SPANISH LANGUAGE

It has more than 332 million speakers, including more than 23 million in the U.S. Its earliest written materials date from the 10th century, its first literary works from с 1150. The Castilian dialect, the source of modern standard Spanish, arose in the 9th century in north-central Spain (Old Castile) and spread to central Spain (New Castile) by the 11th century. In the late 15th century the kingdoms of Castile, León, and Aragon merged, and Castilian became the official language of all Spain, with Catalan and Galician (effectively a dialect of {{link=Portuguese language">Portuguese ) becoming regional languages and Aragonese and Leonese reduced to a fraction of their original speech areas. Latin American regional dialects are derived from Castilian but differ from it in phonology .