Spanish Language History: A Guide For Curious Language Learners

If you're learning Spanish then you should know that Spanish language history is a fascinating subject. Languages evolve slowly but steadily, and their life cycle is measured not in years, but in centuries.

They're also the reflection of a culture: Spanish language history is, in a way, the history of Hispanic culture across the world, beginning with the Roman Empire (or maybe before!). 

So I understand if you’re curious about these things…me too! That’s why I’ve written this article about Spanish language history: because I’m a devoted nerd and proud of it.

Of course, this is not a linguistic treaty or a big, heavy history book; this is just an introduction. Hopefully, it’ll be a useful one. Wanna find out? Just keep reading!

Where Did The Spanish Language Come From?

Let's begin by…well, by the beginning. Of course, this is a tricky subject when speaking about languages, because there are no clear limits.

Time and geography have a very subtle effect on languages, so it’s not easy to say when one ends and the other one starts. Countries have frontiers; languages, not so much. 

You may be wondering: is Spanish a romance language? The answer is yes: Spanish is in fact a romance language, which means it descends from Latin.

The influence of the Roman Empire in the Iberian Peninsula was huge and lasted a long time.

Hispania was one of the earliest Roman Provinces, conquered in the 3rd century BC, and was a part of the Western Roman Empire until the 5th century AC.

We’re talking about some seven hundred years here! That’s a lot of time. For reference, that’s almost twice the time the Romans spent in Britain. 

Of course, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited before the Romans arrived there. There were Celts, Greeks, Iberians, Phenicians, and Carthaginians, among others.

These peoples, conquered so long ago, left very little trace in the Spanish language itself, in part because they influenced Latin directly: there are a lot of Latin words that are originally Celt or Gaul, for example.

However, you can find a more direct influence in other languages of the Iberian Peninsula, like Basque, which descends directly from one of these pre-Roman languages and has very little resemblance to Latin. 

3 Stages Of Spanish Language History: Old, Early Modern & Modern Spanish

Until now, I’ve mostly talked about Latin. But that’s not what you’re here for, are you? Of course not. But we needed some solid ground to start.

Now, let's start talking about what really brought us here: Spanish language history. And, for that, you have to go back to the fall of the Roman Empire. 

In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by the Visigoths. That started a long process that culminated in the emergence of the first form of the Spanish language during the Middle Ages: Old Spanish.

After that, there are two other periods – Early Modern Spanish, between the 15th and the 17th century, and Modern Spanish, which comes after that and until today. 

Old Spanish 

Old Spanish —also known as “Medieval Spanish”— can be first found around the 10th century. If you’re reading carefully, you may notice that there is a huge gap here.

What happened between the 5th century, when the Roman Empire fell, and the first traces of the Spanish language in the 10th century? 

A lot in fact! The Visigoths, who conquered the Peninsula, adopted Latin as their own. This was not the Classical Latin of the 1st century, the one used by Virgil, Ovid, and Augustus. It was Late Latin, in writing, and Vulgar Latin, in everyday speech.

Those two forms slowly evolved and were affected by other languages, spoken by the Visigoths and other non-Roman-peoples that migrated to the Iberian Peninsula. Old Spanish is mostly a descendent of the Vulgar Latin spoken by the Visigoths in central Spain. 

The Influence Of Arabic On Spanish Language History

You can't talk about Spanish language history without discussing the influence of Arabic. Around the 8th century, Islam, then ruled by the Umayyad, defeated the Visigoths and conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula.

This had a definitive influence on Spanish: Arabic left a very clear trace in vocabulary, one that you can almost hear in words like almohada (pillow), algodón (cotton), azulejo (tile) or ojalá (hopefully) derived from an Arab expression that means “if Allah wants it”).

It also influenced Spanish pronunciation, mostly in Southern Spain, where Muslim rule lasted almost seven centuries. 

These two influences —the Visigoths and the Arabs—, combined with some three hundred years of intense political turbulence, were the breeding ground for the new language we can find in the Cantar de Mio Cid: Old Spanish. 

Early Modern Spanish

Between the 10th and the 15th century, Old Spanish changed, but in a very slow, organic way. Things started to get interesting around the 15th century.

Early Modern Spanish accounts for a very short period — three centuries is pocket change when you’re speaking about languages—, but a very important one. What happened then? Two very important historical events occurred.

First, there's the Reconquista: at the end of the 15th century, the Kingdom of Castile conquered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in the Peninsula, and unified the territory of what we now know as Spain.

This is the end of the Arab presence in the region, a key factor. But there's another very important political event, one that changed not only Spanish language history, but also the history of the world: the colonisation of the Americas. 

These two events are important for different reasons. The conquest of Granada is a sign of the consolidation of the Spanish state. This resulted in a standardization of the language.

In the 15th century, the first Spanish grammar (and the first grammar of a romance language) written by Antonio de Nebrija, is published.

Almost simultaneously, the colonisation of America incorporated lots of indigenous words into the Spanish language, used to name new objects, like potatoes, tomatoes, and avocados. 

Most importantly, colonisation expanded the Spanish Empire, which meant that now, Spanish was spoken by very different people in very distant places of the world, something that favoured the emergence of dialects and slang.

This expansion also enriched the country and gave birth to the Spanish Golden Age.

Some of the most well-known authors of Spanish Literature, like Cervantes, Quevedo, or Lope de Vega, wrote in Early Modern Spanish, the same way Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English; that’s why some experts call it “Golden Age Spanish”. 

Modern Spanish

Around the 17th century, all these changes provoked by the colonisation of the Americas started to stabilize.

A sign of that is that the Spanish used in the 18th century is perfectly readable for a native speaker of the 21st century, which can’t be said for, let’s say, 16th century Spanish, which is understandable but strange and difficult.

Of course, a lot of things have happened since then; the independence of the Spanish colonies, for example, allowed for regional variations to gain a more definitive, standardised form.

Different kinds of New World Spanish existed before the independence, but they solidified after that. 

All the different variations we now know —Mexican Spanish, Colombian Spanish, Argentinian Spanish, and so on— have their own history. But they also have a common ancestry: Early Modern Spanish used during colonisation, and Modern Spanish used in the administration of the Spanish Empire.

Of course, independence is relative. Even today, the main reference for “correction” in Spanish is the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy), located in Spain, which strongly favours the Peninsular variation of the language. 

And languages keep changing; you can see it —and hear it!— everywhere. In Puerto Rico, the interaction between English and Spanish has created unique slang.

In Paraguay, the relationship between Guarani and Spanish is unique, productive, and dynamic.

This story of Spanish language history is still unfolding, and, considering that Spanish has almost six hundred million speakers around the world, doesn’t look like it’s going to end soon. 

Spanish Language History And Culture

Well, that’s it: twenty-two hundred years of Spanish language history in a nutshell. Not bad, right?

Of course, there wasn't the time to adequately discuss many fascinating things such as the Arab influence on today’s Andalusian pronunciation.

Or the relationship between Quechua, Nahuatl, Guarani, and other extended indigenous languages with Modern Spanish.

Wanna learn a fascinating Spanish language fact? Here’s one: most of the Spanish conquerors came from the south of Spain, from what today is known as Andalusia, because ships to America parted from Seville and Cádiz.

This means that they spoke the regional variation of Spanish most affected by Arab: they imported the Arab influence into the Americas!

I could keep talking about Spanish language history forever, but I only promised an introduction, and I think this will do. Wanna learn more about the Spanish language? Don’t worry, today is your lucky day!

You can start a Spanish course with StoryLearning, a special language learning method that uses stories to help you learn a new language. Believe me, it is as fun as it sounds! See you soon

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.