A Brief History of Spanish

Back in the late 1400’s, after Columbus returned to Europe, there was a big dispute between Portugal and Spain about the distribution of the territories of the “New World”. These two kingdoms were the most powerful nations then, so it was natural that they wanted to expand their land to what is now South America. But, they were unable to agree on who was going to take what.

So, they did what was commonly done back in those days: leave everything in the hands of the Pope, demonstrating with this their loyalty to the Catholic Church.

After endless discussions, Pope Alexander VI took a map of the newly discovered lands and drew a line where he thought was the middle of the American continent. Everything to the left of this line was to be conquered by Spain whilst all the territories to the right of it were to be claimed by Portugal. Little did he know, this line was drawn in the middle of the Amazon jungle, granting only a “small” piece of land granted to the Portuguese (what is now Brazil).

Other countries like Guyana, French Guyana, and Surinam were in the middle of the jungle, so neither of these two European kingdoms got to claim them.

So there you have it! Spanish, thanks to this dispute between the conquerors, became one of the most popular languages in the world, ranking 2nd as the official language in most countries, just below English.

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