The Spanish Language: Two Projections of the Same Phenomenon

Being one of the most widely used European languages in the world, Spanish began the process of territorial expansion in 1492 after the discovery and the subsequent conquest of Central and South America. With regard to language, rivalry between the world's leading maritime powers resulted in propagation of Spanish and Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere both around and south of the Equator. In the Spanish colonies of the New World, the metropolitan language acquired official status, ousting local Indian dialects.

Being one of the most widely used European languages in the world, Spanish began the process of territorial expansion in 1492 after the discovery and the subsequent conquest of Central and South America. With regard to language, rivalry between the world's leading maritime powers resulted in propagation of Spanish and Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere both around and south of the Equator. In the Spanish colonies of the New World, the metropolitan language acquired official status, ousting local Indian dialects. By the time they declared independence in the first quarter of the 19th century, Spanish had become the basic language both for the Creole elite and the bulk of the population.

Currently, Spanish is spoken by over 495 million people, for whom it is either a mother tongue or a second or a foreign language. This means that Spanish comes in second place after Chinese in terms of the total number of speakers and is second after English in terms of overall use in international communication [1]. Spanish is taught as a foreign language to 18 million people, a number that grows by eight percent each year [2]. Spanish speakers overwhelmingly reside outside Europe, for example in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Equatorial Guinea, while Spain, with a population of 46.704 million, trails Mexico (113.591 million) and Colombia (47.093 million) [3]. Demographic trends indicate that Spanish is going to continue its takeover, reaching 7.5 percent of global population by 2030, while by 2050, the United States is likely to acquire the world's largest Hispanic population [4].

Strategic Opportunities for Transatlantic Interaction

Spanish is an official language with in such international associations as the Organization of American States, Union of South American Nations, Southern Common Market, Caribbean Community, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Ibero-American Community of Nations (ICN), and the European Union.

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The Hispanic World

While in the Western Hemisphere the Spanish language has been a natural medium for international relations and regional integration, Spain also has been employing the language as a tool of soft power and a means to transform its role in the globalized world.

The democratic transition and economic development in the post-Franco period have drastically changed the structure of Spain's global interests and capabilities. Positioning itself as a medium-sized country with global interests [5] requires a multi-regional approach to foreign policy. In 1991 this gave rise to the ICN, an inter-regional association of countries with similar historic and cultural characteristics, which worked to coordinate humanitarian and cultural development, economic interaction and foreign policy cooperation. To meet these goals, the ICN annually holds Ibero-American Summits [6].

The ICN has made possible a fresh approach to the opportunities for economic and political cooperation of countries united by a common history and a cultural and civilizational code [7]. During the neoliberal reforms of the early 1990s, Latin American countries opened to foreign investors. Due to their linguistic advantage, Spanish corporations achieved the upper hand, making up 61 percent of FDI in Latin America [8]. Even during the 2009-2011 crisis, Spain was the third largest provider of FDI to the region [9] and managed to mitigate damage caused by stagnation, while the strengthening of the ICN has promoted the diversification of economic and political ties among its member states.

Spain: Cultural Policy in Action

Whereas the entire Hispanophonic space includes over 20 states (Spain, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Salvador, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and Equatorial Guinea), Spain is driving the promotion of the common language. It has gradually built a set of institutions intended to shape its new image and expand political and economic influence through advancement of the Spanish language.

Structurally, this process centers on the Cervantes Institute, set up in 1991 with King Juan Carlos I as the President of Honor. The Institute focuses on the advancement of Spanish language learning, Spanish and Hispano-American culture, as well as Spanish and Hispano-American country studies. The Institute has branches in 43 countries on five continents, the location of which clearly reflecting the key vectors of Spanish foreign policy. Europe is the primary target area with 37 centers – five in Germany, four in France, four in Italy, and three in the United Kingdom. The Cervantes Institute also works in North and West Africa (12 centers, six of which are in Morocco), four in the Middle East and 10 in the Asia Pacific region. The Western Hemisphere is definitely on the rise, with five branches in the U.S.A. and one in Canada. The record holder is Brazil with eight centers [10].

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Cervantes Institute

The activities of these promoters of Spain's image are quite varied. Analyses of Madrid's international interests are conducted by the Elcano Royal Institute. Founded in 2001, this think tank has become an independent platform for research and discussions about modern international issues with a focus on Spain [11]. In 2000, the Carolina Foundation was set up to develop cultural, scientific and education ties between Spain and other ICN members, as well as with countries with special historic, cultural and geographic ties. The Foundation enhances linkages between academic institutions, think tanks, major companies, government bodies and NGOs dealing with culture, educations, science and technology [12]. In 2012, the Acción Cultural Española [13] was established to carry out the ambitious mission of propagating Spanish culture inside the country and abroad, and also to advance Marca España, i.e. the long-term state policy aimed at building up Spain's international image in economic, cultural, public, scientific and technological fields [14].

Spanish corporations are increasingly employing the expansion of the cultural space and support for education in their market strategies. For example, the bank Santander, the foundational structure of the major credit and financial group of the same name, is currently carrying out the international project Santander Universities [15], with the participation of eight leading Russian institutions of higher learning. The program covers various fields of cooperation, with obligatory promotion of education in Spanish, the establishment of Spanish-language centers and departments, and Spanish studies [16].

One of the key policy areas is the support and development of modern language standards defined by the Royal Spanish Academy, established in 1713 to preserve the lexemes and pronunciation of Castilian Spanish in their utmost "elegance and purity." [17] The Academy works to develop language standards, and also publishes the Dictionary of Spanish and other books. Research on this living language, its development and common and regional transformations constitutes the nucleus of the Academy's cooperation with the Association of Spanish Language Academies, which was set up in 1951 to unite 21 academies from Latin American states and the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the U.S.A. [18] The Spanish language is also effectively promoted by numerous Spanish and Latin American authors, among them the 1982 Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez from Colombia (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Autumn of the Patriarch), Arturo Pérez-Reverte from Spain (The Adventures of Captain Alatriste, The Flanders Panel), Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru (The City and the Dogs, The Leaders), and Isabel Allende from Chile (The House of the Spirits).

Thus, by promoting its language and culture, Spain is constructing an integrated system of institutions of soft power.

The American Space of Language Expansion

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Natalia Travkina:
Americas's Demographic Challenges

Today, Spanish is not only a soft power tool for a concrete state but also a key element of Latin American civilization, which is already playing a significant role in the transformation of the language and cultural space in the Western Hemisphere, most vividly in the United States of America.

Due to mass immigration by Latin Americans, Spanish is gradually gaining official status in the Southwestern United States. California [19] and New Mexico have already gone bilingual, and Texan official documents are obligatorily being published both in English and Spanish. The growing Hispanic population is significantly affecting U.S. domestic politics, raising such issues as immigration reform and a search for efficient forms for interaction with social groups with growing political and economic clout. The command of Spanish is becoming a norm for the U.S. political elite, with former president George W. Bush and his brother Jeb, the former governor of Florida both fluent Spanish speakers. The objective trend of Spanish expansion in the United States is pushing the Cervantes Institute to step up its efforts for advancing the Spanish language and heritage there [20].

Similarly, Spanish is conquering Brazil, a country that is zealous about the preservation of its version of the Portugal language but is being compelled to take up Spanish because of growing integration within the continent and economic ties within the Ibero-American community. In 2005, Spanish was made the primary foreign language in Brazilian secondary schools [21], lend more support to the importance of relations with Spanish-speaking countries of the region and the world.

As a result of natural interaction, integrated language versions are also emerging, i.e. Spanglish along the U.S.-Mexican border, and Portuñol, the Portugal-Spanish mix in Brazilian frontier territories.

Spanish is the main business language in Latin America, although it seems unlikely to rival English in the near future. The reason lies not just in the universal tradition of the English use, but also in the specifics of the Ibero-American culture regarded even by its representatives if not peripheral as distant from the Anglo-American tradition.

Nevertheless, Spanish is gaining ground in the Western Hemisphere. If current demographic trends hold and regional economies continue to grow, Spanish may become a language for international business.

Spanish in Russia

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Cervantes Institute in Moscow

In Russia, the popularity of Spanish surfaced during the time of the Soviet Union, beginning with Soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War. Years later, specialized Spanish-language departments emerged. In 1945, the Romano-Germanic Department of Moscow State University began teaching Spanish, to be followed by other national institutions. In 1973, Secondary School 82 (now School 1252) became the first to launch extended Spanish learning and was awarded the title of Cervantes in 1997. Specialized Spanish-language courses were also set up at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow State Linguistic University and Diplomatic Academy.

The new wave of the Spanish language and culture swept Russia after the opening of the Cervantes Institute section in 2002. Operating as a Spanish cultural center, the Institute regularly holds seminars, roundtables and lectures on literature, music, history and other aspects of Spanish and Latin American culture. Russians are also shown Ibero-American movies, as well as offered thematic exhibitions and presentations of books by Russian scholars of the region. Catalan and Russian are also taught as a foreign language. The center regularly offers exams for the Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera, the official certificate that verifies command of Spanish on behalf of Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. The Institute's Moscow branch annually trains about five thousand people, with numbers doubling in the 2002-2003 academic year [22].

Currently, Russia operates 45 Spanish-language centers, 16 in Moscow and eight in St. Petersburg [23]; however Spanish trails other foreign languages, as only 0.6% of all high school and university students study it, far behind English (77.6%), German (17.5%) and French (4.2%). Meanwhile, Spanish is on par with Italian and rapidly growing Chinese, and has been also included in the language list for the Uniform State Exam [24].

Russia's growing economic and trade ties with Spanish-speaking countries, as well as their cultural and touristic attractiveness suggest that interest in Spanish will gradually grow. The language offers a significant universal advantage for becoming acquainted with the history and culture of the absolutely dissimilar countries of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America.

As for Spain, the dynamic use of the language for soft power has placed it in the lead of relationships with Latin American countries. The presentation of the language, cultural heritage and current achievements are generating new platforms for promoting Spanish goods, boosting familiarity with Spanish global brands, and assisting the implementation of new Spanish foreign policy objectives.

1. El español: una lengua viva. Informe 2012. - Instituto Cervantes. - http://cvc.cervantes.es

3. El español: una lengua viva. Informe 2012. - Instituto Cervantes. - http://cvc.cervantes.es

3. CEPAL. Anuario Estadístico de América Latino y el Caribe. 2012. – CEPAL. – www.eclac.org; Instituto Nacional de Estadística. – www.ine.es

4. El español: una lengua viva. Informe 2012. - Instituto Cervantes. - http://cvc.cervantes.es

5. P.P. Yakovlev. Spain: the Times of Economic Crisis and Political Trials. – Moscow: RAS Institute for Latin American Studies, 2009. P. 54

6. Secretaría General Iberoamericana. - www.segib.org/

7. P.P. Yakovlev. The Ibero-American Community of Nations: Results of the Two Decades. www.perspektivy.info/oykumena/ekdom/iberoamerikanskoje_soobshhestvo_nacij_itogi_dvadcatiletija_2010-12-23.htm

8. P.P. Yakovlev. Spain in the World Politics. – Moscow: RAS Institute for Latin American Studies, 2011. P.103.

9. La inversión extranjera directa en América Latina y el Caribe. – Santiago de Chile: CEPAL, 2013. P. 41.

10. Instituto Cervantes. - www.cervantes.es

11. Real Instituto Elcano. -www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal

12. Fundación Carolina. - www.fundacioncarolina.es/es-ES/fc/presentacion/Paginas/presentacion.aspx

13. Acción Cultural Española. - http://www.accioncultural.es/

14. Marca España.- http://marcaespana.es/

15. Grupo Santander. - www.santander.com

16. El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes, 2009. - http://cvc.cervantes.es

17. Real Academia Española. - http://www.rae.es

18. Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. -www.rae.es

19. The Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act, 1973.

20. Enciclopedia del español en Estados Unidos. – Instituto Cervantes, 2008. P. 21.

21. www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2004-2006/2005/Lei/L11161.htm

22. El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes, 2009. - http://cvc.cervantes.es

23. El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes, 2009. - http://cvc.cervantes.es

24. El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes, 2009. - http://cvc.cervantes.es