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Q: What's the difference between Latin American Spanish and European Spanish?
A: Very much like British English and American English, there are some differences between Latin American Spanish and European Spanish:
- Spanish (LA) - Latin American Spanish:
Spanish is the official language in over 20 Central and South American countries including Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and others. It is also the predominant type of Spanish spoken by the Hispanic community in the United States.
Spanish (LA) is a standard, neutral form of Spanish that avoids regional slang and is easily understood by Spanish-speaking individuals from all across Latin America. This form of Spanish is ideal for use in translations for the expanding Hispanic market in the United States, Central America, and South America.
- Spanish (Eur) - European Spanish:
European Spanish is spoken primarily in Spain. If your translated document is to be used exclusively in Spain, this is the ideal form of Spanish.
Here's some additional information about the Spanish language and Spanish translations:
Spanish Language and Translation
Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European, descended largely from Latin and having much in common with its European geographical neighbours.
Spanish is related to several languages in terms of phonology, grammar and orthography. Of these, Portuguese is perhaps one of the most similar in terms of major languages. However, Spanish is also closely related to Catalan, Asturian, Galician and several other Romance languages. Italian is similar enough to Spanish to make communication possible between native speakers of both languages. Spanish has fewer similarities with French and Romanian but shares strong ties due to Latin roots.
Spanish people tend to call this language "español" when contrasting it with languages of other states (for example: in a list with French and English), but call it castellano (Castilian, from the Castile region) when contrasting it with other languages of Spain (such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan/Valencian). In some parts of Spain, mainly where the people speak Galician, Basque, and Catalan, it is considered offensive to call the language español, as that is what Francisco Franco imposed during his dictatorship and because it connotes that Basque, Catalan and Galician are not Spanish (meaning from Spain). For the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, speakers of the language in some areas refer to it as "español", and in others "castellano" is more common. Castellano is the name given to Spanish language in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Geographic Distribution
Spanish is one of the official languages of the United Nations and the European Union. The majority of its speakers are confined to the Western Hemisphere, and Spain.
With approximately 106 million first-language and second-language speakers, Mexico boasts the largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world. The four next largest populations reside in Colombia (44 million), Spain (c. 44 million), Argentina (39 million) and the United States of America (U.S. residents age 5 and older who speak Spanish at home number 31 million) [1].
Spanish is the official and most important language in 20 countries: Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea (co-official French), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Puerto Rico (co-official English), Spain (co-official Catalan/Valencian, Galician and Basque), Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara (co-official Arabic).
In the United States, Spanish is spoken by three-quarters of its 41.3 million Hispanic population. It is also being learned and spoken by a small, though slowly growing, proportion of its non-Hispanic population for its increasing use in business, commerce, and both domestic and international politics. Spanish does hold co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
In European countries other than Spain, it may be spoken by some of their Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, primarily in Andorra (where it is spoken by a great part of the population, despite having no official status), the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom where there is a strong community in London. There has been a sharp increase in the popularity of Spanish in the United Kingdom over the last few years. It is spoken by much of the population of Gibraltar, though English remains the only official language. Yanito (llanito), an English-Spanish mixed language is also spoken.
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