Spanish language

Spanish is an Iberian Romance language, and the third or fourth most spoken language on the planet. It is spoken as a first language by about 352 million people, or by 417 million including non-native speakers (according to 1999 estimates). The majority of Spanish speakers live in Latin America.

“Spanish” or “Castilian”

As well as 'Spanish' or español, the language is also commonly referred to as 'Castilian' or castellano.

See Names given to the Spanish language for further information.

History

The Spanish language was developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Basque and Arabic, in the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año) and diphthongation of breve E/O from vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo); similar phenomena can be found in most Romance languages as well.

By the 16th century the consonantal system of Castilian Spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from some neighbouring Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Catalan):

• The initial /f/, that had evolved into a vacillating /h/, was lost in most words (although this etymological h- has been preserved in spelling)
• The voiced labiodental fricative /v/ (that was written 'u' or 'v') merged with the bilabial oclusive /b/ (written 'b'). Contemporary Spanish written 'b,v' do not correspond to different phonemes.
• The voiced alveolar fricative /z/ (that was written 's' between vowels) merged with the voiceless /s/ (that was written 's', or 'ss' between vowels), now written 's' everywhere.
• Voiced alveolar affricate /dz/ (that was written 'z') merged with the voiceless /ts/ (that was written 'ç,ce,ci'), and then /ts/ evolved into the interdental /T/, now written 'z,ce,ci'. But in Andalucia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with /s/ as well. Notice that the 'ç' or 'cedilla' was in its origin a Spanish letter.
• The voiced postalveolar fricative /Z/ (that was written 'j,ge,gi') merged with the voiceless /S/ (that was written 'x', as in 'Quixote'), and then /S/ evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound /x/, now written 'j,ge,gi'.

The consonantal system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Judaeo-Spanish, the language spoken by the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

The language was brought to the Americas, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marianas, Palau and the Philippines, by the Spanish colonization since 16th century.

In the Americas its usage was continued by the descendants of the Spaniards, whether by the large number of Creoles or by what had then become the Mestizo majority.

The Catholic church preached the natives in selected local languages like Guarani, Quechua and Aymara in the Americas, or Tagalog in the Philippines, rather than Spanish, to keep them apart of the direct influence of the Spaniards.

After the independence processes throught the Spanish colonies, the new ruling elites extended their Spanish to the whole population to strengthen national unity.

In the Philippines, this process did not occur for several reasons; the population of Spanish-Filipino mestizos never rose above 1% of the Philippine population, the number of Spaniards was just as dismal and accounted for even less of a percentage than did the mestizos, following the Spanish-American War the small number of Spaniards present in the country eventually retreated, and ultimately at the culmination of the Philippine-American War English was declared an official language, with Spanish being downgraded or phased out, ceasing to be an official language in 1973. Quite simply, there were just not enough Spaniards left, or even Spanish-Filipino mestizos in the country to promulgate the use of their language.

In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. In the Marianas, the Spanish language was retained until the Pacific War.

Classification

Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European.

Geographic distribution

Spanish is one of the official languages of the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations. Also, Spanish is an official language (and the most important language) in 20 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela .

Spanish is also spoken in Andorra, Belize, Canada, Gibraltar, Israel, northern Morocco, Netherlands Antilles, Philippines, United States of America, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey (as Judaeo-Spanish) and Western Sahara.

Variations

There are important variations in dialect among the various regions of Spain and Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the North Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or laismo of this dialect is deprecated).

Pronunciation

In the Americas, the first Spaniards to settle brought some of their regionalisms with them. Today distinct accents are found in the different nations of the Americas. Typical of Latin America is seseo. The European Castilian phoneme /T/ (interdental voiceless fricative, SAMPA phonetic scheme used) (as in ciento, caza) does not exist in American Spanish; it combined with /s/ (as in siento, casa).

Traditionally Spanish had a phoneme /L/, a palatal lateral, written ll. It was lost in most of the Americas (with the exception of bilingual areas of Quechua and other indigenous languages that have this sound in their inventories), but now it is also being lost in Spain (also with the exception of bilingual areas of Catalan and other languages that have preserved this sound in their inventories). In many Spanish-speaking regions, the palatal lateral /L/ has merged with the palatal fricative /j\/ (usually written y), and this merged phoneme is pronounced in a variety of ways. This phenomenon is called yeísmo. In most of the area where yeísmo is present, the phoneme is pronounced just as /j\/. In the area around the Río de la Plata (Argentina, Uruguay) this phoneme is pronounced as a postalveolar fricative, voiceless or weakly voiced (similar to /S/ or /Z/); in other places it is pronounced like /j/ (although this is almost universally regarded as incorrect).

Spanish sound library Link http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#

Grammatical differences

Second person (background)

Spanish has two second person singular pronouns tú and usted. Tú is informal (for example, used with friends) and usted is formal (for example, used with older people).

Second person plural

In Castilian Spanish the plural of tú is vosotros and the plural of usted is ustedes. In Latin America both the plural of tú and usted are ustedes. This means that speaking to a group of friends a Spaniard will use vosotros and a Latin American will use ustedes.

Second person singular

There is wide variation as when tú and usted can be used. For example, in most of Colombia, tú is very rarely used and seen almost as offensive, so even close friends become usted. In non-educated variants, sumercé is used instead of usted. It comes from su merced, which is the same root of usted (plural: sumercés, from sus mercedes), and therefore, it uses the same tense as usted. In Cuba, on the other hand, usted is seldom used, and tú is preferred.

Voseo

Roughly a third of Latin American speakers of Spanish replace the singular pronoun tú by vos. This also affects verb conjugations are related to the form associated with the plural vosotros. When irregular verbs are observed it is obvious that vos conjugations are related to the vosotros forms.

Examples:

• 'You speak'

Traditional Spanish - tú hablas

Argentina and Central America - vos hablás

Chile - tú hablái, vos hablái

Colombia - usted habla, sumercé habla

Maracaibo, Venezuela - vos habláis

Origin - vosotros habláis

• 'That you lose' (perder is an irregular verb)

Traditional Spanish - que tú pierdas

Argentina - que vos pierdas

Central America - que vos perdás

Chile - que tú perdái, que vos perdái

Colombia - que usted pierda, que sumercé pierda

Maracaibo: que vos perdáis

Origin - que vosotros perdáis

• 'Come'

Traditional Spanish - ven tú

Argentina, Central America and Maracaibo - vení vos

Chile - ven tú, ven vos

Colombia - venga usted, venga sumercé

Origin - venid vosotros

Using vos instead of tú is called voseo. This word is also used when only conjugations are modified: tú subís (instead of tú subes) is voseo. Voseo occurs in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, most of Bolivia, a small part of Peru, Ecuador, parts of Colombia, Maracaibo (Venezuela), Central America and Chiapas (Mexico).

Voseo is informal in most countries, but in Argentina is the only form for second person singular, used by cultivated speakers and writers, in television, publicity, and even in translations from other languages.

Verb tenses

In Spain “I saw you yesterday” is said te he visto ayer, and in Latin America it is te vi ayer. The book “Who stole my cheese” was translated in Spain as “Quién se ha robado mi queso”. In traditional Spanish (i.e. in Latin America) it should have been “Quién se robó mi queso”.

Conversely, in most parts “I have been to Europe” is said yo he ido a Europa, but in Argentina it is said yo fui a Europa.

Mutual comprehension

The different dialects and accents do not severely block cross-understanding among the educated. The basilects have diverged more. As an example, early sound films, were dubbed into one version for the entire Spanish-speaking market. (Disney Pictures used educated Puerto Rican speakers). Currently, non-Spanish (usually Hollywood) productions are dubbed separately into each of the major accents, but productions from another Spanish-language country are never dubbed. The popularity of telenovelas and Latin American music familiarize the speakers with other varieties of Spanish.

Grammar

Many people think that Spanish is regulated by the RAE (Real Academia Española). Actually, languages cannot be regulated, but RAE, in association with twenty-one other national language academies, exercises a conservative influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar guides and style guides.

The verb

Spanish verbs are conjugated in three moods: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. Each verb has three non-finite forms: an infinitive, a gerund, and a passive participle. Verbs are divided into three conjugations, which can be identified by looking at the infinitive ending, one of "-ar", "-er", or "-ir".

The indicative mood is traditionally said to have seven tenses. Though it is sometimes difficult, each one can be more or less compared to one of the English tenses:

hablar = to speak

Simple tenses:

• presente (present) -- "Hablo" = "I speak, I am speaking"
• pretérito imperfecto (past progressive) -- "Hablaba" = "I used to speak, I was speaking"
• pretérito indefinido (simple past) -- "Hablé" = "I spoke"
• futuro (future) -- "Hablaré" = "I will speak"
• condicional (conditional) -- "Hablaría" = "I would speak" (considered by some its own mood)

Compound tenses:

• pretérito perfecto (present perfect) -- "He hablado" = "I have spoken"
• pretérito pluscuamperfecto (past perfect) -- "Había hablado" = "I had spoken"
• pretérito anterior (past perfect) -- "(cuando) hube hablado" = "(when) I had spoken"

There exist two more compound tenses:

• futuro anterior (future perfect) -- "Habré hablado" = "I will have spoken"
• condicional anterior (conditional perfect) -- "Habría hablado" = "I would have spoken"

The last five of the above are compound tenses; they are conjugated using the passive participle and a form of the verb haber (roughly like the use of auxiliary "have" in English). The compound progressive forms, which use the gerund or active participle with a form of estar (like English "to be" + "-ing": for example "Estoy hablando" = "I am speaking") are not considered part of the paradigm, but follow the same concept.

The pretérito anterior is almost never used. In addition to showing futurity, the future tense can show an uncertain resolution or hope; for example, De alguna forma me escaparé = "Somehow (I hope) I will escape", "Somehow I will manage to escape". In Spain, the future tense often indicates likelihood: ¿Qué hora es? Serán las tres, = "What time is it?" "It's about three (but I haven't checked)."

The subjunctive mood has a separate conjugation table with fewer tenses. It is used to express the speaker's opinion or judgement, such as, doubts, possibilities, emotions, and events which may or may not occur.

hablar = to speak

• presente del subjuntivo (present subjunctive) -- "Hable" = "I speak, I am speaking, I will speak"
• imperfecto del subjuntivo (imperfect subjunctive) -- "Hablara" or "Hablase" = "I used to speak, I was speaking, I spoke, I would speak"
• perfecto del subjuntivo (present perfect subjunctive) -- "Haya hablado" = "I have spoken, I spoke"
• pluscuamperfecto del subjuntivo (past perfect subjunctive) -- "Hubiera hablado" or "Hubiese hablado" = "I had spoken, I spoke"

The present subjunctive is formed from the stem of the first person present indicative of a verb. So for an irregular verb like salir with the first person salgo, the present subjunctive would be salga, not sala. The use of the imperfect subjunctive is determined by tense of the main verb of a sentence, not necessarily the tense of the subjunctive verb itself. The "-ra" form is always correct, whereas the "-se" form is only correct in certain types of clauses.

The future tense of the subjunctive is found mostly in old literature or legalese and is even misused in conversations by confusing it with the past tense (often due to the similarity of its charataristic suffix, "-ere", as opposed to one of the suffixes of the past tense, "-era"). Most Spanish speakers go on without ever knowing or realizing the existence of the future subjunctive.

The imperative mood is formed mostly like the subjunctive, with the exception of the singular positive informal command:

comer = to eat

• "¡come!" (tú) -- Eat! (informal singular)
• "¡coma!" (usted) -- Eat! (formal singular)
• "¡comed!" (vosotros) -- Eat! (informal plural, Spain)
• "¡coman!" (ustedes) -- Eat! (formal plural, all dialects, and informal plural, Latin America)
• "¡no comas!" (tú) -- Don't eat! (informal singular)
• "¡no coma!" (usted) -- Don't eat! (formal singular)
• "¡no comáis!" (vosotros) -- Don't eat! (informal plural, Spain)
• "¡no coman!" (ustedes) -- Don't eat! (formal plural, all dialects, and informal plural, Latin America)

Spanish verbs describing motion tend to emphasize direction instead of manner of motion. According to the pertinent classification, this makes Spanish a verb-framed language. This contrasts with English, where verbs tend to emphasize manner, and leave the direction of motion to helper particles, prepositions, or adverbs. Compare the English "we drove away" with the Spanish "nos fuimos en coche" (literally, "we left by car").

The noun

Gender

All Spanish nouns have one of two genders: masculine or inclusive and feminine or exclusive. Most adjectives and pronouns, and all articles indicate the gender of the noun they reference.

Nouns can be grouped in the following categories:

1. Applied to persons and most domesticated animals
   1. Declinable nouns. The feminine form adds "a" or replaces the final vowel by "a". Examples: el profesor/la profesora, el presidente/la presidenta, el perro/la perra.
   2. Invariant nouns (in Spanish, "sustantivos de género común"). The feminine form and the masculine form are identical: el artista/la artista, el testigo/la testigo, el estudiante/la estudiante.
   3. Nouns with a unique gramatical gender. The noun has a fixed gender, regardless of the sex of the person it describes: el personaje, la visita.
2. Applied to wild and some domesticated animals
   1. Nouns where the two sexes of animals have different words to describe them: el león/la leonesa, el toro/la vaca.
   2. Epicene nouns. The gender of the noun is fixed and sex is indicated by "macho" (male) or "hembra" (female). Examples: la jirafa macho, la jirafa hembra, el rinoceronte macho, el rinoceronte hembra.
3. Applied to things
   1. Masculine or inclusive: el pan.
   2. Feminine or exclusive: la leche.
   3. Vacillant (called "sustantivos ambiguos" in Spanish). Either gender is acceptable: el azúcar/la azúcar, el esperma/la esperma.
   4. In some cases the same word can take two genders. In that case it is better to say that we have two words. El capital = funds, la capital = capital city.

(Note: Some nouns ending in "e" that refer to persons are declinable, e.g., "presidente/a", whereas others are invariant, e.g., "estudiante". More often than not, nouns that refer to positions that are traditionally held by men are declinable.)

Number

There are two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. Plural is indicated adding "s" or "es".

• The inclusive (or masculine) gender includes both sexes in the plural: los niños = the children.
• The feminine gender is exclusive in the plural: las niñas = the girls.

Masculine gender is indicated in the plural with phrases such as los niños varones, los niños hombres = the boys (note that "hombre" is "male person", not "man"). Feminists and their satirists try to reverse the pattern with phrases such as las personas humanas jóvenes varones = the young male human people.

The adjective

The feminine gender for most adjectives is formed in the same way as it is for declinable nouns, although most adjectives ending in a consonant or "e" remain unchanged: hombre superior, mujer superior (compare with el superior/la superiora); hombre importante, mujer importante (compare with el jefe, la jefa).

Sounds

Since Spanish has many allophones it is important here to differentiate between phonemes (written here /between slashes/) and allophones [between brackets].

(SAMPA phonetic scheme used)

(*) The sounds of the intervocalic spanish g (lago), b (nube) and d (nido) are not represented by the symbols G, B, D. Those sounds are not even fricatives, but rather aproximants. See [1] - Spanish only)

Lexical stress

Spanish has a phonemic stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word camino (with penultimate stress) means "I walk" or "road" whereas caminó (with final stress) means "he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish pronounces all syllables at a more or less constant tempo, it is said to be a syllable-timed language.

Writing system

Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with a few special letters: the vowels can be marked with an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) to mark stress when it doesn't follow the normal pattern or to differentiate otherwise equally spelt words (see below), diaeresis u (ü) after g to indicate a [gw] or [gu] pronunciation, and n with tilde (ñ) to indicate the palatal nasal [J]. Traditionally, the digraphs ch, ll and rr were considered separate letters, but this is no longer the case.

Written Spanish precedes exclamatory and interrogative clauses with inverted question and exclamation marks, examples: ¿Qué dices? (What do you mean?) ¡No es verdad! (That's not true!). It is one of the few languages whose written form does so.

Written Spanish also marks unequivocally stress though a series of othographic rules. The default stress is on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than "n" or "s" and on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, "n" or "s". Words that don't follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel.

A word with final stress is called aguda; a word with penultimate stress is called llana or grave; a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third last syllable) is called esdrújula; and a word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier is called sobresdrújula in which case there is a secondary stress towards the end of the word. All esdrújula and sobresdrújula words have written accent marks.

Also, in a number of cases, homonyms are distinguished with written accents on the stressed (or only) syllable: for example, te (object case of "you") and té ("tea"); se (third person reflexive) and sé ("I know" or imperative "Be"); como ("like" or "I eat") and cómo ("how?").

Spanish is nicknamed la lengua de Cervantes (the language of Cervantes, the author of the Quixote).

Examples of Spanish

• Spanish: castellano /kaste"Lano/ (kaah-stay-YAAH-no); español /espa"Jol/ (eh-spaahn-YOLE)
• hello: hola /"ola/ (OH-la)
• goodbye: adiós [a"Djos] (ah-THYOSE)
• please: por favor [por fa"Bor] ([pore faah-VORE)
• thank you: gracias /"grasjas/ (GRAAH-syahs)
• sorry: perdón [per"Don] (pare-THONE)
• that one: ése /"ese/ (essay) (masculine); ésa /"esa/ (essa) (feminine); eso /"eso/ (EH-sew) (object)
• how much?: cuánto /"kwanto/ (KWAHN-to)
• English: inglés [iN"gles] (ing-GLESS)
• yes: sí /"si/ (see)
• no: no /"no/ (no)
• I don't understand: No comprendo [nokom"prendo]; No entiendo [noen"tjendo]
• where's the bathroom?: ¿Dónde está el baño? ["dondes"tael"BaJo] (DOAN-day es-TAH el BA-nyo)
• generic toast: salud [sa"luD] (sah-LOOTHE)
• Do you speak English?: ¿Habla usted inglés? ["aBlaws"teDiN"gles] (AH-blah oos-TED ing-GLESS)

Reference

• Most Commonly Spoken Languages

See also

• Spanish Royal Academy of Language
• Spanish in the United States
• Spanish proverbs
• Spanish language poets
• Spanish Creole
• Common phrases in different languages
• Papiamento, Chavacano, Spanglish, Yanito
• Rock en español
• Spanish verbs

External links

• Official page of the RAE (in Spanish)
• DRAE, Dictionary of the RAE (in Spanish, of course)
• Ethnologue report for Spanish
• Resources for Learning Spanish through Music
• Online Lessons & Audio Learning
• Spanish Blogs & Weblog Directory
• Learn and study Spanish directory
• Spanish Language & Linguistics Website , by Ian Mackenzie
• Spanish Wikibook
• Spanish dictionary
• Reasons to Learn Spanish - Why Learn Spanish?
• Usage of Tenses
• PDF: A history of the Spanish language
• Basic Spanish Words + Translator
• Spanish - English Dictionary : from Webster's Rosetta Edition.

(ratón = [r:a"ton]), after /n/ (enredo = [en"r:eDo]), /l/ (alrededor = [alr:eDe"Dor]), or /s/ (israelita = [ir\r:ae"lita], see /s/ above).

(5) In Chile in colloquial speech it produces gemination before /t/ (carta = ["kat:a]), /n/ (carne = ["kan:e]) and /l/ (perla = ["pel:a]). In the Colombian Caribe, it produces gemination before almost every consonant (barco = ["bak:o], árbol = ["ab:ol], arde = ["ad:e, etc.), and is replaced by [?] in final position (saber = [sa"Be?]). In Cuba and Puerto Rico it is replaced by [l] (puerco = ["pwelko]).

(*) The sounds of the intervocalic spanish g (lago), b (nube) and d (nido) are not represented by the symbols G, B, D. Those sounds are not even fricatives, but rather aproximants. See [2] - Spanish only)

Lexical stress

Spanish has a phonemic stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word camino (with penultimate stress) means "I walk" or "road" whereas caminó (with final stress) means "he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish pronounces all syllables at a more or less constant tempo, it is said to be a syllable-timed language.

Writing system

Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with a few special letters: the vowels can be marked with an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) to mark stress when it doesn't follow the normal pattern or to differentiate otherwise equally spelt words (see below), diaeresis u (ü) after g to indicate a [gw] or [gu] pronunciation, and n with tilde (ñ) to indicate the palatal nasal [J]. Traditionally, the digraphs ch, ll and rr were considered separate letters, but this is no longer the case.

Written Spanish precedes exclamatory and interrogative clauses with inverted question and exclamation marks, examples: ¿Qué dices? (What do you mean?) ¡No es verdad! (That's not true!). It is one of the few languages whose written form does so.

Written Spanish also marks unequivocally stress though a series of othographic rules. The default stress is on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than "n" or "s" and on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, "n" or "s". Words that don't follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel.

A word with final stress is called aguda; a word with penultimate stress is called llana or grave; a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third last syllable) is called esdrújula; and a word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier is called sobresdrújula in which case there is a secondary stress towards the end of the word. All esdrújula and sobresdrújula words have written accent marks.

Also, in a number of cases, homonyms are distinguished with written accents on the stressed (or only) syllable: for example, te (object case of "you") and té ("tea"); se (third person reflexive) and sé ("I know" or imperative "Be"); como ("like" or "I eat") and cómo ("how?").

Spanish is nicknamed la lengua de Cervantes (the language of Cervantes, the author of the Quixote).

Examples of Spanish

• Spanish: castellano /kaste"Lano/ (kaah-stay-YAAH-no); español /espa"Jol/ (eh-spaahn-YOLE)
• hello: hola /"ola/ (OH-la)
• goodbye: adiós [a"Djos] (ah-THYOSE)
• please: por favor [por fa"Bor] ([pore faah-VORE)
• thank you: gracias /"grasjas/ (GRAAH-syahs)
• sorry: perdón [per"Don] (pare-THONE)
• that one: ése /"ese/ (essay) (masculine); ésa /"esa/ (essa) (feminine); eso /"eso/ (EH-sew) (object)
• how much?: cuánto /"kwanto/ (KWAHN-to)
• English: inglés [iN"gles] (ing-GLESS)
• yes: sí /"si/ (see)
• no: no /"no/ (no)
• I don't understand: No comprendo [nokom"prendo]; No entiendo [noen"tjendo]
• where's the bathroom?: ¿Dónde está el baño? ["dondes"tael"BaJo] (DOAN-day es-TAH el BA-nyo)
• generic toast: salud [sa"luD] (sah-LOOTHE)
• Do you speak English?: ¿Habla usted inglés? ["aBlaws"teDiN"gles] (AH-blah oos-TED ing-GLESS)

Reference

• Most Commonly Spoken Languages

See also

• Spanish Royal Academy of Language
• Spanish in the United States
• Spanish proverbs
• Spanish language poets
• Spanish Creole
• Common phrases in different languages
• Papiamento, Chavacano, Spanglish, Yanito
• Rock en español
• Spanish verbs

External links

• Official page of the RAE (in Spanish)
• DRAE, Dictionary of the RAE (in Spanish, of course)
• Ethnologue report for Spanish
• Resources for Learning Spanish through Music
• Online Lessons & Audio Learning
• Spanish Blogs & Weblog Directory
• Learn and study Spanish directory
• Spanish Language & Linguistics Website , by Ian Mackenzie
• Spanish Wikibook
• Spanish dictionary
• Reasons to Learn Spanish - Why Learn Spanish?
• Usage of Tenses
• PDF: A history of the Spanish language
• Basic Spanish Words + Translator
• Spanish - English Dictionary : from Webster's Rosetta Edition.