SPANISH
Spanish is a language that originated in the country of Spain. Spanish or Castilian is an Iberian Romance language, and is spoken as a first language by about 352 million people, or by 417 million including non-native speakers (according to 1999 estimates). It is also the 3rd most spoken language in the world. It is spoken in minorities in many other non-Hispanic countries as well. In the United States, Spanish is spoken by some three-quarters of its over 40 million Hispanic population. It is also being learned and spoken by a small, though slowly growing, proportion of its non-Hispanic population for its increasing use in business, commerce, and both domestic and international politics. Spanish does hold co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. It is generally the same throughout Spanish speaking countries, however slang is vastly different varying on the dialect. One of the most common (non-slang) variation is the use of vosotros for you all, insted of ustedes. Vosotros is only used in Spain. Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but small noun declension and limited pronominal declension. As for syntax, the unmarked sentence word order is Subject Verb Object, though variations are possible. Spanish is right-branching, with prepositions and with adjectives generally coming after nouns.
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