The most prominent of the languages of Spain is Spanish (Castilian, castellano), which nearly everyone in Spain can speak as a first or second language. Other languages figure prominently in many regions:

• Basque (Vasco or Euskara) in parts of the Basque Country and Navarre.
• Catalan in Catalonia, eastern Aragon and the Balearic Islands and (in the same dialect continuum), as a variant of this, Valencian, in Valencia.
• Galician in Galicia (which also forms a dialectal continuum with Portuguese.

Spanish or Castilian is official throughout the country; the rest of these have co-official status in their respective regions and all are major enough to have numerous daily newspapers in these languages and (especially for Catalan, Basque and Galician) significant book publishing and media sectors. Many citizens in these regions consider their regional language as their primary language and Spanish, as secondary; these languages cover broad enough regions to have multiple distinct dialects. Spanish itself also has distinct dialects around the country, for example the Andalusian and Canarian dialects, each of these with their own subvarieties, some of them being partially closer to the Spanish of the Americas, which they heavily influenced at different degrees, depending on the regions or periods, and according to different and non-homogeneous migrating or colonization processes.

In addition, there is strong and growing support for other regional languages, some of them in danger of extinction. These include:

• Astur-Leonese: Asturian in Asturias and Leonese in parts of the former Kingdom of Leon.
• Aragonese in northern Aragon.
• Aranese, a variety of the Gascon, which in turn is a variety of the Occitan language; a dialect spoken only in the tiny Val d'Aran in the Pyrenees, in north-western Catalonia, but enough of a live language to be co-official and used in the public schools there.

Three little sets of dialects are of difficult filiation: Fala, a variety of its own belonging to the Galician-Portuguese group; Eonavian, a dialect continuum between Asturian and Galician, closer to the latter according to several linguists; and Benasquese, a dialect continuum between Aragonese, Catalan and even Aranese, considered either as an extreme Eastern Aragonese dialect or as a transitional dialect of its own.

With the exception of Basque, which appears to be a language isolate, all of these are Latin derived, that is, Romance languages.

Arabic (including Ceuta Darija) or Berber (mainly Riffean) are spoken by the Muslim population of Ceuta and Melilla and by recent immigrants (mainly from Morocco and Algeria) elsewhere.

In the tourist areas of the Mediterranean coast and the islands, English and German are widely spoken by tourists, foreign residents, and tourism workers.

additional information from Wikipedia

04/18/08 by visitEarth
Tags: Spain, language, Spanish, English, visitors, Castilian