Spanish or Castilian is an Iberian Romance language. It was spoken by roughly 364 million people in the year 2000. Current estimation accounts up to 400 million, making Spanish the second language in the world in number of speakers (after Mandarin Chinese) and the most widely spoken and the most widely studied Romance language. It is arguably the most widely studied foreign language for native speakers of English due to its perceived sense of practicality in a largely globalized Twenty-first Century, as both languages have similar numbers of native speakers, are very widely dispersed on a global scale, and are spoken in many countries. For similar reasons, it is also the most widely studied foreign language in Brazil, which is almost entirely surrounded by Spanish-speaking nations.
Spanish originated as a Latin dialect along a remote crossroads strip among the Cantabria, Burgos and La Rioja provinces of Northern Spain. From there, its use gradually spread inside the Kingdom of Castile, where it eventually became the principal language of government and trade. It was later brought to America and other parts of the world in the last five centuries by Spanish explorers, colonists and empire-builders. Spanish is one of six official working languages of the United Nations and one of the most used global languages, along with English. It is spoken most extensively in North and South America, Europe, and certain parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania. Within the globalized market, there is currently an international expansion and recognition of the Spanish language in literature, the film industry, television (notably telenovelas) and mostly music.
