When you think about what language is spoken in Spain you instantly go to Spanish. But did you know that in Spain they actually have five official languages?
The most spoken is Castilian Spanish. This is most used in schools, media, TV and music.
The letters ‘c’ and ‘z’ are pronounced similarly to how English speakers pronounce the ‘th’ sound. This is how the Spanish ‘lisp’, which is not truly a lisp, came to be.
Region: Central, south and northern Spain; Castile, Madrid and Salamanca
Catalonia is a popular region in Spain. The locals have had their own language for centuries.
Catalan is even older than Castilian Spanish. But during the Civil War, in the late 1930s, it was banned in school, books, newspapers and magazines. When you or your kids would speak Catalan you were punished.
In some ways Catalan is more similar to French than Spanish.
Region: Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands in Spain
The oldest living language in Europe is still spoken in the North of Spain; Euskera.
Euskera is distinct from other Spanish-speaking languages in that it has no linguistic relatives. It is a language on its own. They even discovered cave drawings in the Basque Country from around 14 000 years ago with the Euskera language that proves it has existed since then.
It has a quirky pronunciation. Like the letters ‘tx’ make the ‘ch’ sound, ‘tt’ is similar to the ‘c’ sound in Spanish and ‘x’ sounds like ‘sh’
Region: Basque Country in Northern Spain
Galician is very similar to Portuguese.
If you know Portuguese you’ll have an easier time understanding Galician, because there is a lot of overlap in the sounds and word structures. This was yet another language that was banned in the Spanish Civil War. There are a lot of things going on to help younger people appreciate Galician to help grow the language again.
Region: Galicia
Asturian is unofficial but unforgettable. It is a romance language that shares many similarities with Spanish. There are just 110 000 native speakers remaining and 350 000 if you add in people who speak it as a second language.
Region: Asturias
There are also dialects in Spain like Aranese. It is very similar to Catalan, it is so similar that many people argue that they are the same language.
Region: Catalonia, especially Val d’Aran
