Thread: Castillian or Latin Spanish?

When doing Spanish translations sometimes this question comes up, as we use both versions of the language. The best way is to focuse on the target audience that will primarly be seing this material and from that choose the regional language to be used.

And the question is...?

jaajj, I join Cecilia
and the answer is... (the one from the title??)

depends what your target market ofcourse! hehe

Castillian is the proper name for the spanish language. Spanish is technically wrong. But everyone has gotten used to saying do you speak spanish? Latin american and Spaniards speak Castillian.

Originally Posted by chapinrico

Castillian is the proper name for the spanish language. Spanish is technically wrong. But everyone has gotten used to saying do you speak spanish? Latin american and Spaniards speak Castillian.

Sorry, but I don't think this is quite correct. Castillian was the language spoken in that region of Spain during the time when the country was not yet unified. There were several languages struggling to become the dominant language for all the small kingdoms that are now Spain (leonés, aragonés, catalán, even vascuence). The kingdom that succeded in conquering the rest of the kingdoms and imposed its own language to the rest was, you bet, Castille, and so it imposed Castillian as the language to the defeated peoples. Nevertheless, once it became a national language, it turned to be more proper to refer to it as Spanish, as it is the language spoken in all Spain, not only in Castille, so Spaniards and Latin Americans speak Spanish.

You can find an excellent writing on the subject in José G. Moreno de Alba, Minucias del lenguaje, pages 201-202 (edited by Fondo de Cultura Económica).

Originally Posted by chapinrico

Castillian is the proper name for the spanish language. Spanish is technically wrong. But everyone has gotten used to saying do you speak spanish? Latin american and Spaniards speak Castillian.

Sorry, but I don't think this is quite correct. Castillian was the language spoken in that region of Spain during the time when the country was not yet unified. There were several languages struggling to become the dominant language for all the small kingdoms that are now Spain (leonés, aragonés, catalán, even vascuence). The kingdom that succeded in conquering the rest of the kingdoms and imposed its own language to the rest was, you bet, Castille, and so it imposed Castillian as the language to the defeated peoples. Nevertheless, once it became a national language, it turned to be more proper to refer to it as Spanish, as it is the language spoken in all Spain, not only in Castille, so Spaniards and Latin Americans speak Spanish.

You can find an excellent writing on the subject in José G. Moreno de Alba, Minucias del lenguaje, pages 201-202 (edited by Fondo de Cultura Económica).

El el diccionario de dudas DPD tenemos una respuesta muy clara:

español. Para designar la lengua común de España y de muchas naciones de América, y que también se habla como propia en otras partes del mundo, son válidos los términos castellano y español. La polémica sobre cuál de estas denominaciones resulta más apropiada está hoy superada. El término español resulta más recomendable por carecer de ambigüedad, ya que se refiere de modo unívoco a la lengua que hablan hoy cerca de cuatrocientos millones de personas. Asimismo, es la denominación que se utiliza internacionalmente (Spanish, espagnol, Spanisch, spagnolo, etc.). Aun siendo también sinónimo de español, resulta preferible reservar el término castellano para referirse al dialecto románico nacido en el Reino de Castilla durante la Edad Media, o al dialecto del español que se habla actualmente en esta región. En España, se usa asimismo el nombre castellano cuando se alude a la lengua común del Estado en relación con las otras lenguas cooficiales en sus respectivos territorios autónomos, como el catalán, el gallego o el vasco.