Spanish has over 90,000 words

In the last review carried out by the Real Academia Española (RAE) – Spain’s official Spanish language body – there were 93,111 Spanish words, as well as around 19,000 borrowed from English. This means that in total, there are over 120,000 words.

It is the fastest language spoken

Have you ever felt that Spanish people speak very quickly and it can take you some time to process what they’ve said? This isn’t surprising because Spanish is actually the fastest language in the world, along with Japanese. Language speed is based on the number of syllables an average speaker can pronounce per second. Spanish and Japanese tie for first place, while languages such as German and Mandarin are the slowest languages. 

READ MORE: Why it’s true that Spaniards talk faster than English speakers (but there is a catch)

Spanish is the world’s second-most-spoken language

According to Ethnologue, one of the world’s top language resource websites, Spanish is currently the world’s second most-spoken language, just behind Chinese (which includes both Mandarin and Cantonese) with 471 million native speakers worldwide.

If you take the number of native speakers, plus those who speak it as a second language however, Spanish comes in fourth place (572 million speakers, native and non-native), behind English, Mandarin and Hindi.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain called Spain?

In the year 2050, the United States will be the country where Spanish is spoken the most

With more than 100 million Spanish speakers, Mexico is currently the country that has the most Spanish speakers.

But according to Cervantes Institute, by 2050 it is expected to have been surpassed by the United States, where the Spanish-speaking population is growing rapidly. The United States Census Bureau estimates that Hispanics will represent 132.8 million of the US’s population in 2050.

The United States also has the most Spanish language learners in the world, followed by Brazil and France.

Spanish or castellano used to be referred to as cristiano (Christian)

When the Moors arrived in southern Spain, most of the population used the word ‘cristiano’ (Christian) to differentiate people who spoke Spanish from those who spoke Arabic, thus calling the language cristiano instead of castellano. 

Castellano (Castillian) is how people in Spain often refer to the Spanish language as a means of telling it apart from Spain’s co-official languages: Basque, Catalan (including the very similar Valencian and Balearic languages), Galician and Aranese. 

The term castellano refers to where Spanish was first spoken following the Roman’s departure from Iberia, but to many people, especially in Latin America, the language should be referred to as español (Spanish). 

Spanish is spoken on six different continents in 21 different countries

Spanish is a very widely spoken language, with native speakers on six different continents, not just in Spain and Latin America as thought by many.

These include 21 countries (and various regions) across Europe, America, Africa, Australasia and even Antarctica.

In Europe, Spanish is spoken in Spain. In America, it is spoken in all of central and South America with the exception of Brazil.

In Africa it’s spoken in Equatorial Guinea, in Australasia it’s spoken in Chile’s Easter Island and parts of Polynesia, and in Antarctica it’s spoken in Fortín Sargento Cabral (part of Argentina) and in Villa La Estrella (part of Chile).

The letter ñ is not exclusive to Spanish

The ñ was introduced in the 18th century, but it is not the only language in the world to use it. The letter is also used in Galician, Basque, Aymara (Bolivia), Quechua (Peru), Mixtec (Mexico), Zapotec (Mexico), Breton (France), Guaraní (Paraguay) and Tagalog (Philippines).

READ ALSO: Five fascinating facts you didn’t know about the letter Ñ in Spanish

The first document in Spanish dates from around 959

Historians differ somewhat on the first recorded document written in Spanish. Traditionally it was thought to be the Glosas Emilianenses located in San Millán de la Cogolla in La Rioja – notes that were added between the lines of a manuscript that was originally in Latin, around the 10th or 11th century. However, others believe it was a list of cheeses written around 959 by a monk in the San Justo y San Pastor monastery in La Rozuela. 

Electorencefalografista is the longest word in Spanish

According to the RAE, the longest word in Spanish is Electorencefalografista which has 23 letters. It is often shortened to EEG and is used in medical terms when doctors need to measure the electrical activity of the brain.

E, A, O, L and S are the letters that are used the most in Spanish

The vowels ‘E’, ‘A’ and ‘O’, and the consonants ‘L’ and ‘S’ are the ones that Spanish speakers use the most. The letter ‘E’ comes in first place being used 16.78 percent of the words, followed by ‘O’ (11.96 percent), ‘L’ (8.69 percent) and ‘ (7.88 percent). ‘W’ is the letter that is used the least. 

‘H’ is the only letter in the Spanish alphabet that is not pronounced

‘H’ is the only letter in the Spanish alphabet that is silent, except when it comes after a ‘C’. All other letters are generally pronounced unless the person has a strong regional accent. In the past, many words that began with the letter ‘H’ were actually written in Latin with an ‘F’. Therefore, farina became harina (flour).

There are many Arabic influences in Spanish

Around eight percent of Spanish vocabulary has Arabic roots, unsurprisingly really, since the Arabs ruled Spain for around 800 years. You can often tell which words come from Arabic as they begin with ‘Al’ such as alfombra (carpet), la almendra (almond) and la almohada (pillow).

Spanish used to have two other letters in its alphabet

The letters Ch and Ll used to be part of the Spanish alphabet until the RAE decided to get rid of them in 1994. These letter combinations are still used a lot in Spanish however, but they are just not considered to be separate letters anymore.

There are around 18 million people studying Spanish as a second language

According to Spanish language and culture blog Fluent U, there are an estimated 18 million people currently studying Spanish throughout the world. Experts believe that in a few generations, around 10 percent of the world’s population will be able to understand it.