LANZAROTE
Language

Cities in LANZAROTE

Popular destinations SPAIN

Andalusia	Catalonia	Costa blanca
Costa brava	Costa del sol	El hierro
Formentera	Fuerteventura	Gran canaria
Ibiza	La gomera	La palma
Lanzarote	Mallorca	Menorca
	Tenerife

Language

Spanish

The Canarian population speaks Castillian Spanish ((Castellano), the official language of Spain. The Spanish spoken on La Gomera and all the other Canary Islands sounds more melodious than that of the Spanish mainland; the pronunciation is somewhat reminiscent of that in South America. It is also noticeable that the 's' at the end of a word is often swallowed.

There are still some Guanche words in use, such as 'guagua' for bus and 'papa' for potato.

Castellano (Castilian) has been the official state language since around 1250. Abroad, Castellano is actually always referred to as "Spanish". Castellano is a Romance language with many derivations from Latin, but also from many other languages. Spanish contains about 100 words that were brought to the peninsula by the Visigoths, among others.

During the domination of the Moors, approximately 4,000 words were introduced into the Spanish language. Furthermore, many words have been borrowed from French and Italian, and more recently from English.

Examples of derivations are:

Arabic	French	West Gothic	English
Alcázar	monje	guardia	lider
Aldea	vinagre	ropa	mitin
Acequia	menú	tapa	tractor
Alcoba	coqueta	espuela	fútbol

The Castellano language differs in some respects from other Romance languages, particularly in pronunciation. The letters of the Spanish alphabet are: a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, x, y, z.

Sources