Who Are the Spanish Speakers? An Examination of Their Linguistic,Cultural,and Societal Commonalities and Differences

Abstract

In this article, three different aspects of the Spanish-speaking community are analyzed: (1) The idiosyncratic characteristics of the Spanish language, (2) the social dimension of the Spanish speakers, and finally, (3) their cultural manifestations. Two major Hispanic subcultures are distinguished: Iberian Spanish culture and Hispano American culture. Initially, the distribution of Spanish speakers in the world and the major oral and written characteristics of Spanish language are presented. The social characteristics of the Spanish-speaking countries, including economic development, literacy, life expectancy, and Human Development Index, are later discussed. It is emphasized that they represent a group of countries with a significant degree of heterogeneity. Finally, the Iberian Spanish and the Hispano American cultures are analyzed. Five cultural elements are reviewed: (1) ethnic group, (2) language, (3) religion, (4) level of development, and (5) level of schooling. It is concluded that regardless that in Spain, there are important regional differences, it is possible to consider that there is a cultural background common to all Spaniards, which may have specific nuances in each region. Hispano America, on the other hand, from the point of view of its ethnic origin, is 50% descended from Europeans, Indians, and Africans. The other 50% represents a mixture in varying proportions of these ethnic groups and other groups. It is concluded that in Hispano America there is a “base” culture (Hispanic culture) that presents a great variability according to the particular country and region. This base culture emphasizes socially oriented values, such as solidarity, some temporary flexibility, and similar cultural values.

Keywords

Spanish language Spanish-speaking countries Iberian Spanish culture Hispano American culture

The Spanish Language

Spanish, like every language in the world, has certain specific characteristics, from the phonological, lexical, and grammatical point of view. Its writing system also has distinctive aspects. The Spanish-speaking countries are many, but they basically include Spain and Hispano America.

Spanish in the World

It is difficult to know the exact number of Spanish speakers in the world. There are—as also observed with other languages—different estimates. According to Ethnologue, Spanish is spoken in the following countries and territories: Germany, Andorra, Argentina, Netherlands Antilles, Arabia, Australia, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, the United States, Philippines, Finland, France, Equatorial Guinea, Gibraltar, Guatemala, Honduras, Cayman Islands, Israel, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Morocco, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Ethnologue reports that the languages with the highest number of native speakers (in millions) in the world are as follows:

Chinese Mandarin (918);

Spanish (460);

English (379);

Hindi (341);

Arabic (319).

According to Ethnologue, Spanish is spoken in 31 different countries. The Instituto Cervantes (2018) estimates that there are 480 million native speakers, and 100 million more who speak Spanish as a second language, with a total of approximately 580 million speakers.

The countries in the world with the largest number of Spanish speakers are as follows:

Mexico: 130 million;

Colombia: 50 million;

United States: 49 million;

Spain: 46 million;

Argentina: 44 million.

Many of the Spanish speakers are bilingual, and their dominant language often is not Spanish. For instance, in the United States, for Hispanics second-generation persons frequently the primary language (L1) is Spanish, but because they attend school in English, English becomes the dominant language. Specific bilingualism depends on the region: bilingualism in Latin America is usually with a native language (e.g., in Paraguay, with Guaraní, in Peru, with Quechua). In Spain, bilingualism often occurs with a Spanish national language (e.g., Catalan), or with a language from neighboring countries (e.g., French), while bilingualism in the United States is almost exclusive with English.

As in all the world languages, Spanish presents certain variations in its oral production, although its writing system is unified and governed by the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, which includes 23 national academies, corresponding to the different Spanish-speaking countries. The Royal Spanish Academy of Language (Real Academia Española) plays a coordinating role in these different academies. Spanish is considered a solidly unified language, despite the high number of its speakers (Moreno-Fernández & Otero-Roth, 2006). The differences between the Spanish spoken in Argentina, Mexico, and Spain are minimal and their speakers can communicate with each other in a percentage close to 100%.

In many countries of the world where it is not an official language, Spanish is spoken in varying percentages of the population. Table 1 presents some examples.

Table 1.

Percentage of Spanish Speakers in Some Countries (According to Instituto Cervantes, 2018).

Country	Population	Native speakers	Limited knowledge	Total	%
Andorra	77,280	31,419	28,334	59,753	77.3
Algeria	42,200,000	175,000	48,000	223,000	0.53
Australia	25,308,000	117,498	374,571	492,000	1.94
Brazil^a	209,000,000	460,018	96,000	556,000	0.27
Canada	37,300,000	410,670	298,000	709,670	1.90
Israel	9,100,000	130,000	45,000	175,000	1.92
Morocco	35,700,000	6,586	1,664,000	1,670,586	4,68
Norway	5,300,000	13,000	24,000	37,000	0.70
Philippines^b	100,900,000	3,325	461,680	465,505	0.46
Switzerland	8,500,000	124,000	—	124,000	1.45
European Union (except Spain)	512,500,000	1,400,000	30,975,000	32,375,000	6.31
Total in the world	7,500,000,000	480,000,000	100,000,000	580,000,000	7.73

Note. ^aSpanish is the most important foreign language in Brazil. In 2005, the “Spanish Law” was passed in that country, which obliges all secondary schools to offer this language as an elective school subject. It is expected that in the future the number of Spanish speakers will increase considerably. ^bIt is difficult to know the precise number of Spanish speakers in the Philippines. At the beginning of the 20th century, Spanish was the official language and 10%–15% of the population spoke Spanish. Since then, a policy of de-Hispanicization of the country and expansion of English has been followed. However, Spanish continued as an official language until the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution and, as a compulsory subject in universities, until 1987. Probably today the number of native speakers is very low, but many people speak Spanish as a second language. There is also a Creole Spanish called “Chabacano,” which is located especially in the south of the country, with about 1 million speakers.

Spanish belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, italic subfamily, and is specifically a Romance language (along with others, such as Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, and some others). Its classification is, according to Ethnologue, Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Ibero-Romance, West Iberian, and Castilian.

From the point of view of the rhythm of the language, Spanish belongs to the group of the “syllable-timed” languages (each syllable is produced with an approximately equal duration, even though each word has an accented syllable; Berg, 1991), as opposed to the “stress-timed” languages (the syllables may have different duration, but the time between two sets of stresses is similar; for example, English).

Origin

Spanish is derived, like other Romance languages, from vulgar Latin. Specifically, it originated about 1,000 years ago in the northern part of Spain and became the official language of the Kingdom of Castilla. Subsequently, it extended to the south of the Iberian Peninsula as a result of the Reconquista of Spain (Lapesa, 1968; Penny, 2002). With the discovery and conquest of America, it spread to a large part of the new continent. The contact with the native American languages resulted in the introduction into Spanish of various words, known in Spanish as “Americanisms” some of which are only used in very specific areas.

Spanish or Castilian?

Frequently, Spanish and Castilian are used as synonyms. Castellano (Castilian) is the original name of the language, but with the unification of Spain in the 16th century, the name “Spanish” tended to spread. Currently in Spain the denomination “Castilian” is preferred, to distinguish it from other Spanish languages (e.g., Catalan, Galician, Basque), but the term “Spanish” is preferred when it is opposed to a foreign language. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the name “Castilian,” to differentiate it from other Spanish languages. The denomination used by the Academies of the Language is “Spanish” (Association of Academies of the Spanish Language) and the official dictionary of the language is called Dictionary of the Spanish Language (2015).

In Latin America, the terms “Spanish” and “Castilian” are used as synonyms, although there are preferences in their denomination according to the country and even according to the historical moment. For example, in Colombia, there was until recently a clear preference for the term “Castilian,” but nowadays the term “Spanish” tends to be preferred.

Following the tradition that the preferred term internationally is “Spanish,” in this article, I will always use that denomination, explicitly recognizing that the language that is known internationally as Spanish corresponds only to one of the Spanish languages: Castilian.

Phonology

The phonological system of Spanish is similar to that of other Indo-European languages. It has approximately 23 to 25 phonemes (there are two phonemes that are only found in some regions: the interdental fricative θ -Z or C- and the lateral palatal sound / λ / -LL). Some phonemes have different production according to the region: for example, the affricate / tʃ / becomes fricative (/ ʃ /) in Cuba and northern Mexico. The system phonological includes five vowels: / a /, / e /, / i /, / or /, / u /, 16 to 18 consonants, and two semivowels: la [i] and la [u], which can function as semivowels in posnuclear syllable position (Penny, 2002; Quilis, 1963).

The three outstanding phonological characteristics of Spanish language are as follows: (1) Diphthongization: Spanish has a very large number of diphthongs that can alternate with vowels (e.g., poder -puedo), while tends to have a limited use of hiatus (accents used to dissolve the diphthong, for example, día). (2) In the evolution from Latin to Spanish, the voiceless occlusive phonemes (/ p /, / t /, / k /) in the intervocalic position became voiced (/ b /, / d /, / g /), but only in the “vulgar” (high frequency) words, while they continued to be voiceless in derivative words (e.g., abeja, apicultura); and the voiced occlusive phonemes were fricativized (sometimes these phonemes receive the name of approximants or aspirants) (β, δ, γ). For example, B in the word “Sábado” is pronounced as / β / and D as / δ /. This simplification is sometimes called elision. These approximate phonemes, however, are not found in central Mexico. (3) Spanish has a very definite syllabic structure; in each word, one of the syllables carries a distinctive, functional accent within the language (e.g., libro–libró).

Grammar

Grammar (morphosyntax) includes morphology and syntax. From the morphological point of view, Spanish is an inflectional language: it uses inflections to indicate the relationship between the elements; that is, the composition of the words changes (e.g., casa, casas, casita). This implies important morphological changes in words that include a lexeme or radical morpheme, to which one or more grammatical morphemes can be added (e.g., cas-a, cas-as, cas-ita). However, there are no grammatical cases (flexion paradigms depending on the case—accusative, locative, genitive, etc.), as it happened in Latin. Prepositions (type of grammatical morpheme: a, ante, bajo, etc.) are also used to indicate these relationships between the elements of a sentence (Real Academia Española, 2009).

In Spanish, as in other Romance languages, the order of the words within the sentence is flexible (e.g., Juan ama a Maria; a Maria ama Juan; Juan a Maria ama), although notoriously more flexible than in other Romance languages. Sometimes Spanish is considered as an example of a language with maximum flexibility in the order of the words in the sentence. There is, however, a basic order of words in the sentence (canonical order: subject > verb > object, for example, Juan ama a Maria).

Lexicon

As a language of Latin origin, the vast majority (probably around 75%) of the words of the Spanish language are derived from Latin. A notoriously lower percentage, from the Greek, sometimes through Latin. 8% of the words come from Arabic; and the rest from a diversity of languages (Gómez de Silva, 1998). To this must be added the “Americanisms” (words taken from Amerindian languages), whose use is highly variable in each country.

Throughout history, different languages have contributed to the Spanish vocabulary. From the pre-Roman languages, there are still some words (e.g., cama—bed, perro—dog). The Muslim occupation left a number of words that were gradually integrated into Spanish (many of the words that begin with / al /, such as almohada—pillow, alhaja—jewelry). The discovery of America introduced words related to American products (e.g., tomate—tomato, tabaco—tobacco). During the 18th and 19th centuries, French borrowings were frequent (e.g., menu—menu, gala—gala). More recently, most borrowings represent technical words generally taken from English (e.g., internet, software).

The lexicon of each Spanish-speaking country is affected by: (1) borrowings from other languages, especially Amerindian languages. For example, the word “biche” is a borrowing from the Chibcha language, only understandable in Colombia; in Mexico a large number of words taken from Nahuatl, incomprehensible to most Spanish speakers, are used (e.g., guarache—sandal, elote—corn, guajolote—turkey); the borrowings of the Native American languages (Americanisms) have been incorporated into the Dictionary of the Spanish Language (2001). Spanish borrowings in Spanish spoken in the United States are almost exclusively from English (e.g., driveway). Argentines use different borrowings from Italian (e.g., guarda → look); and (2) the existing ecological conditions make certain words, current in one country, but unknown in another. Given the extension of the Spanish-speaking world, its geography is diverse. Probably only the inhabitants of the tropics (such as Colombia) know a guanábana or a lulo; and only the Spaniards know exactly how an “acorn” looks like.

The Spanish Writing System

The writing system of Spanish, like the writing system of any language, has certain peculiarities. Spanish has a transparent reading system, except (1) the reading of certain words taken from other languages (e.g., souvenir, jeep); (2) some irregularities in the transcription of words taken from Amerindian languages, particularly evident in Mexico (e.g., Oaxaca); and (3) certain archaisms in writing (e.g., Mexico).

The ambiguity in the writing system (except for the mentioned irregularities) goes in one direction: many words can potentially be written in different ways (so-called spelling rules) (e.g., / muxer / could be written MUJER or MUGER), but there is only a possible reading for any word or pseudo-word. In Spanish, it is possible, therefore, to find homophonic heterography (there may be alternative forms to write the sequence of phonemes of a word), but there is no homographic heterophony (there is only one possible way to read a sequence of letters). In writing two different types of errors can be distinguished: homophones (usually known as spelling errors, for example, MUJER is written MUGER) and non-homophones (usually known as writing errors, for example, MUJER is written NUJER). Non-homophonic errors are due to changes, additions, or substitutions of letters that alter the written representation of the spoken word. The first type of errors is very frequent, particularly in people with limited levels of schooling, but they are also found even in people with university levels of education (Ardila et al., 1996).

There is no agreement on the reading unit in different languages, but probably the unit of reading in Spanish is the syllable (Ardila & Cuetos, 2016). Spanish has a very well-defined syllabic structure (syllables are built around a vowel or a diphthong), and from the expressive point of view, Spanish is clearly a syllable-timed language. It is easy to assume that Spanish speakers have a very strong syllabic awareness; distinguishing the syllables in a word is considered—unlike other languages such as English—as a task with a very low level of difficulty, almost self-evident, given the syllabic production of the language.

The longest unit that is required to be read globally, that is, only considering the complete sequence of letters it is possible to deduce phonology, is the syllable, in particular certain syllables composed of three letters, such as GUI and GUA. It would then seem reasonable to assume that the reading in Spanish is carried out using a syllabic sequence (syllable by syllable).

Spelling errors are found in those syllabic sets in which alternate forms of writing are possible. Different “writing complexes” can be distinguished (e.g., the representation of the phoneme / k /, the representation of the phoneme / g /) (Ardila, 1998). In case of cerebral pathology, spelling errors in Spanish are not necessarily associated with aphasia; in the case of right hemispheric pathologies, it is common to find an increase in spelling errors in writing, which could suggest that the use of spelling represents in a certain way a visuoperceptual ability for Spanish-speaking subjects (“how the written word looks”).

Social Characteristics of the Spanish-Speaking Countries

The Spanish-speaking population is heterogeneous. Despite its linguistic and partial cultural commonality, its economic and educational levels are variable.

Table 2 presents some basic characteristics of Spanish-speaking countries. It is evident that this is a group of countries with a significant degree of heterogeneity. The percentage of illiteracy, for example, is over 20% in some countries, while in others it is less than 2%. Some countries are relatively rich, while others are notoriously poorer.

Table 2.

Social Characteristics of the Major Spanish-Speaking Countries.

Country	Population (millions) (2019)	GNI per capita (in dollars)^a	Literacy^b	Life expectancy (average)^c	Human Development Index (HDI)^d
Argentina	43.9	18,461	98	76.7	0.825
Bolivia	11.3	6,714	92	69.5	0.693
Chile	17.5	21,910	97	79.7	0.843
Colombia	50.0	12,938	93	74.6	0.747
Costa Rica	4.8	14,636	97	80.0	0.794
Cuba	11.2	7,524	99	79.9	0.777
Dom. Republic	10.7	13,921	90	74.0	0.736
Ecuador	16.4	10,347	92	76.6	0.752
El Salvador	6.4	6,868	84	73.8	0.674
USA	52.0	15,674	59	81.5e	0.924
Ecuat. Guinea	1.3	19,513	95	57.9	0.591
Guatemala	17.3	4,582	78	73.7	0.650
Honduras	9.1	4,215	85	73.8	0.617
Mexico	126.5	16,944	93	77.3	0.774
Nicaragua	6.1	5,157	78	75.7	0.658
Panama	4.0	20,189	94	78.2	0.789
Paraguay	7.1	8,380	94	73.3	0.702
Peru	32.4	11,789	94	75.2	0.750
Puerto Rico	3.2	32.004	98	80.9	0.845
Spain	46.7	34,258	98	83.3	0.891
Uruguay	3.4	19,930	98	77.6	0.804
Venezuela	27.5	10,672	95	74.7	0.761

Note. GNI = gross national income.

Human Development Indices and Indicators (2018). ^bUnited Nations Development Programme Report (2019). For the United States, it includes Reading in English only. Reading in Spanish is not considered. ^cHuman Development Report (2018). ^dThe Human Development Index (HDI) is a general indicator of the well-being of the population developed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). It simultaneously includes three different parameters: life expectancy, educational level (literacy rate in adults and combined gross enrollment ratio in primary, secondary, and university education), and standard of living (measured by GDP per capita in dollars). It is considered as an index of the authentic welfare of the population. According to the UNDP, countries can be divided into three groups: (1) countries with high human development (HDI ≥0.8); (2) countries with middle human development (HDI ≥0.5 ≤0.8); and (3) countries with low human development (HDI ≤0.5).

Hispanics in the United States have a life expectancy of about 2 years higher than the average of the general population, which is 79.5.

In almost all countries, Spanish coexists with other languages (Table 3). In some countries, it is the only national language, while in others only a variable percentage of the population speaks it.

Table 3.

Linguistic Characteristics of Spanish-Speaking Countries.

Country	Population (millions) (2019)	Linguistic diversity) Index)^a	Other languages^b	Total languages	Spanish speakers (%)	Bilingualism (other official language)
Argentina	43.9	0.213	German, Arabic, Guaraní, Italian, Quechua, Mapudungun	25	99.7	Monolingual
Bolivia	11.3	0.680	Quechua, Aymara, German	36	87.7	Quechua, Aymara
Chile	17.5	0.034	Mapudungun	9	89.7	Monolingual
Colombia	50.0	0.030	Wayuu	80	99.0	In some areas native languages are recognized
Costa Rica	4.8	0.059	—	9	97.5	Monolingual
Cuba	11.2	0.001	—	2	100.0	Monolingual
Dom. Republic	10.7	0.053	Haitian French creole	4	98.1	Monolingual
Ecuador	16.4	0.264	Quechua	23	93.0	In some areas native languages are recognized
USA	52.0	0.353	English (2)	162	15.3	New Mexico is the only bilingual continental state
Ecuat. Guinea	1.3	0.453	French, Fang, Bube, Combe	14	100.0	Spanish/French bilingual
El Salvador	6.4	0.004	Pipil	5	100.0	Monolingual
Guatemala	17.3	0.691	Kaqchikel, K’iche’, Mam Poqomchi’, Q’eqchi’	54	64.7	In some areas native languages are recognized
Honduras	9.1	0.056	—	10	98.2	Monolingual
Mexico	126.5	0.135	Arabic, English, Maya, Mazahua, Mixteco, Nahuatl. Otomi, Tzeltal, Otomi	291	97.0	In some areas native languages are recognized
Nicaragua	6.1	0.081	Miskito	7	87.4	In some areas native languages are recognized
Panama	4.0	0.324	English creole, Ngäbere	14	76.8	Monolingual but implicitly English is recognized
Paraguay	7.1	0.347	Guarani, German Portuguese	20	90.0	Bilingual Spanish/Guarani
Peru	32.4	0.376	Quechua, Aymara, Chinese	90	79.8	Quechua and Aymara are co-official in some areas
Puerto Rico	3.2	0.049	—	3	98.2	Bilingual Spanish/English
Spain	46.7	0.438	Catalan, Basque, Galician, Arabic^c	13	99.1	In some autonomic communities Catalan, Basque, Galician, and Occitan are co-official
Uruguay	3.4	0.092	—	2	95.8	Monolingual
Venezuela	27.5	0.026	Wayuu, Chinese	40	96.9	Constitution recognizes all the American spoken languages

Source. Adapted from Ethnologue.

Note. ^aGreenberg’s linguistic diversity index (LDI) describes the probability that two people selected from the population at random will have different mother tongues; it therefore ranges from 0 (everyone has the same mother tongue) to 1 (no two people have the same mother tongue). ^bOnly those languages with over 100,000 speakers are included (according to Ethnologue). ^cIn Spain, Spanish is the mother tongue for 89% of the population, Catalonian for 9%, Galician for 5%, and Basque for 1%.

The Hispanic Population of the United States

In the 2000 census (United States Census Bureau, 2000), it was reported that 46,951,595 people (17.9% of the population) spoke a language other than English at home, whereas in the 2004 census (United States Census Bureau, 2004) the number was 49,632,925 (18.7%), and in 2013 the number was 61.8 million (19.9%) (United States Census Bureau, 2013). This percentage has been increasing progressively mainly due to the immigration of Latin Americans to the United States. Spanish, evidently, is the second language of the United States in terms of number of speakers.

Today, there are about 65 million people who speak at home a different language than English. Spanish speakers represent about 75% of this group, or close to 50 million. Calculating the exact number of Spanish speakers is indeed extremely difficult, due to illegal immigration; it is estimated, however, that in the country there are about 8 million undocumented immigrants, of which 6 million are Mexican. If the undocumented people of other Spanish-speaking countries are counted, probably the number of illegal Spanish speakers could be 7 million. In other words, the figure of 50 million probably underestimates the true number. It could well reach 57 million if illegal immigrants are included.

Currently, the United States represents the second or third largest Spanish-speaking country in the world after Mexico, and may be Colombia. Approximately 75% of Hispanics are of Mexican origin, 10.6% of Puerto Ricans (residents of Puerto Rico are not included in these statistics), 4.2% of Cubans, and the rest from other countries. Hispanics are especially concentrated in Florida, the southwestern states, and New York.

Spanish and English have been in contact for a long time, and this has led to the development of an interlanguage (or Spanish dialect) usually known as “Spanglish.” Spanglish, however, has been very little analyzed from the point of view of linguistics (Ardila, 2002, 2005) although there are several studies on the impact that contact with other languages has had on Spanish (e.g., Roca & Jensen, 1996, Siguán, 2001, Silva-Corvalán, 1995).

Despite the large number of Spanish speakers in the United States, Spanish represents a language with little presence in the American world of education, art, science, politics, and so on. There is only one continental state officially bilingual English/Spanish (New Mexico).

Bilingualism

It is very difficult to calculate the number of bilinguals in each country, given the difficulty in establishing a criterion of bilingualism. In most secondary schools, for example, it is compulsory to study a second language. Would that mean that anyone who has attended high school should be considered bilingual? It is very difficult to answer yes or no to this question. It seems simpler to analyze which countries and in which regions of Spain and Latin America bilingualism is officially recognized (see Table 3). The level of bilingualism is also very varied, and while some countries are clearly bilingual (e.g., Paraguay), others are practically monolingual (e.g., Cuba).

Culture

Initially, the Iberian Spanish culture will be described. Later, the Hispano American culture will be analyzed.

The Iberian Spanish Culture

Different peoples, through history, have contributed to the formation of Spanish culture: Phoenicians, Greeks, Iberians, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, and so on. The situation of Spain in the Mediterranean has allowed it to share over the centuries many common cultural elements with other Mediterranean peoples. The Roman domination of several centuries led to the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula adopting their (Roman) culture, language, and administrative structure.

In Spain, there are important regional differences, which are observed in customs, language, and even the physical phenotype. However, it is possible to consider that there is a cultural background common to all Spaniards, which may have specific nuances in each region.

Describing Spanish culture is very difficult, not only because of this regional variation but also because of the great changes that the country has undergone during the last decades. Spain is one of the countries in the world that has most changed recently. Until the mid 70s of the last century, Spain was a traditional, conservative country; the influence of the Catholic Church was felt at all levels of life; the country was relatively isolated from the rest of the European countries, and emigration (especially to Western Europe and Latin America) was high. But from that moment on, changes have been enormous. It is considered that the Spanish Constitution of 1978 is one of the most liberal in the world; the influence of the Church has significantly diminished. Spain is now, in magnitude, the 14th largest economy in the world. The per capita income is close to 34,000 dollars per year, its Human Development Index (HDI) is 0.891, and life expectancy is the second in the world (after Japan).

Spain is currently a highly developed Western society that maintains its own values, customs, and cultural expressions. An important question is, which of these values, customs, and cultural expressions are specific to Spain and which constitute the continuation of cultural expressions formed over the centuries through the amalgamation of other cultural influences in Spain? Some anthropological studies coincide in pointing out certain salient features of Spanish culture and life (e.g., Kern, 1995; Stanton, 2002; Tolosana, 2004).

Spain continues to be a society with great emphasis on family ties. The family represents a central core of life. Spanish loyalty seems to focus more on the family and the regional group (Castilian, Catalan, etc.) than in Spain as such. The nationalist movements of some sectors are significant and sometimes the differences are emphasized more than the similarities (“there is not one Spain, there are several Spains”). Like other Mediterranean countries, Spain is a country in which loyalties to the group (family, friends, regional group) represent a central axis of life.

Stanton (2002) assumes that the three most characteristic features of Spaniards are “self-love,” “common sense,” and what he calls “little practical sense.” Self-love implies an esteem and defense of oneself, of one’s work, and of one’s family. Common sense manifests itself in things such as the acceptance of death, which brings with it the need to live life intensely. The little practical sense is reflected in the idealism, the mysticism, and in the values represented by Don Quixote (one of the greatest symbols of Spain). But it also manifests itself in disorganization, little planning, and a very peculiar disinterest in money. For any foreigner who visits Spain, he or she may be struck by the fact that Spaniards behave as if money does not matter, as if it were not a relevant element in life. This results in unusual generosity.

The perception of time derives in large part from the interpretation of life and the acceptance of death. Time is to be filled with the important things in life. From this perspective, work is not necessarily viewed as central to life and for the Spaniard time is more elastic and schedules more flexible.

Within the Western world all culture and subculture groups have tended to approximate each other. There is a new value system derived from science and technology. The models of political organization are increasingly similar, and naturally the incorporation of Spain into the European Union implies the adoption of a form of social organization very similar to that found in other European countries. Spain has been significantly liberalized during the last decades; one of its great pillars, like the Catholic religion, has gradually lost their influence in the life of the Spaniards. There is something new in that life (the international market, technification, etc.), but something remains of the traditional values, formed over centuries, since the arrival of the first Iberian settlers.

Hispano American Culture

Hispano America is a mixture of three cultural groups: European (especially Spanish and to a lesser extent other groups—Italian, German, etc.), indigenous (more than 1,000 different groups), and African (various groups). Other cultural groups have also made contributions (e.g., Arabs, Jews, Chinese), but to a lesser degree. In each country, and even in each region, the contribution of each group has been different. There are countries composed almost exclusively of descendants of Europeans (e.g., Argentina); there are other countries composed mostly of indigenous populations (e.g., Bolivia); and there are also countries with a clear predominance of mestizo groups (e.g., Mexico). Moreover, in Latin America, there is a very significant mixture between these different cultural groups. The Hispano American culture, consequently, is not homogeneous; on the contrary, it is particularly heterogeneous, which makes it difficult to describe.

However, when considering that Latin America is basically a mixture of three large cultural groups, it must be noted that the three groups have not had an equal relationship and their contributions to the “Hispano American culture” have not been similar. On the contrary, one of the three groups (the European) has been “dominant” and to a large extent has imposed its language, its religion, its value system, and its interpretation of the world. In a significant way, Spanish culture represents the basic culture in Hispano America. From the cultures brought by Africans to the Americas, few vestiges remain, perhaps only in music, religion, and some patterns of behavior and values. The mixture of Europeans with Native American groups, on the other hand, has been complex, and there is a continuum that goes from the complete Europeanization of the indigenous to the native groups with minimal influence of European cultures.

It is important to note that most of the Spaniards who came to the America were Andalusians or Estremadurians. It is noted in the census of settlers, between 1492 and 1580, that 35.8% of the settlers were Andalusians; 16.9%, Estremadurians; 14.8%, Castilians, and the remaining 22.5% of diverse origin (Llorca, 2004). Consequently, the Hispano American language and culture tend to be more similar to the dialectal varieties and subcultures of southern and central Spain. Culturally and linguistically, Latin America is more like Andalusia than any other Spanish region.

For simplicity, some relatively operational criteria of culture will be taken: (1) ethnic group (American, European, or African), (2) language (Spanish vs. other languages), (3) religion (since the religion implies an interpretation of the world and a value system), (4) level of development (“technological culture”), and (5) level of schooling (“knowledge culture”); these last two criteria are highly interdependent.

Ethnic group

Different sources present different distributions for the ethnic groups that make up Latin America. However, these presented distributions are relatively similar but not totally coincident. Table 4 presents the percentages, for the different Hispano American countries, of European, indigenous, African, mestizo (European and indigenous), and mulatto (European and African) descendants. Finally, the “variable mix” column is presented to indicate that there is a mixture between the three groups; or between one or more of the three groups and other groups (e.g., Arabs). It is important to emphasize that, indeed, the mixtures between the different groups can have all the imaginable proportions: half, a quarter, an eighth, and so on. Moreover, since they are mixtures that have been produced progressively during several centuries, it is very difficult to determine, in a particular subject, in what proportion is a descendant of European, indigenous, African, or any other group. Usually, Hispanic Americans themselves do not know whether or not they have ancestry belonging to a certain group. For all these reasons, the percentages that are presented are simply tentative.

Table 4.

Ethnic Composition (Percentage) in Different Hispano American Countries.

Country	European	Amerindian	African	Mestizo	Mulatto	Variable mix
Argentina	97	—	—	—	—	3
Bolivia	15	55	—	30	—	—
Chile	2	3	—	—	—	95
Colombia	20	1	4	58	14	3
Costa Rica	—	1	3	—	—	96
Cuba	38	—	11	—	51	—
Ecuador	—	25	3	65	—	7
El Salvador	9	1	—	90	—	—
Guatemala	—	40	—	—	—	60
Honduras	1	7	2	90	—	—
Mexico	13	11	—	75	—	1
Nicaragua	17	5	6	69	—	3
Panama	7	12	9	65	7	—

Source. Adapted from Bakewell (1997) and Bethell (1995).

Hispano America, from the point of view of its ethnic origin, would then be 50% descended from Europeans, Indians, and Africans. In the other 50%, a mixture in varying proportions of these ethnic groups (but also other groups). These are very preliminary percentages and without doubt the margin of error is high. In addition, this “average” composition is not very informative about the composition of a specific country, given the enormous variability.

However, some very general statements are possible such as: (1) the descendants of Africans tend to concentrate more in the Caribbean area and (2) cultures of indigenous origin are located especially in the Andean highlands and in the Central America-Mexico zone.

In short, the Hispano American culture is based on a major culture (Spanish culture, mainly Andalusian and Estremadurian, origin of a very significant percentage of Spaniards who emigrated to the Americas, and common to all countries). However, this culture has been influenced by two large groups (indigenous and African) and another series of minor groups (Italian, Arab, etc.), with a different participation according to each country. For example, Italian influence is notable in Argentina, but minimal in other countries. Immigration from the former Yugoslavia was very significant in Chile, but practically non-existent in other places. Japanese immigration was mainly directed to Peru. The indigenous influence is very large in Mexico and Bolivia, but minimal in Uruguay. African influence is particularly noticeable in the Caribbean, but minimal in Mexico. All Spanish American countries have something in common (the basic culture, which includes not only language and religion but also a whole system of values and behavior styles), but they are also unique. However, “commonality” (the base culture) represents the notoriously majority percentage in all Spanish-speaking countries. Some countries are undoubtedly closer to Iberian Spanish culture (e.g., Colombia), while others may be more distant (e.g., Mexico). But every Hispanic American who has visited another regional country or has gone to Spain has certainly felt surprised when discovering how similar Hispano American countries are.

Language

The language was analyzed previously (see Table 3).

Religion

The analysis of religion in Hispano America is complex. Officially, the majority religion is Catholic (comprising approximately 90% of the population). However, its influence as a system of values and interpretation of the world is not only variable, but has also tended to change during the last few decades. The percentage of Protestants (different groups) varies among the countries, but it is probably around 5% of the population, with a tendency to increase in recent years. Individuals of Jewish and Muslim religious backgrounds represent approximately 1% to 2% of the population. There are often mixtures between Catholic beliefs and indigenous religions in many regions. In some countries, rites of African origin persist, such as Santeria in Cuba.

The Catholic religion emphasizes certain values, such as forgiveness, sacrifice, humility, family, hierarchical relationships, guilt, and fear of punishment. These values are important components of the Hispano American culture.

The loss of influence of the Catholic religion represents a general tendency observable in most Latin American countries. In many countries, the Catholic Church has even had to close its seminars due to lack of students.

Level of development

All Spanish American countries have a high or medium level of human development. The following is the distribution of the Latin American countries ordered according to the HDI:

Countries with high human development (HDI ≥ 0.8): Puerto Rico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Panama.

Countries with medium human development (0.5 ≤ HDI <0.8): Costa Rica, Panamá, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Perú, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Paraguay, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Countries with low human development (HDI <0.5): None.

Thus, within the global set of nations, some Latin American countries have a high level of human development, and the rest a medium level. The countries with the most limited level of development are found in Central America and the Andean region. The countries of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay) present a comparatively higher level of development.

Level of schooling

Table 5 presents the average number of years of schooling in the economically active population over 15 years old in urban areas of 17 Hispanic American countries. Although that average level is not informative in itself, we can affirm that in Latin America it is about 7 to 10 years of school in urban areas, and almost half of those figures in rural areas. The number of illiterates reaches more than 20% in Guatemala, but in most countries it is less than 10% (see Table 2).

Table 5.

Average Years of Education in the Economically Active Urban Population for Persons Over 15 Years of Age.

Country	1980^a	1980^a	2002^a	2002^a	2015^b
Country	Men	Women	Men	Women	Both
Argentina	7.0	8.2	10.2	11.2	11.4
Bolivia	9.7	8.2	9.8	8.6	8.9
Chile	9.7	10.3	11.1	11.6	10.3
Colombia	7.2	6.9	9.2	9.8	8.1
Costa Rica	7.8	8.6	9.2	10.0	8.6
Cuba	—	—	—	—	10.9
Ecuador	8.8	9.3	9.8	10.0	8.7
El Salvador	8.2	7.9	8.0	7.2	6.8
Guatemala	6.2	6.0	8.0	7.2	6.4
Honduras	6.4	6.8	7.2	7.8	6.3
Mexico	8.8	9.0	9.4	9.6	8.6
Nicaragua	6.8	6.9	6.8	7.5	—
Panama	8.6	9.5	10.3	11.3	—
Paraguay	9.1	8.6	9.8	9.7	8.5
Peru	—	—	10.6	9.9	9.2
Uruguay	7.5	8.2	9.3	10.4	8.7
Venezuela	7.0	7.7	8.1	9.5	9.6

Note. Rural population has in general about 3–5 years less education. ^aTaken from Social Panorama of Latin America (2004). ^bUNESCO.

Interestingly, against all stereotypes, women tend to have an educated level that is slightly higher than men. The level of schooling in urban areas has increased by approximately 2 years in the last two decades, and it is expected that this trend will continue in the future.

Conclusion

The Spanish-speaking world is heterogeneous from every point of view: social, cultural, and economic. There is a “base” culture (Hispanic culture) that presents a great variability according to the country and the particular region. It is necessary to take into account the possible cultural variations. This base culture emphasizes socially oriented values, such as solidarity and some temporary flexibility.

Variations within the Spanish language are small, but variations in use are important (level of bilingualism in different regions). It is important in each country to keep in mind the level of social bilingualism, and in each subject, the level of individual bilingualism.

The reading and writing test requires considering the specific characteristics of the Spanish reading and writing system. Homophonic (orthographic) errors are frequent even in people with a university educational level. Spanish could be considered as a language whose basic unit, both in oral production and in reading, is the syllable.

The lexicon of each country is affected by (1) borrowings from other languages, especially Native American languages, and (2) existing ecological conditions.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Alfredo Ardila received his degree in psychology at the National University of Colombia in 1969 and a doctoral degree in neuropsychology in 1976 from Moscow State University, where he worked with A. R. Luria. His main research areas are brain organization of language, bilingualism, cross-cultural psychology, and evolution of human cognition. He has been professor in different countries including Colombia, México, Spain, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Serbia, Italy, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela, and the United States. He has published over 400 journal papers and he is author or co-author of about 40 books in cognitive neurosciences and related areas. He has been president of several professional associations and is Editor of the journal Neuropsicología, Neuropsiquiatría y Neurociencias. Currently, he is professor at the Psycholinguistics and Intercultural Communication program at the I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University in Moscow (Russia) and distinguished professor at the Albizu University, Miami, FL, USA.

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