Students ask us this in their first lesson more often than any other question about the language: is castellano a different Spanish from español? The short answer is no. They are two names for the same language, the one spoken from Madrid to Mexico City and taught in every one of our lessons. The longer answer, which is why there are two names, where each is used and what the word Castilian tells you about the history of Spanish, is worth ten minutes of any learner’s time.
Where the name comes from
Spanish began as the Latin spoken by soldiers, traders and settlers in Roman Hispania. After the empire fell, that everyday Latin drifted apart region by region until the peninsula had several Romance languages of its own: Galician-Portuguese in the west, Catalan in the east, Aragonese, Asturian, and in the north-centre the speech of Castile, the frontier land named for its castles. Castile grew into the dominant kingdom of the Christian north, and in the thirteenth century Alfonso X made its language, rather than Latin, the language of his court, his laws and the great translation school at Toledo. From then on the speech of Castile was the language of government, and it spread with the kingdom.
Two things happened in 1492. Antonio de Nebrija published the first grammar of Castilian, the first grammar of any modern European language, and Columbus sailed. Within a century the language of Castile was the language of an empire on two continents, and the word español, Spanish, came into use for the language of Spain as a whole. Both names survived, and they still do.
Which word to use, and where
In Spain, castellano is the everyday word for the language, and the Constitution of 1978 uses it: el castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. It is heard most in the regions that have a language of their own, since in Barcelona or Bilbao español would beg the question of whether Catalan and Basque are not Spanish languages too. Castellano sidesteps that neatly, which is why the word is a courtesy as much as a description.
In the Americas the choice follows the map. Argentina, Chile, Peru and Bolivia say castellano, and several of their constitutions do too; Mexico, Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean say español. The Real Academia Española accepts both, recommends español as the international name of the language, and reserves castellano for the dialect of Castile itself or for contrast with Spain’s other languages. Nobody will correct you either way. A learner in London can say Spanish and español, and know that castellano means exactly the same thing.
Spain’s other languages
The confusion usually comes from the fact that Spain has several languages, and a visitor hears them called dialects. They are not. Catalan, spoken in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, is a Romance language with its own literature, as is Galician in the north-west, a close relative of Portuguese. Basque, or Euskara, is not related to Spanish, to Latin or to any other known language. Each is co-official in its region, and each is one reason the word castellano is useful: it names the Spanish that is spoken across the whole country, as distinct from the language of the region. Our guide to the accents and languages of Spain and Latin America covers all of them in more detail.
Who keeps Spanish standard
The reason a single language can serve twenty countries without falling apart is the Real Academia Española, founded in Madrid in 1713 with the motto limpia, fija y da esplendor: it cleans, fixes and gives splendour. Its dictionary, grammar and spelling rules are the reference for the whole Spanish-speaking world, and since 1951 it has shared the work with the Association of Spanish Language Academies, founded in Mexico, which brings together the academies of every Spanish-speaking country, twenty-three in all. Their dictionary and spelling rules are now agreed jointly, so that a word admitted in Madrid is admitted in Bogotá and Buenos Aires on the same day.
For a learner the practical consequence is large. Written Spanish is the same everywhere, spelling is regular and reliable, and a word looked up in the Academy’s dictionary is correct in every country. It is a large part of why Spanish pronunciation and spelling are easier than English: the rules have been kept tidy for three hundred years.
What went into Spanish
Castilian is Latin at its core, but it collected vocabulary from every people it met. From the languages spoken in Spain before the Romans, Basque among them, it took izquierda, left. From the Visigoths who ruled after Rome it took guerra, war. Its largest borrowing came from Arabic, the language of much of the peninsula between 711 and 1492: some four thousand words, most of them beginning with the Arabic article al-, which is why a pillow is almohada, a mayor is alcalde, sugar is azúcar, oil is aceite and the great river of Andalusia is the Guadalquivir, wadi al-kabir, the big river. Even ojalá, the everyday word for “I hope so”, is Arabic: in sha’ Allah, God willing. Spanish sometimes kept a Latin and an Arabic word side by side, so a scorpion is escorpión or alacrán, and the Arabic word is often the one preferred in the south, which was Moorish longest.
The Americas returned the favour. Nahuatl gave Spanish, and through Spanish the world, chocolate, tomate and aguacate; the Taíno of the Caribbean gave canoa, hamaca and huracán; Quechua gave papa, the potato, along with cóndor and puma. The newest source is English, above all in technology and business, and here the two halves of the Spanish-speaking world sometimes part company: a computer is la computadora in Latin America, from the English, and el ordenador in Spain, from the French. Both are Spanish; both are castellano.
What this means for a learner
There is one Spanish to learn, and you can call it what you like. Its grammar and spelling are the same in every country, a clear standard Spanish is understood from Seville to Santiago, and the differences that remain are matters of accent and everyday vocabulary that a native-speaker tutor can tune to wherever you are going. Spanish is also, for an English speaker, one of the easiest languages there is, and three hundred years of the Academy’s tidying is part of the reason. In private Spanish lessons we teach the standard language first and the local colour where you need it, whether that is the vosotros of Madrid or the ustedes of Mexico City.
Questions learners ask
Is Castilian the “proper” Spanish? No. Castellano is a name, not a grade. The Spanish of Mexico City or the Spanish of Bogotá is as standard as the Spanish of Madrid, and the academies of every country have an equal say in what the standard is.
Should I learn Castilian or Latin American Spanish? Learn Spanish, and choose the accent by destination. The grammar is shared; the Spain-only points, chiefly vosotros and the th sound of z and soft c, take an afternoon to add or leave out.
Is Catalan a dialect of Spanish? No. It is a separate Romance language, as different from Spanish as Portuguese or Italian, and Catalans are quick to say so. Everyone in Catalonia speaks Spanish as well.
Do Spaniards themselves say español? Yes, both words are used every day, and the choice often says more about where the speaker comes from than about the language.
Whether you need the Spanish of Madrid or of Mexico City, private Spanish lessons are shaped around where you will use it.
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