Spanish Language

language · communication · global

Spoken everywhere. More than 500 million people speak Spanish as their first language, mainly in Spain and countries across Latin America and the Americas. That makes it the second-most spoken native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.

Born from Latin. Spanish evolved from Vulgar Latin, the everyday version of Latin that regular people spoke on the Iberian Peninsula in Europe long ago. It grew into its own language over many centuries in the Kingdom of Castile in northern Spain.

Mexico speaks it most. More native Spanish speakers live in Mexico than anywhere else on Earth, even more than in Spain itself. Spanish spread there and across the Americas when Spanish explorers and settlers arrived hundreds of years ago.

United Nations language. Spanish is one of only six official languages used by the United Nations, meaning it helps people from different countries communicate at the highest levels of world government.

Romance language superstar. Spanish is the most widely spoken language in the entire Romance language family, which includes French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. All of these languages came from Latin but evolved separately.