other. Asturian and Aragonese survive as smaller, endangered regional languages.

All of this makes Spain a fascinating place to learn Spanish, which SPRACHCAFFE teaches in Barcelona and Málaga.