Every year we celebrate international language day.It is both a very exciting day, and a really important learning day for the community. As you might already know, without language, gathering knowledge becomes infinitely harder. Since ancient times, people have used language to communicate with each other and exchange important information. In that way, communities were able to survive and many discoveries could be made. Did you know that English and Spanish appear in the top 5 most spoken languages? Even though the diversity among languages is gigantic, over 500 million people speak Spanish, and over 1.4 billion people speak English. Why are they so influential? Where do they come from? 

​

It is important to notice that all languages are constantly evolving over time. For this reason they can be tracked back in time to find their roots, and not all of them have the same roots. For Spanish, the tracking takes us to Latin, the language spoken in the Roman Empire. When the Romans conquered the Iberian Peninsula, around the 3rd century they took Latin to what now is Spain. By the 9th century, Latin had evolved in Cantabria to Castilian around Burgos in north-central Spain. When Spain was conquered by the Moors, the dialect spread southward. Later in the 15th century, Castile and Leon merged with Aragon, and Spanish became Spain’s official language. This way, the various dialects spoken in Aragon, Navarra, Leon, Austrias, and Santander were reduced and adopted only in unfrequented rural areas. 

​

Yet, the language wasn’t fully what it is today. This is due to the Arab population Spain had back then. Before the 12th century the Arab population spoke a dialect called Mozarabic. This dialect didn’t fade, but rather merged with Spanish, creating words such as “almohada”, “ojalá”, or “azúcar”. Later on, when the Spanish conquered America and some parts of Africa the language was spread through what is now Latin America and countries like Equatorial Guinea in Africa. 

Interestingly, the fact that these countries are separated, directly impacts the language. Have you noticed that the Spanish in Spain is completely different to the one in Mexico, Colombia, or Argentina? In fact, they are all different because the people in each region create their own dialect and variation of the language, making it unique and a key part of their identity. Actually, it isn’t necessary to look into other countries to notice the difference. Inside Colombia we have a great mix of accents, mannerisms, and meanings that differentiate us from people in other parts of our country.

 

Unlike Spanish, English is a little more difficult to track back in time due to the amount of cultural mixture that can be found along the way. Think about the following languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Galian. Do you see a pattern? In fact, they all sound very similar to each other. It is possible that when listening to a song in Portuguese you discover a word that is quite similar to a word in Spanish. This is because these languages come from the same root. In other words, they are all part of the Romance Languages. Now compare the languages mentioned previously to English. Now there are not so many similarities between them. This happens because English is part of the Germanic Languages. Some of these are German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Frisian. Still, English’s root doesn’t end here. 

​

Though its origin is the Germanic Languages, it was created in Britain where the Angels, Saxons, and Jutes mixed their cultures around the 5th century. Yet, every group wanted to maintain their culture, so they created their own groups, minimizing the mixture as much as possible.  The common language had different names over the next years, until King Alfred (known as Alfred the Great) and Abbot Aelfric referred to their language as Englisc. Even though they were merging into what is now English, they had their own dialects depending on their region. A key element of their dialect differentiation was the River Humber since it ended up creating one main differentiation between north (Northumbrian) and south (Southumbrian or Mercian). Thus, there were still four dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. From this group, the one that took the lead on literature and culture was Northumbrian.  

​

This went on until around the 8th century when the Viking invaders sacked Lindisfarne and destroyed that leadership. That moment was followed by a series of invitations from Norwegians from Ireland and the Western Isles. They settled and as a result from those invations the leadership once possessed by the Northumbrian was passed to the West Saxon, which led to the translation of religious texts and poems that were originally written in Northumbria and Mercia into the West Saxon dialect. This way, West Saxon turns into “standard Old English”. 

​

From this point forward the language only kept evolving due to its technicalities. Standard Old English had multiple ways of referring to the same noun, verb, adjective, or even demonstratives like “this” or “that”. Those technicalities made the language really complex. For this reason, when the British discovered the German structure they simplified the language, eliminating gender in words and adding prefixes and suffixes to compact the meanings of words. 

​

Years later, around the year 1400, the transition between Middle English to Early Modern English had begun. Early Modern English was viewed by many scholars, especially during the return of the monarchy in 1660. During that century, the rise of London English, the invention of the printing press, and the spread of Renaissance ideas deeply influenced the development of the language. Renaissance scholars adapted a liberal attitude to the language, borrowing some words from the Romance Languages, leading to the creation of words like “explicit”, or “infidelity”, which we use today. Since then, more words were added to the English vocabulary and the structures matured in order to simplify the language and standardize it in all Britain and the colonies. Yet, just like it happened with Spanish, people that were divided in different areas started to create their own way to use and interpret the language. Even though it is not as notorious as in Spanish, in English this becomes evident with the accents around the world and with words like “cookies” and “biscuits” that mean the exact same thing on two completely different parts of the globe. Nonetheless, English became an international language due to globalization, trades, colonies, science, and media, making English a worldwide form of communication in various fields.

As Spanish and English spread through colonization and historical power, they reached the top 5 of most spoken languages worldwide. But other languages aren’t so fortunate and tend to be forgotten or disappear. That’s the importance of the International Language Day. It is a day to honour our language and acknowledge those that might disappear. It is a day to raise awareness and value our identity. We might think that our language is complete and it doesn’t change anymore. However, this is not true. They never stop evolving and maturing according to the needs of the people, and even with your closest friends and family you have created your own unique way to understand and use the language without even noticing. Now with this said,I can only wish a happy International Language Day to all the community!