Hispanophone (Spanish: Hispanohablante) refers to anything related to the Spanish language. The term is derived from the Latin word Hispanicus ("Spanish") which refers to anything pertaining to the historic Roman province of Hispania ("Spain"), and the word "phone". Hispanophone is linked to Hispanic culture which is the legacy of the vast and prolonged Spanish Empire, and the sense of identity of these people is sometimes referred to as Hispanidad (Hispanicity). The Spanish-speaking world, also called the Hispanosphere, encompasses the following geographical areas: Spain, Hispanic America, Equatorial Guinea, and portions of the United States (namely the Southwest and Florida). When used in the broader sense to include areas where the local culture has been heavily impacted by Hispanic influences, the former Spanish East Indies colonies of the Philippines and (to a lesser extent) Guam are also included. In addition to the general definition of Hispanophone, some groups in the Hispanic world make a distinction between Castilian-speaking and Spanish-speaking, with the former term denoting the speakers of the Spanish language—also known as Castilian—and the latter the speakers of the Spanish or Hispanic languages (i.e. the languages of Spain or the languages of the Hispanic nations).
The Hispanosphere
There are an estimated 474.7 million native Spanish speakers and about 100 million second and foreign language speakers around the world as of 2022, totaling 574 million Hispanophones in total. This makes Spanish the second most natively spoken language and fourth most spoken language overall globally. The vast majority of Hispanophones are concentrated in the Hispanosphere, the countries and territories where Spanish is a native or significant language.
Countries
During the Spanish period between 1492 and 1898, many people from Spain migrated to the new lands they had conquered. The Spaniards took with them their language and culture, and integrated within the society they had settled, creating a large empire that stretched all over the world and producing several multiracial populations. Their influences are found in the following continents and countries that were originally colonized by the Spaniards.
Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) Main Article: Judaeo-Spanish, See also: Sephardic Jews Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain brought their language to their new lands. This language is now known as Judeo Spanish or Ladino, and retains many unique grammatical structures from Old Castilian, in addition to other older Iberian languages such as Old Catalan, Galician, Asturleonese, Old Aragonese, and Mozarabic. The language is traditionally written in Hebrew script (using Rashi script), however has in modern times often been written with the Latin script.
The vast majority of Ladino speakers lived in the Ottoman Empire (specifically Anatolia and the Levant), Morocco, and the Balkans, with a minority in Italy, Greece, Brazil, and other locations along the Mediterranean Sea. In 2017, the language was officially recognised as a dialect of Spanish by the Royal Spanish Academy. As of 2018, Ethnologue estimated around 51,000 people to speak the language natively. Ethnologue has categorised the language as endangered.
Geographic distribution of Spanish speakers
Europe
Spain
The modern-day nationalities that live in the region of ancient Hispania are the Portuguese, Spanish, Andorran and Gibraltarian people. Historically, the modern country of Spain was formed by the accretion of several independent Iberian kingdoms through dynastic inheritance, conquest and the will of the local elites. These kingdoms had their own nationalistic loyalties and political borders. Today, there is no single Castilian–Spanish identity for the whole country. Spain is a de facto plurinational state. Many Spanish citizens feel no conflict in recognising their multiple ethnic identities at the same time. Spain is a culturally heterogeneous country, home to a wide range of cultures, each one with its own customs and traditions. Some such cultures have their own language. Since the beginning of the transition to democracy in Spain and the creation of the Spanish autonomous communities, after Francoist Spain, there have been many movements towards more autonomy (delegation of powers) in certain territories of the country, some with the aim of achieving full independence and others with the goal of improving the system of devolution and the state of the autonomies (or self-government entities). The existence of multiple distinct cultures in Spain allows an analogy to be drawn to the United Kingdom. Using the term Spanish for someone of Spanish descent would then be expected to be equivalent to using Briton to describe someone descending from some part of the United Kingdom. Cultures within the United Kingdom, such as English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, would then correspond in this analogy to cultures within Spain such as Castilian, Catalan, Galician and Basque among others. In contrast with Spain, because of centuries of gradual and mutual consolidation across the Iberian Peninsula, such distinctions tend to be blurred. It is a subtle, yet important, distinction. In Spain, as in the United Kingdom, the economically dominant territories—Castile and England—spread their language for mutual communication. However, the political dominance in the United Kingdom tends to be sharper compared to Spain, where most of medieval realms do not correspond with the actual boundaries of the autonomous communities, and the crown was unified into a sole monarch.
Americas
Hispanic America
Spanish is the most widely-spoken language of the Americas, as well as the official language in a great part of the Americas.
United States
Origins and demography
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