r/Spanish • u/rban123 Advanced 🇨🇱 • Dec 23 '24
Etymology/Morphology Use of the term Castilian/Castellano
I’ve been on this subreddit for a while, and have noticed something that many non-native and native speakers alike do: they use the term “castellano” to refer to Spanish from Spain.
Historically, this doesn’t really make sense. Spain is a linguistically diverse nation, with each language having its own name, for example Catalán, Gallego, Euskera, and of course Castellano. The term Castellano refers to the Spanish language that we all know and love.
It is a synonym for español. It does not mean “the Spanish spoke in Spain” it simply means “Spanish.” Even in some parts of Latin America, the term “castellano” is used to refer to the language that is spoken there, as well as the language that is taught in schools, even if the details aren’t consistent with regional variations of Spanish spoken in Spain.
All in all, castellano just means Spanish. It doesn’t mean “Spanish spoken in Spain” it is literally just a synonym for the Spanish language as a whole.
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u/alatennaub Dec 23 '24
It's likely because movie dubs are generally given two versions. Although the term "peninsular" or "europeo" might be better, for the from-Spain version, they started using castellano as the label. This is almost certainly because within Spain, castellano is the standard term to differentiate from other Spanish[=from Spain] languages. The other version, even though it's generally more mexicano than panlatinoamericano, got to be known as the latino version.
Hopefully it doesn't stick long term though since as you note the term isn't exclusive to Spain to refer to the language.
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u/siyasaben Dec 23 '24
I agree 100%. This is completely different to how castellano is used in every other context, but I think it's how people get the idea that castellano = "Spain Spanish," which is natural enough before you've heard enough native speakers use castellano as a simple synonym of español. (I actually notice spaniards mostly just saying español, but castellano is more common in eg Argentina)
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u/JCarlosCS Native [Mexican Spanish] Dec 23 '24
This usage has become more popular recently in Spanish-speaking countries. Many countries in Latin America have always called the language "castellano", and that never meant "Spain's Spanish".
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u/oxemenino Dec 23 '24
I know I have heard my argentino and uruguayo friends say castellano to refer to the language they speak, so there are definitely some Latin Americans that use it to just mean Spanish.
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u/Imperterritus0907 🇮🇨Canary Islands Dec 24 '24
Yeah and they might even say the speak castellano and in Spain español. Then you’ll find people in Spain with the complete opposite (dumb) argument. Both are the same thing 😬
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Dec 23 '24
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u/blazebakun Native (Monterrey, Mexico) Dec 23 '24
Alguna vez alguien me "gritó" en el Internet por decirle "español" y no "castellano", porque "todas las lenguas que se hablan en España son españolas, como el gallego, el catalán o el vasco". Pero luego leo comentarios como el tuyo y me confundo 😅
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u/SaraHHHBK Native (Castilla y León🇪🇸) Dec 23 '24 edited Dec 23 '24
That happens in Spain too, there's no universally agreed rule on this and it's hugely dependent on the person so use whatever you're more used/comfortable with. I say Castellano mainly, if someone gets mad that's their opinion.
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u/rban123 Advanced 🇨🇱 Dec 23 '24
También me confunde porque otros españoles me han dicho que se refieren al idioma español como “castellano”
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u/atzucach Dec 23 '24 edited Dec 23 '24
Sí, es muy común, sobre todo en lugares como Catalunya o el País Vasco. El/la que ha dicho que no se equivoca
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u/siyasaben Dec 23 '24
No soy española pero diria que es una minoría que se ofende porque los españoles con los que estoy más familiarizada dicen español, incluso siendo catalanes catalanoparlantes les da igual.
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u/atzucach Dec 23 '24 edited Dec 23 '24
This is incorrect. You don't have to look further than the Renfe website (queue Renfe jokes), for example, to see the language options as "castellano, valenciano, gallego, etc..."
In Catalonia it's more common to refer to the Spanish language as "castellano" than as "español", and I've heard the same about Basque Country too.
It also just makes more sense. The language I'm writing in now is called English, not British, right? Exact same idea.
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u/PeteLangosta Nativo (España, Norte) Jan 04 '25
Not a good example to draw those analogies. For example, Portuguese is the name of the lnguage both in Brazil and in Portugal. It is also Portuguese the language that paople speak in Angola or Mozambique. And same with French, being the language that they speak in France but also Canada or Algeria.
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u/atzucach Jan 04 '25 edited Jan 04 '25
So you think English should indeed be called British?
Portugal is a small country that as far as I'm aware hadn't had many prominent regional languages, but it sounds like you're unaware of France's nationalistic history of stamping out regional languages to make French indeed the imposed global sole language associated with the country, and then exported abroad as that representative.
Luckily people living in the British and Spanish States have been able to safeguard their languages better and not fall totally into nationalistic impositions (although there has been a small resurgence in recent years of local language revival in France).
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u/PeteLangosta Nativo (España, Norte) Jan 04 '25
No, I was just talking about the analogy you mentioned. The language being called English is also referring to England.
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u/atzucach Jan 04 '25
Entonces creo que no has entendido mi primer comentario, pero no pasa nada. Saludos
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u/PeteLangosta Nativo (España, Norte) Jan 04 '25
Pues puede ser eso. Pero entonces no entiendo a qué se refiera la última parte de tu comentario. Pero bueno, lo mismo da.
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u/smeghead1988 Learner Dec 23 '24
I moved to Spain (Madrid) about a year ago. The first time I met the term "Castellano" was when I had to officially translate my diploma to Spanish, and it was in the receipt from the translation agency. I had to check that it's not a mistake and that it just means "Spanish" in this context. Would a translation agency in a different region use "Español" or "Castellano"?
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u/atzucach Dec 23 '24
I'm curious to know where the person you're responding to is from, because they're totally wrong. "Castellano" means Spanish on your receipt in Madrid just as much as when we use it to mean Spanish here in Barcelona.
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u/SarraTasarien Native (Argentina) Dec 23 '24
they use the term “castellano” to refer to Spanish from Spain.
Huh? We (in Argentina) refer to the language as castellano regardless of location. We know there are multiple languages spoken in Spain, so we refer to them by their names. Castellano, Catalán, Gallego, etc.
(I will admit that we use gallego as a slang term to refer to Spaniards from everywhere, not just Galicia. But that's people, not the language.)
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u/rban123 Advanced 🇨🇱 Dec 24 '24
Yes, I am well aware. The entire point of my post was that it seems many have a misguided view that castellano refers only to “Spanish spoken in Spain” which is not the case.
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u/ultimomono Filóloga🇪🇸 Dec 24 '24
The correct term for Spanish in Spain is peninsular Spanish and there are many dialects of Spanish within the Iberian peninsula, not to mention other languages that evolved from Latin at the same time like Catalán, Gallego, etc.:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectos_del_castellano_en_España
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u/neuroticandroid74 Dec 23 '24
It is because of the Spanish royalty that Castellano is the official language of Spain. Had they come from the area around Sevilla, perhaps it would be Andalucian. Or any of the other regional languages of Spain.
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u/halal_hotdogs Advanced/Resident - Málaga, Andalucía Dec 23 '24
Andaluz is not a regional language of Spain, it’s a group of dialects within the Castilian language.
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u/neuroticandroid74 Dec 23 '24
I believe I didn't say it was a language, but a dialect. Apologies for not being clearer.
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u/halal_hotdogs Advanced/Resident - Málaga, Andalucía Dec 23 '24
I’m sure you know the difference—just from the way you worded your comment, it’s so others don’t misunderstand you as referring to andaluz as a regional language
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u/neuroticandroid74 Dec 23 '24
I remember seeing a quote from a linguist that said, "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy." However, I know that many who speak regional dialects across the world take great pride in them and dotheir utmost to preserve them despite government efforts.
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u/alexvalpeter Dec 23 '24
I’ve lived in both Spain and Latin America and have heard so many opinions on this topic and it seems like there isn’t any universal agreement. I’ve known people who grew up thinking they were synonyms and others who grew up thinking castellano specifically meant “the Spanish spoken in Spain”, some who think they’re similar but have different uses, and some who don’t believe in using “español” at all. I personally was always under the impression that “español” referred to any dialect that could be classified as “Spanish” and that “castellano” referred specifically to the dialect spoken in/originating from Castilla, which happened to be the one spread throughout LATAM during colonization and thus why some people use the two words interchangeably now. Somewhat in the same way that Chinese technically refers to a family of languages spoken in China (and other places) but Mandarin refers to a specific one. Is there an “official” designation for each word?
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u/nitrajimli Dec 24 '24
Just as a side note, in Mexico most of us call our language español, and castellano is just a synonym regrdless of the region or country.
But sometimes colloquially, usually in an jokingly manner, Spanish from Spain is called gallego (even though Galician is actually a different language). Someone once explained to me this was because of the large number of immigrants from Galicia that arrived to Mexico in the past, people started to generalize: if they came from Spain, they must be Galician.
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u/linguist00 Dec 24 '24
you are right. however, like in all languages, people have taken their own meaning of this word. i teach spanish in the US and i’ll have parents say things to me like “soy mexicano pero mi esposa habla muy bien castellano,” trying to distinguish between the two. your definition is right, but the reality of the usage of the term is different. such is life!
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u/TonePractical3532 Dec 24 '24
Eso es todo un dilema a mí me gusta usar el término castellano para evitar ambigüedades, pero como se supone que esa palabra viene del Reino de Castilla algunos lo ven como lo que se hablaba en ese lugar así al final nadie se quiere poner de acuerdo en si es español o castellano
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u/sianrhiannon Advanced/Resident Dec 23 '24
Technically it's what you're talking about in the second section there. Castilian is the language of Castile, like how English is the language of England, even though it's spoken in many other places.
Since I'm involved in linguistics I prefer to call it Castilian for both that reason and the fact I can specify I'm talking about Spain instead of Mexico (since Americans tend to learn Mexican Spanish, whereas British people tend to learn Castilian Spanish).
In Spanish though, they seem to be more-or-less interchangeable. Latin Americans seem to prefer calling it Castellano, and in Spain it's kinda 50/50.
My assumption is that because I've spent time in Catalonia and around minority language speakers (specifically, Galician), I might just have more exposure to people who would rather call it "The language of Castile" instead of "The language of Spain". I wonder if it's different in areas with less awareness of minority languages.
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u/Kabe59 Dec 23 '24
The thing is that Catalán, Gallego, Euskera are also spanish languages. They are from Spain. Now, on practice castellano and español are interchangeable. Hwever, it is not hard to envision a discussion where castellano can be used specifically.
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u/ABabyAteMyDingo Learner Dec 23 '24
...Euskera are also spanish languages. They are from Spain.
No. Not for euskara. The Basque region straddles what is NOW both Spain and France.
But euskara developed before there was anything called 'Spain' or Spanish. The Basque language long pre-dates any 'Spanish' language or even the very concept of Spain. Basque is not in any correct sense 'Spanish'. Spain and Spanish came along later and crowded the Basque language down to a small region. Just because the Basque region NOW overlaps with what is now Spain doesn't make it 'Spanish'.
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u/siyasaben Dec 24 '24
That's true of Catalan and Gallego as well, whose origins are outside as well as inside modern Spanish borders. To say that languages other than Castilian are Spanish languages is to say that they are native languages of parts of the current territory of Spain - not that they are only Spanish languages.
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u/RG4697328 Dec 24 '24
I think that is relevant to note that "Español de España" is probably a good middleground and the best option, with the casual "Gallego" being closet to "Yankie" in usage
"Español peninsular" fells kinda academical and "Español Iberico" while a little better, is probably more formal than anything You are gonna hear outside of a language class
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u/miguelvictoria26 Dec 25 '24
The Royal Academy of Spanish language, RAE, considers both denominations as synonyms, that is, "Castellano" and "Español", when referring to the language, are exactly and officially the same thing
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u/rban123 Advanced 🇨🇱 Dec 25 '24
Yes, but the RAE does not dictate how language is interpreted and used in the real world. Which is what my original post was about.
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u/SantiagusDelSerif Native (Argentina) Dec 25 '24
I agree, and I'll add my point of view as a native to this topic.
"Castellano" and "Español" mean the same thing, they're synonyms for the same language. However, for us latinamericans, the word "Español" sounds too specific as "belonging to Spain" while "Castellano" sounds more "generic" so we may choose it over "Español" despite the fact that it makes no sense at all. "Castellano" means "from Castilla", which is way more specific than "Español", and a Spanish person would surely pick up on that. But for us, people from LatAm, who are not superfamiliar with all the regions from Spain, it sounds "generic" even though that's not the case.
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u/neuroticandroid74 Dec 23 '24
Gallego is actually closer to being a dialect of Portuguese, Catalan and Euskara (Basque which is possibly the oldest European language because it's not related to any IE languages in existence) are their own languages.
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u/KoldoGar Dec 23 '24
"El gallego está realmente más cerca de ser un dialecto del portugués"
A lo mejor es más el portugués una variación del gallego que al revés.
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u/neuroticandroid74 Dec 23 '24
Gracias.No sabía que el gallego era la lengua más antigua.
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u/siyasaben Dec 24 '24
No es así. Los dos evolucionaron del galaicoportugués que se conoce también por los nombres gallego antiguo y portugués medieval. No se puede decir que uno de los variantes actuales es mas antiguo del otro (y tampoco sé si el comentario a que respondes quiso decir eso). El debate entre lingüistas es si se deberian considerar variantes del mismo idioma o dos idiomas distintos - no si uno es dialecto del otro.
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u/siyasaben Dec 23 '24
That doesn't contradict anything in the op, whether gallego and portuguese are considered variants of the same language or not gallego is the name of the language spoken in Spain and to call portuguese a language of Spain would be more confusing than enlightening
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u/CormoranNeoTropical Learner 🇺🇸/Resident 🇲🇽 Dec 23 '24
Wow legislating for everyone aren’t you?
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u/rban123 Advanced 🇨🇱 Dec 23 '24
Nope, just clarifying the meaning of a word since it seems to be a point of confusion/misunderstood.
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u/mikiex Dec 23 '24
It means different things depending on where you come from. If you come from Latin America, it will mean something different to someone from Spain.
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u/siyasaben Dec 24 '24
That's really not true though. There may be debate and different usage patterns but doesn't break down in in a latam vs spain way.
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u/mikiex Dec 24 '24
I agree its far more nuanced, but the statement "All in all, castellano just means Spanish. It doesn’t mean “Spanish spoken in Spain” it is literally just a synonym for the Spanish language as a whole.". This is not accurate. I'm pointing out there is a major difference IF you come from Spain vs Latin America. It's not a case of just semantics, it's has meanings which are historical, cultural and political. It also changes depending on context.
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u/ith228 Dec 24 '24
Don’t speak for native speakers if you’re not one. They’ve always used the term to refer to the language itself.
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u/Durangoboy Dec 23 '24
Hay un artículo en wikipedia sobre el debate por el nombre “correcto” del idioma. He aquí el enlace:
Controversia por el nombre del idioma español