Aragonese, spoken in the north of the Aragon region, in the Pyrenees. It enjoys legal protection, albeit it's not a co-official language in the region.[14]
Fala: This romance language belonging to the Galician-Portuguese group is spoken by about 6,000 people in the Jálama Valley. It has been declared Bien de interés cultural.[15]
Portuguese has been traditionally spoken by the inhabitants of the following border areas: Cedillo and Herrera de Alcántara (province of Cáceres),[17]La Alamedilla (province of Salamanca, primarily spoken in the place up until the mid-20th century),[18] and Olivenza (small territory in the province of Badajoz claimed by Portugal).
Caló, a mixed language, is spoken by the Spanish Romani communities across the country, with a large concentration in Andalusia and Catalonia, though it seems to be in the process of becoming just a dialect of Spanish. It should not be confused with Romani, the Indo-Aryan language originally spoken by gypsies, which is most probably no longer spoken in Spain.
Spanish itself boasts a substantial internal variation in the country. For example, the Andalusian or Canarian dialects, each with their own subvarieties, some of them being partially closer to the Spanish of the Americas, which they heavily influenced to varying degrees, depending on the region or period and according to different and non-homogeneous migrating or colonisation processes. Despite being a dialect, some Andalusian speakers have attempted to promote Andalusian as a different language independent of Spanish.
Five very localised dialects are of difficult filiation: Fala (a variety mostly ascribed to the Galician-Portuguese group locally spoken in an area of the province of Cáceres sometimes called Valley of Jálama/Xálima, which includes the towns of San Martín de Trevejo, Eljas and Valverde del Fresno); Cantabrian and Extremaduran, two Astur-Leonese dialects also regarded as Spanish dialects; Eonavian, a dialect between Asturian and Galician, closer to the latter according to several linguists; and Benasquese, a Ribagorçan dialect that was formerly classified as Catalan, later as Aragonese, and which is now often regarded as a transitional language of its own. Asturian and Leonese are closely related to the local Mirandese which is spoken on an adjacent territory but over the border into Portugal. Mirandese is recognised and has some local official status.
In terms of the number of speakers and dominance, the most prominent of the languages of Spain is Spanish, spoken by about 99% of Spaniards as a first or second language.[22] According to a 2019 Pew Research survey, the most commonly spoken languages at home other than Spanish were Catalan in 8% of households, Valencian in 4%, Galician in 3% and Basque in 1%.[21] A study in 2016 by the University of Navarra focused on which languages were used most frequently to consume news within a week (using multiple-choice surveys). The response included foreign languages, Spanish and only co-official and protected languages. 95.2% of news was consumed in Spanish and 30.4% in a co-official or protected language.[23] The study reflects that the consumption of protected languages is proportional to their knowledge and that the consumption of foreign-language news is greater than that of regional-language news.
2021 Census data
First language, 2021 census (2 years old or more)[24]
Spanish is official throughout the country; Catalan/Valencian, Galician, Basque, and Aranese Occitan have legal and co-official status in their respective communities and (except Aranese Occitan) are widespread enough to have daily newspapers and significant book publishing and media presence. Catalan and Galician are the main languages used by the respective regional governments and local administrations. Starting in 2023, members of the lower house of the Spanish Parliament were allowed to use Basque, Catalan and Galician in their interventions.[25] Members of the upper house already could use those languages in some specific discussions and initiatives.[26]
In addition to these, there are some protected languages. A protected language does not have co-official status but can be taught in schools as an optional subject, with the possibility of having TV shows in the protected language as well as institutions for that language.
As of 2023, Aragonese is offered as a subject in about 30 schools in the Aragon region, with around 1,300 students.[30] Limited Aragonese-language television content is available on the regional public broadcaster, with shows such as A Escampar la Boira[31] or Charrín Charrán.[32]
Regarding education, the models vary considerably. Some schools in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands guarantee the possibility of an education entirely in the regional language, but most of the schools apply bilingual education with more weight of Catalan.[citation needed] In Galicia, the Galician language is prohibited in certain subjects by law, restricted to a maximum of one-third of education and absent in 92% of the first education of Galician students.[citation needed] In the Valencian Community the existence of Catalan-speaking areas and Spanish-speaking areas generates debates about the presence of the language in education, proposing an equal presence of Valencian (Catalan) and Spanish, which does not conform to any of the linguistic parts.[citation needed]
As for non-official languages, Asturian can be studied as an optional subject, but is only really offered in primary school.[citation needed] Aragonese is de facto not taught due to the lack of teachers, even though there is demand for it in many schools.[citation needed] As for Leonese, Extremaduran, Galician outside Galicia, and Xalimego, they are totally excluded from regional education.[citation needed]
Past languages
Alongside the languages spoken in Spain to the present day, other languages were spoken within the actual borders:
Distribution (assumed) of languages in the Iberian peninsula between 1000~2000 C.E.
↑ The term lenguas españolas appears in the Spanish Constitution, referring to all the languages spoken within Spain (those are Basque, Spanish, Catalan/Valencian, Galician, Asturian, Leonese, etc.).
↑ M. Teresa Turell (2001). Multilingualism in Spain: Sociolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Aspects of Linguistic Minority Groups. Multilingual Matters. p.121. ISBN978-1-85359-491-5.
It is a fact that there are in Spain two equally legal names for designating this language: Valencian, as established by the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Community, and Catalan, recognized in the Statutes of Autonomy of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, and ratified by the Spanish legal system (annex 8) and case law (annex 9).
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