Spanish people use to call their language español (commonly translated with the word Spanish) only when it is used in comparison with other official State languages, such as Italian, French, German, English and so on. And this is how all foreign people normally address themselves to this idiom. But the most correct way to call it should be Castilian (castellano) in order to distinguish it from Galician, Basque and Catalan which are the 3 Castilian co-official languages according to the Spanish constitution. Recently the European Commission has also decreed that all citizens that desire it, should be free to communicate with all European institutions in their own languages, no matter if Gaelic, Castilian, Basque or Catalan (but all translation costs are to be paid by the Spanish government).
In Latin America there is a quite unvaried and homogeneous situation. This means that Castilian Spanish is well understood in all South American countries.
The importance of the Spanish language is keeping growing. That is due first of all to the high birth rate that characterizes most of the countries where Spanish is actually spoken, then to the economic development of most Latin American countries, thirdly to the growth of the hispanic community in the USA, and last but not least, to the expansion of the music market in that language.
The importance the hispanic culture has aquired in the last years, according to many experts, has to be seen in fact in relation to the development of music songs which spread all over Europe and America in both the most popular languages: English and Spanish. Actually nowadays, what we listen to and dance in discos and bars are songs of Ricky Martin, Enrique Igelsias or Madonna that have added to their English lyrics some Spanish words or refrains.
The Spanish language has understood, in a absolutely natural way, that the way to success and growth had to pass trough the mixture with English and bring with it what the English language can’t offer: the idea of sun, emotions and sensuality.
Spanish, according to European citizens, is the fourth most popular language they want to learn after English, French and German. Next to this data, what it is worth to underline is the fact that with the enlargement of the EU, newcoming East European States have registered a global growth of 120% of people learning Castilian.
But what makes Spanish a strong developing idiom is the fact that, opposite to other European languages such as French, Italian or German which are strongly continental with an intense national dimension, Spanish cross national and European political frontiers because in its language, in its roots and traditions brings and mixes together European, Latin-America and North American bounds automatically proposing itself as a cultural alternative in the global market.
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