The first stage: pre-Roman period or pre-historical period
Before the Roman invasion, the inhabitants of the peninsula used the local language of Iberian tribes. When Celts, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and other nationalities entered the peninsula, they introduced various language factors. The influence of the above languages can be distinguished by some characters (especially some place names), and even the names of Spain are said to have been given by ancient Carthaginians. Legend has it that rabbits haunt the peninsula, so Carthaginians call it Shephan-im (the place where rabbits haunt). During the Roman Empire, the Latin form of this name was Hispania, which later evolved into the current Espa? Answer.
The second stage: Romanization stage
In 2 18 BC, the Roman army entered the Iberian peninsula.
Latin used by the Romans can be divided into classical Chinese and vernacular (also known as folk Latin). The former is the language used by Horace, Cicero and other elites and masters, which is complex and elegant, while the latter is the language of ordinary people, which is rough but full of vitality. The invading Roman soldiers and craftsmen and small businessmen who followed them spread this folk Latin to Iberia and other provinces of the empire, and left it in the conquered land with political system, economic model, literature and art, customs and beliefs, taking root, flowering and bearing fruit.
As a derivative language of folk Latin, Spanish can find a lot of Latin genetic factors in its language structure and form. From the lexical point of view, most of the endless words related to human existence, such as day (month, week), astronomy, animals and plants, are directly or indirectly derived from Latin. For example: grassland: Prato (Latin)-Prado (Spanish); Land: terra (Latin) -tierra (Spanish); Sun: sole (Latin) -sol (Spanish).
Let's briefly compare the names of Latin month and Spanish month: month Latin Spanish 65438+ 10 Ianuriusenero month Februariusfebrero3 March Martius Marzo month aprilisabril5 May Maiusmayo6 June Iuniusjunio7 July Juliojulio8 August Augu. Stoagosto 9 septimus septiembre 65438+October Octavous Octubre 165438+ October Novembere 65438+February decemdiciembre gave birth to Spanish on the basis of Latin.
The third stage: Germanic-Roman language stage.
In 409 AD, Germanic tribes, which became barbarians, invaded the Iberian Peninsula and established the Visigoth Kingdom. Germanic peoples quickly merged with Ibero-Romans, and Germanic language was assimilated, but some of its words (especially those related to military affairs) were absorbed by Latin. For example: Guerra (war), Botin (trophy), Tropa (army), Guardia (defender), Tregua (truce), Espuela (Spurs), Cetrit Bo (stirrup), Gallmo (helmet), Feudal and so on. Some names of visigoths have also become common names of aborigines. Such as Rodrigo, Fernando, Alvaro, etc. The surname of Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, indicates that his ancestors may be Roman-Visigoths, because "Castro" means "fortified village" in the ancient Germanic language of Visigoths.
During this period, folk Latin was gradually transformed into Roman (that is, the language of the Roman family), and Castilian was subordinate to the latter. Later, folk Latin called this change el latín hispánico.
The fourth stage: the influence of Arabic.
During the nearly 800 years from 7 12 to 1492, the culture of the occupier Arabs has been widely and deeply spread in southern and central Spain. Cordoba is regarded as the center of Islamic culture, forming a prosperous and harmonious situation of multicultural coexistence on the peninsula. Arabic has become a foreign language that has a great influence on Spanish vocabulary after Latin. According to incomplete statistics, Arabic has added more than 4,000 words for Spain and Spain, which are distributed in agriculture, architecture, military affairs, politics, mathematics, finance, trade, plants, handicrafts and other fields and are still in use today. For example: Tambor (drum), Atalaia (watchtower), Secchia (canal), Norja (waterwheel), Zana Horia (carrot), alfalfa (alfalfa), Aduana (customs), Tarifa (price list), Aldea (village), Zaguan (gate) and Az. Spanish adjective prefix -i and preposition hasta also come from Arabic.
You can also see traces of Arabic in language expression, especially in some daily expressions. For example, Mi casa es su sasa (my home is your home) is directly transplanted from Arabic sentence patterns to show the host's enthusiasm for guests.
The fifth stage: the formation of Castilla-Spanish.
According to most authoritative scholars, the formation time of Castilla-Spanish is about 10 century. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, a famous Spanish linguist, writer and historian, made the most outstanding contribution to this. 19 15 years, he found a Latin sermon in Sanmillan monastery in lario. Beside the sermon, an unknown monk wrote a prayer. These short sentences have a basically complete grammatical structure. Prior to this, in the 5th-7th century A.D., Castilian began to have its own script, which is a phonetic symbol, which originated from Latin alphabet and then gradually evolved.
Castilian language originated in the area south of Cantabria Mountain in northern Spain in ancient times, and was called Castilla, which means "the land of castles". Because the people there knew martial arts, the lords built castles as military fortresses for self-defense and attack. In A.D. 1037, Castile became independent and became an important Christian kingdom. During the retrocession movement, the kingdom became the center for Christians to resist the Moors on foot. With successive military victories, the sphere of influence of Castile Kingdom gradually expanded to the central and southern regions. By 12 and 13 centuries, it had been in the leading position in several Christian kingdoms. Its national strength is getting stronger and stronger, and its influence is getting bigger and bigger, so Castilian naturally becomes the same language within its sphere of influence and penetrates into the surrounding areas. 1492 years later, the kingdom of Castilla-Aragon under the rule of Catholic kings realized the great cause of expelling the Moors and unifying Spain. Castilian, also known as Spanish, is accepted and used by most residents of the kingdom, and there are also some national languages such as Catalan, Yuskla and Gallegos used in a certain range.
From Latin to Castilian, from dialect to national language, from folk dialect to literary language with complete grammatical structure, rich vocabulary and profound expressive force, this process has gone through more than ten centuries. Its glyph becomes a phonetic form based on 29 letters (including ch and ll), and its phonetic intonation is born out of folk Latin and absorbs the characteristics of Catabria mountain dialect. However, the drastic social evolution has stimulated the change of vocabulary form and the surge of vocabulary quantity, and a large number of foreign national vocabulary (such as Arabic, French, Italian, etc. ) and other parts of the peninsula dialect vocabulary in Spanish has been constantly gathered. Unified grammatical rules were established, which finally ensured that Spanish developed its own language system independently in the following centuries, and became a tool for Cervantes and other literary giants to build great works and an official language used by nearly 400 million people.
In the long process of the formation, evolution and development of Spanish, there are two names worthy of great attention by future generations. They are Alfonso X (1221-1284) and Antonio Denebuha (1444- 1528).
King Alfonso X of Castile lived 3 1 year. Historically, his achievements were not based on expanding territory or fighting in foreign countries, but on his efforts to develop language, literature, science, law and thought. He himself is a knowledgeable person and an enlightened monarch without racial and cultural prejudice. He accepted all the literati, scholars and artists who belonged to Christianity, Judaism and Islam at that time into the palace to discuss academics and art, organized a large-scale translation team, engaged in the translation of Latin, Arabic and Hebrew, encouraged the writing of chronicles, studied natural science and law, and encouraged and personally participated in the creation of poetry and literature. It is based on these numerous writing, translation and research projects that the standardization of Spanish is put on the agenda. Alfonso X took many effective measures to establish the rules of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and writing. For example, in the field of science and technology, he changed and absorbed a considerable number of Latin and Arabic words according to the Castilian model to enrich and fill the local language. He also formulated the rules of writing and orthography in Castilian, and determined the use of two special punctuation marks: inverted exclamation mark? ! And inverted question marks. These measures have greatly promoted the unification and standardization of the peninsula language and laid a solid foundation for the development and expansion of Spanish in the future.
Alfonso X is called "Alfonso Sabbio" because of his immortal contribution to Spanish culture.
Antonio de Nebria was a famous scholar in the Spanish Renaissance. His Grammar of Castilian was published in 1492, which was one of the great events of that year. The development of language is almost synchronous with the development of society, and the development and tradition of a national language is directly related to its national strength.
With the continuous growth of the Kingdom of Castilla and the subsequent rise of the Kingdom of Spain, Spanish has developed into a world-wide language from weak to strong, from small to large, from domestic to overseas.
In China, Spanish has been widely influenced by other dialects (Catalan, Galician, Basque) and other national languages (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.). ), and has been greatly enriched in pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax and so on. At the same time, in different historical periods, French, Italians and Germans have maintained special relations and frequent contacts with Spain for political reasons, so their languages have also had a great influence on Spanish.
As early as 1 1 century, people from Provence and other parts of France entered Spain and extended to the Middle Ages, such as homenaje (memorial), fraile (priest), mensaje (letter), mesón (pub), vinagre (vinegar), manjares (food) and. In the Carlos II dynasty, this tendency was even more obvious. A large number of words from French gradually entered Spanish, such as pantalon (pants), chaqueta (coat), hotel (hotel), chalet (villa) and sofá (sofa). Since then, the influence of French has never weakened, such as Parlamento (parliament), personal (personal), official residence (bureaucracy), chofer (driver), biu teria (fake jewelry) and so on, which are widely accepted and still used today.
The influence of Italian is more manifested in the field of art, especially in the15-17th century. Many related terms and common words come from the Apennine Peninsula. For example: aria, batuta, Patitula, Edith? O (design), modelo (style), Novella (novel), soneto (sonnet), Facade (facade), etc. There is also a non-artistic vocabulary, such as casino, ferrocarril, analfabetismo, etc.
From the18th century, English power appeared. After entering the 20th century, with the gradual rise of the United States as the first power in the world, English words such as economy, finance and science and technology inevitably penetrated into almost all major languages and became global words. Of course, Spanish has absorbed a large number of English words, some of which are already Spanish, while others have been transplanted intact. They have appeared in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Institute and in people's daily life.
With the development of society, language keeps pace with the times. The Spanish used by Spaniards today is very different from that used in Nebraska, Cervantes and gongola. Pronunciation is stable, the number of words is soaring, and the depth of its expressive force and the inclusiveness of the language itself have indeed made great progress compared with the past.
Outside the Iberian Peninsula, Spanish expanded and entered the following areas:
(1) The Spanish Empire (mainly monarchs such as Carlos V and Felipe II) owns the territory of the European continent;
(2) The New World and all colonies;
(3) Colonies in Asia and Africa;
(4)1492 The area where the expelled Spanish Jews lived.
Among the above areas, the second area is the largest and most populous area within the Spanish sphere of influence today. The military conquest of Columbus and his successors was accompanied by cultural conquest. The main content of cultural conquest is to force Indians to convert to Catholicism, give up their mother tongue and switch to Spanish. At present, from Mexico in North America to Argentina in South America, 18 countries use Spanish as their official language. It cannot be ignored that there are nearly 40 million American citizens and immigrants whose native language is Spanish in the vast areas of the western and southern United States. As a federal territory of the United States, the first language of Puerto Rico is Spanish.
The third area refers to the Philippines in Asia and Equatorial Guinea in Africa. The former was occupied by the Spanish in 1565 and colonized for 330 years. The Spanish brought colonization into this Southeast Asian country. Nowadays, many words from Spanish can be found in the daily language of Filipinos, but they are all transformed from English or assimilated by Tagalog. The more obvious imprint of the former suzerain country is that the names of Filipinos still adopt the Spanish model, such as Fernando Marcos and Claeson Aquino, former presidents who have been in power for many years. The national language of Equatorial Guinea is still Spanish.
The fourth region is scattered and relatively concentrated in some countries and regions in Asia and Europe (Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.). ), whose users are descendants of Spanish Jews known as Assafadi. Their ancestors roamed Eurasia after being expelled from Iberian Peninsula. No matter where they settle down, they stick to their beliefs and their accustomed Jewish Spanish, that is, ancient Castilian, and have a rare spirit of perseverance. This is a rare social phenomenon, especially when we see the precious materials such as ballads, folk stories and idioms that were popular around15th century and preserved by them in this ancient medieval proverb, we will cherish the historical context of the immortal language.
Latin American Spanish is an important part of the development and evolution of Spanish, because it is the product of the integration of Castilian language from Iberian Peninsula with the cultural, natural and social environment of America. This integration is mainly reflected in vocabulary, pronunciation and semantics. In addition, the so-called American Spanish is not a unified concept in a strict sense, because in fact, due to the differences in cultural and social development, Spanish in Latin American countries also has its own characteristics. Many linguists call American Spanish a "complex dialect mosaic" (José Moreno, 72: 10).
A long time ago, the famous scholar enriquez Yuri? A) American Spanish is divided into five dialect areas:
(1) Mexico and Central America (Guatemala, Virva, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama);
(2) Caribbean Sea (Antilles, most of Venezuela and the Atlantic coast of Colombia);
③ Andean region (parts of Venezuela, Peru, most parts of Colombia, Bolivia and northwest Argentina);
4 Chile;
(5) La Plata River region (most of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay).
There are some differences between Spanish in these five dialect areas, but it is these differences that make Spanish adapt to various social environments, meet various needs, and constantly evolve and develop.
Today, when Madrid people, Barcelona people and Galicians all use words derived from American Indian languages naturally and freely, they-even the purest people-will admit that the aborigines in the New World have indeed made outstanding contributions to the promotion of Spanish. These words include maiz (corn), batata (sweet potato), hamaca (hammock), patata (potato), canoa (canoe), cacao (cocoa), chocolate (chocolate), tomato (tomato), nopal (cactus), jaguar (leopard) and cacique (chief). Tabacco (tobacco), papaya (papaya), aguacat (avocado), Condor (vulture), Louro (parrot), Cayman (American crocodile), coyote (jackal), and so on.
It should be added that in addition to the above-mentioned languages, Morocco and the former Spanish Sahara in North Africa have been influenced by Spanish to varying degrees.
Language expansion is also a process of language change, and the result is to promote language progress. Today, Spanish, the language of shepherds and knights in the foothills of Cantabria in ancient Castilla, has become the third largest language in the world, and its learners and users as a second language are all over the world, and the number is still rising.