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Spanish: Spanish Language
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Spanish is a vital and vibrant language in world communication, business, e-commerce, politics, and culture. Some 373 million people speak Spanish as a first language. During the decade between 1980 and 1990 there was an increase of 50% in the number of Spanish speaking people in the United States. Spanish is now the most spoken language after English in this country. It is ... the second most used language at the Web. Spanish is gaining more recognition in the academic world as an independent and promising major for students from all backgrounds.
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Although Spanish was an official language in the Philippines, it was never spoken by a majority of the population. Its importance fell in the first half of the 20th century following the US occupation and administration of the islands. The introduction of the English language in the Filipino government system put an end to the use of Spanish as the official language. The language lost its status in 1987, during the Corazon Aquino administration. However, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced in 2007 during an official visit to Spain that the Spanish language will once more be obligatory in the school curriculum[37][38]However, it should be pointed out that this announcement was either ignored by the media or was omitted from reports, nor does this make Spanish one of the official languages as the official languages of the country is set in the constitution[39] and can only be changed via amending or revision,[40] something that has not been done since the constitution was approved in 1987. Spanish is an official auxiliary language....
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Students in the Spanish major have the opportunity to participate in the VU Study Abroad Program in San Jose, Costa Rica. Students live with Costa Rican families in San Jose and study at the Centro de Investigaciones Culturales Estudios Linguisticos (CINCEL). Study at CINCEL will place emphasis on spoken Spanish and the development of cultural sensitivity with the goal of progress toward mastery of the language as spoken by university-educated native speakers. Corresponding reading comprehension and writing proficiency are ... emphasized. VU students study abroad at this location with the same tuition and room and board costs that they would incur on campus at VU.
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Spanish belongs to the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. Like all Romance languages, Spanish developed from Vulgar Latin in an area of the Iberian peninsula that is now Spain, and was brought to the Americas, the Philippines, and parts of Oceania by the Spanish colonization in the 16th century. It is spoken as a first language by about 352 million people, or by 417 million including second-language speakers, the majority of whom live in Latin America and Spain (Ethnologue). With close to 106 million first-language speakers, Mexico has the largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world. The four next largest populations reside in Colombia (44 million), Spain (43 million), Argentina (39 million) and U.S. (28 million).
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WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- If you speak Spanish, you can now access free Spanish language materials on mental health issues at the American Psychological Association's (APA) online help center, http://www.apahelpcenter.org/. Materials include facts and tips on subjects such as stress, mind/body health, developing resilience and recognizing the signs of youth violence. Because psychology is relevant to so many areas of everyday life, the site ... offers information on work and school, family and relationships, emotional wellness, disasters and terrorism as well as psychological statistics and facts. To access the Spanish materials, go to http://www.apahelpcenter.org/ and click on the Spanish language button.
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Ladino, which is essentially medieval Castilian and closer to modern Spanish than any other language, is spoken by many descendants of the Sephardi Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century. Ladino speakers are currently almost exclusively Sephardi Jews, with family roots in Turkey, Greece or the Balkans: current speakers mostly live in Israel and Turkey, with a few pockets in Latin America. In many ways it is not a separate language but a parallel dialect of Castilian. It lacks the Native American vocabulary which was influential during the Spanish colonial period, and it retains many archaic features which have since been lost in standard Castilian. It contains... other vocabulary which is not found in standard Castilian, including vocabulary from Hebrew and Turkish, some French and Greek, and other languages spoken where the Sephardim settled.
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