The purpose of the seminar was to show the importance of Spanish language in the present world and its projections for the future. It starts with a brief history of the Spanish language, its origins and development until it became a global language. We learned how romance languages evolved from Latin and the historical events that shaped Spanish language and culture. We talked about Al-alandalus and the influence of Arabic language in Spanish; the Toledo school of translators, where Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together to translate important works of philosophy, science and literature; the birth and expansion of the Spanish Empire and its contributions to the development of the Americas with the foundation of universities throughout the continent.
We learned about the official institutions in charge of promoting the Spanish language and culture, as the Instituto Cervantes, and we looked at the latest reports about the situation of Spanish language today. Spanish is the second language in number of native speakers, after Chinese, with a population that is growing and is expected to reach 721 million speakers by 2060, being US the country where Spanish is becoming most relevant. The study of Spanish language has increased significantly in the last years in US. This trend is also reflected in the European Union and the UK, where the interest for Spanish language is growing to the detriment of other languages that were traditionally more important, like French or German.
Due to the interest aroused among the attendees to the seminar, after the presentation it was discussed the possibility of organizing a Spanish course for those teachers who are interested in learning Spanish. It was agreed that the course will be starting in the second semester. It was also reminded to the students attending the seminar about the ongoing free Spanish lessons that take place every Wednesday at 18:00 in the room 236, which are open to any student who might be interested.
