¡Sí Señor! Aqui Hablamos Español. Let’s Celebrate Our Language

On this day, April 23, speakers of Spanish around the world celebrate “El Día del Idioma Español“. It is a tribute to Spain’s best-known writer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who died 402 years ago.

Cervantes is the author of “El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha”. Known in English as “Don Quixote”, a work widely considered as one of the first and most influential modern novels of the Western World. Spanish is a Romance language that derives from “Vulgar” or “Common Latin”. There are several major Romance languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan. They got that name because they all originated from the simplified Latin language spoken by Romans at the time they conquered most of the European continent.

~ Over 400 million people speak Spanish as their mother tongue. When ranked by number of native speakers, Spanish is the second biggest language in the world.

~ With about 40 million native speakers in the United States, Spanish is also the second most-common language in that country.

~ While it is the official language of most Latin American countries, Spanish is not Spain’s only official language. The others are Galician, Basque, and Catalan.

Read more: The Costa Rica News