A brief history of Spanish - Ilan Stavans

Trace the history and evolution of the Spanish language, from its origins in the 3rd century BCE to modern day.

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Beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula. This period gave rise to several regional languages in the area that’s now Spain, including Castilian, Catalan, and Galician. One of these would become Spanish— but not for another 1,500 years. Those years tell the origin story of what’s become a global modern language. Ilan Stavans traces the evolution of Spanish.

Lesson by Ilan Stavans, directed by Hernando Bahamon, Globizco Studios.

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[BlckDrgn]

I would think the reason for so little change in so much time and population of this language is because it is pronounced as it's written. So there's very little room for interpretation.

[juanangm]

Just a couple inaccuracies I've found throughout the video, for those who may care:
1:18 The Gothic language didn't become part of German: Gothic was East Germanic as explained in the video, while modern German evolved from West Germanic dialects. The Gothic language simply died.
2:00 Portugal never unified under the rule of the Catholic Kings, and Castilian didn't become a "state" language under their rule. Dynastic union didn't mean true political centralism in Spain until the Bourbons a few centuries later, and Castilian didn't become widely used and known by people like Catalans, Galicians and Basques until very recently in History. Still nowadays millions of Spanish citizens speak a language other than Castilian as their first language. Also the pre dynastic union map erases (part of) the Kingdom of Aragon.

[ourmonarchy]

Just another information you need to know.

I am Moroccan, and our country is very close to Spain, and thus we used to get in touch with Spanish media everyday, as well as Spanish language. The southern part of our country, alongside with the Rif, were Spanish colonies in 20th century, and thus we still use Spanish words like "kuzina", "semana", "adios", "grazias" and "manana" when we speak to other Arabic speakers - which made them confused a lot. We tend to be considered as the Spaniards of the Arab world by the others, because of our distinct culture and because of our lively style of living ahaha.

[jorgeamadosoriaramirez]

The answer as to why Spanish has not fragmented can be found, at least partly, in the network of Spanish Language Academies, which regulate and prescribe "correct" or "international" Spanish in collaboration with each other. This ensure that Spanish remains one language even though it keeps getting new vocabulary from each region it is spoken to. Chilean Spanish is the most different one to the other dialects, imo.
Also, in addition to Spanglish, Portuñol is another border fusion of languages between Spanish and Portuguese, and it is regularly spoken in Northern Uruguay, Southern Brazil and parts of Paraguay and Misiones, Argentina.
Just adding info to the video....

[justinhogan]

(Edit: Chévere, I guess TedEd listens to comments and modifies the videos if there’s a mistake. When I originally posted this comment on the day the video launched [and the other similar comments from other people], at this time stamp the entire Iberian peninsula was under Spanish flag colors at the 1:52 mark. Now they’ve changed it an Portugal is separated throughout the video. Now they just need a video on Portunhol lol)

What happens at 1:52 in this video is really inaccurate (non-Castilian Romance languages don’t disappear and Portugal doesn’t become Spain) and I’m disappointed as a fan of both Spain and Portugal that the video misrepresents the history and the languages of both. The richness and importance of Castilian language/Spanish stands on its own without having to negate an entire country (Portugal) and especially the non-Castilian languages in Spain.

[perceivedvelocity]

Spain was colonized and then became a colonizer themselves. The Spanish language keeps a record of what happened to Spain and what Spain did to the new world.

[joaned]

Que hermoso la mezcla de idiomas, el enriquecimiento de las lenguas y su constante evolucion.

[ozzo]

Shame that you guys didnt cover the Philippines' effect on the Spanish language. Its kind of a weird exception. Colonized by Spain but the only former Spanish colony that doesnt speak Spanish as its official language. The closest language to Spanish the Philippines has is a Spanish Creole language called Chavacano. That wouldve have been neat to add when you talked about how colonialism mixes the colonizer language with the indigenous languages.

[andrecarvalho]

And me thinking, as a Portuguese, that Portugal was never part of Spain… even during the Iberian Union, there were two countries sharing the same King and not an unified country. Well, at least I have to give it to TED for fulfilling Isabella’s dream… at least in fiction…

(By the way, Castilian was never spoken in Portugal…)

[IJGR]

El español y el portugués de Latinoamérica son muy diversos cada uno, aún así cada acento es muy interesante y bonito.

[drtelich]

People always forget but Equatorial Guinea is also a spanish-speaking country — 74% of the entire population speak it.

[HugoParedes]

I wasn’t aware that Portugal became Spanish from 1942🤔

[wyffio]

3:46 It's fun how nobody noticed that they forgot Equatorial Guinea, the only country in Africa that speaks fluent spanish

[SinCityRaider]

Spanish is the second most spoken language among native speakers, and the fourth most spoken language in the world. Le pido a Dios que los bendiga a todos, y sus familias.

[jaycr]

Missed Guinea Ecuatorial. And like some else below already mentioned, my language has a fixed sound for every letter regardless of where it is put in a text or word, while for example French is a smorgasburg of sound variations and pronunciations. But I would add music, literature and Mexican soap operas, El Chavo, and Spanish movies about Spanish folkore that have taught us all since childhood the European variation of our mother tongue as well.

[tranvietphu]

"Where did Spanish come from ?"
Me: "Spain"

[JaimeDeLonetDelgado]

Sorry to be picky but spanish WASN'T spoken in Portugal in 1492 as your animation shows. Only in 1580 did the spanish forced rule of Portugal and even then it lasted only 60 years. No significant changes occurred. Language wise. *Edited before "forced rule" it read "conquered".

[tonyrosetti]

To be fair, the transition from Latin to Romance languages took a thousand years.

[micahbush]

I'd like to see a similar overview of French, and hopefully learn more about why it's so different from other Romance languages (because seriously, it's pretty weird compared to Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese).

[mambojambo]

The way the map of the Iberian peninsula is shown is a massive simplification of what languages are spoken in the region. Not only that, it also neglects that to this day and especially in the past, Galician, Basque, Catalan, Asturian, to name a few, were spoken in tandem with castillian.
Even today in modern-day Spain, the word "castillian" is used as much as "Spanish". Films posters mentioned that itself is dubbed in "castillian", for example. Calling it "Spanish" was something the castillian crown did as a means to legitimise its enforcement of castillian over the kingdoms it held, as well as calling it "Spain".
Last but the not least, the way the map is shown implies that Spanish was spoken in Portugal for centuries starting in the 1500s and this was simply not the case. In fact, it's incredibly wrong. Even during the brief Iberian Union (60years), castillian was spoken by some of the nobility and that was it.
A brief history is one thing, stating wrong facts and heavily misrepresenting other languages and their cultures is just bad and misinformation.