Spanish language in the Americas

Spanish language
A manuscript of the Cantar de mio Cid, 13th century
Overview
Pronunciation stress Orthography Names
History
Old Middle Influences
Grammar
Determiners Nouns gender Pronouns personal object Adjectives Prepositions Verbs conjugation irregular verbs
Dialects
Andalusian Andean Argentine Belizean Bolivian Canarian Caribbean Central American Chilean Colombian Costa Rican Cuban Dominican Ecuadorian Equatoguinean Guatemalan Honduran Mexican Murcian New Mexican Nicaraguan Paraguay Panamanian Peninsular Peruvian Philippine status Puerto Rican Rioplatense Saharan Salvadoran Standard Uruguayan Venezuelan
Dialectology
Seseo Yeísmo Voseo Leísmo Loísmo
Interlanguages
Llanito Jopara Judaeo-Spanish Portuñol Spanglish Castrapo Creoles Roquetas Pidgin Chavacano or Chabacano Palenquero or Palenque
Teaching
Hispanism RAE Instituto Cervantes
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The different dialects of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas are distinct from each other, as well as from those varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish Mediterranean islands—collectively known as Peninsular Spanish—and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, or in the Philippines. There is great diversity among the various Latin American vernaculars, as there are no common traits shared by all of them which are not also in existence in one or more of the variants of Iberian Spanish. A general Latin American "standard" does, however, vary from the Castilian "standard" register used in television, music and, notably, in the dubbing industry.^[1] Of the more than 498 million people who speak Spanish as their native language, more than 455 million are in Latin America, the United States and Canada, as of 2022.^[2] The total amount of native and non-native speakers of Spanish as of October 2022 well-exceeds 595 million.^[2]

There are numerous regional particularities and idiomatic expressions within Spanish. In Latin American Spanish, for instance (such as in Mexico or Puerto Rico, or areas of the contiguous U.S.), loanwords directly from English are used with some frequency, with English or non-Spanish spellings left intact. For example, the Latin American Spanish word for "computer" is computadora, whereas the word used in Spain is ordenador, and each word sounds "foreign" in the region where it is not used. Some differences are due to Iberian Spanish having a stronger French and Mediterranean influence than Latin America, where, for geopolitical and social reasons, the United States' English-language influence has been predominant throughout the twentieth century. Another common loanword, used often in different American Spanish dialects, is a simple affirmative "O.K." or "okay", instead of "sí" or "está bueno" ("yes", or "it’s good/okay").