What Languages Are Spoken In Spain?

When you learn Spanish, you might think all Spaniards speak Spanish. But think again!

I have a surprise for you.

There are actually five languages spoken in Spain in addition to Spanish.

But all will be revealed, even that one very mysterious language. 

If you prefer watching videos to reading, hit play on the video version of this post below. Otherwise, keep scrolling to discover the answer to the question: what languages are spoken in Spain?

The Story Of Languages Spoken In Spain

The language story of Spain can be an important one to know if you’re planning to go to Spain to learn Spanish  –  especially in a city like Barcelona, where there are two official languages.

Almost everyone you meet is bilingual and what’s quite tricky is you might not realise you aren’t hearing Spanish!

Spain has one official national language, Castilian Spanish, and a number of dialects, like Andalusian Spanish in the south. 

But there are quite a few communities that speak another language too – their own official language plus Spanish.

In fact, if you take a road trip through Spain you’ll find five co-official regional languages, and each one has their own appeal and their own history.

Want to hear how they all sound? You’re going to!! 

Now, most languages spoken in Spain are Indo-European languages, specifically Romance languages.

All except one. And if you fancy a good mystery, keep reading. 

#1 Spanish (Castilian) 

Spanish is the only language that all the regions of Spain have in common – almost everyone speaks it as their first or second language. 

The word Castilian comes from the province of Castilla in central Spain, where it was once a dialect of Vulgar Latin – the dialect that the good King Alfonso preferred!

So this is where Spanish originated, way back in the Middle Ages.

And after it joined with the Kingdom of Castilla and León, it became the language of the court, and then the state’s official language.

And Castilian Spanish is really interesting! For one thing, it has about 4,000 words with some kind of Arabic influence. 

By the way, one thing you should NOT do is confuse Spanish with Portuguese. It can cause some annoyance!

But there is one Spanish language that’s a lot closer to Portuguese than it is to Spanish. Know what it is? 

#2 Galician 

They speak Galician in…? That’s right – Galicia. 

They’ve made this quite easy, haven’t they?!

The native speakers call it something like Galego and these are people living up in the Northwestern corner of Spain.  

You can also hear Galician in parts of León, Zamora, and in the western parts of Asturias and Castilla . 

So it has a pretty broad reach. Almost 2.5 million people speak it, which makes Galician one of Spain’s biggest regional languages.

One of the many cool things about Galician is there are about 70 words to describe rain!

Now take a look at the words below and tell me what they look like.

If you know your geography, this will make sense – Galician has many similarities with… Portuguese.

See, this used to all be one kingdom and from the 9th century, and throughout the Middle Ages, they all spoke a Romance language called Galaico-Português –one of the many Latin sisters.

The area didn’t split into two kingdoms until the 14th century, and when it did, the Castilla part was influenced by Spanish and became its own thing.

Back to the words, if you know Portuguese, the ‘Portugueseness’ really jumps out.

Even the grammar is very similar to Portuguese, but how you pronounce words is where time changed things. 

The spelling and accent are also a bit different.

So can Galicians understand Portuguese? 

Yep – about 85% of it, so I’m told. 

I’ve heard Brazilians say they understand Galician  better than they understand European Portuguese  –  interesting, huh?!

#3 Catalan 

They say if you already speak Spanish, learning Catalan will be a walk in the park. And it’s definitely a language worth knowing if you're thinking of learning Spanish in Barcelona.

Yep – this is their other official language!

It’s actually one of three co-official languages in all of Catalonia, which is this part of Spain here.

Catalan is also spoken in Valencia (in fact Valencian is another co-official language of Spain) , the Balearic Isles, Andorra, in the French province of Roussillon, and in the town of Alghero in Sardinia.

So what’s the deal?

Well, like all Romance languages, Catalan came from Vulgar Latin, but it evolved a little differently to Spanish, especially with the type of Arabic words it took. 

For example, Catalan didn’t pick up the Arabic prefix ‘al’ that we see all over Spanish nouns. 

It gets interesting when you start reading.

At first glance, Catalan can seem just like Spanish, and then you spot all these non-Spanish looking words decorating it – like one uniquely Catalan word, the word for dog – gos!

Is that a word in any other language?!

Pretty different! Here are some more Catalan words for you:

It kind of seems like a cross between French and Spanish, though some people think it’s even closer to Italian. 

Catalan has its own survival story, too.

There was a time when police put out orders like Hable el idioma del imperio (Use the language of the empire!) The empire language being Spanish, of course. 

But I want to save that particular fascist dictator story for later, because attacking Catalan wasn’t enough for him. 

#4 Basque

If you like fascinating phenomena, you’ve come to the right place!

Ever heard of Basque?

Basque is a mystery language from the north of Spain. It has no known origin or relation to any other language in the world and it’s stumped linguistic experts pretty much forever!

It’s a fascinating, tongue-twisting relic of a language.

Wait till you see some of the words like xirimiri (a very light rain) – they look like where all the X tiles of Scrabble should go!!

Fewer than a million of the inhabitants of Spain speak Basque and only 0.9% consider it their mother tongue.

You’ll hear it in Basque country, in Spain’s Navarra, and in a few small communities over the French border. 

Interesting also, most people fluent in Basque are young, not old. Could something be going on there, a revival?

Anyway, Basque people call their language Euskara. It uses the Roman alphabet and the Spanish ñ. But here’s the thing. It’s not a Romance language.

Romance languages started with Latin, but Basque origins are way older than Latin – I’m talking before the migrations that brought us proto-Indo-European!

Another really strange fact is the language was almost uninfluenced by other languages for thousands of years. 

I mean, that just doesn’t happen. 

There’s more… 

For all these thousands of years of people speaking Basque, there were no Basque schools, no books, no literature at all.

As far as we know, they didn’t even have writing until the Romans came along with the Latin alphabet.  

So how on earth did the language survive so long?

It’s just incredible, like this language has powers or something.

Speaking of power… 

Basque was forbidden by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975.  

It was silenced in the cities and it was so bad that informants used to report speakers to the police. The punishment was anything from getting your head shaved to being fined or thrown in prison. 

It was even illegal to register newborn babies with Basque names, and tombstone engravings in Basque had to be removed.

After Franco died in 1975, things reversed and Basque flourished.

There were always five dialects, but they standardised the language so everyone could use it. 

Let’s check out some words. School is ikastola, and the sound of ‘CH’ is written T-X. 

There are also about 100 ways to say “butterfly”, and one of them, pinpilinpauxa, was voted the most beautiful Basque word of all.

And each word simply means butterfly, nothing more!

What's also really cool is that Basque uses more onomatopoeia than any other language.

A few words did creep into English, so the story goes.

There’s “silhouette”, which took the French spelling and “bizarre”, which came to us via 16th century French and in old Basque, it meant a beard!

A couple of other words you’ll probably never use are “bilbo”, which is a type of sword, and “chaparral” – that one came via Spanish. 

So what does all of this mean?

It means Basque is a lone wolf without a family – what they call a language isolate.

It’s one of the few surviving pre-Indo-European languages – the oldest language in Europe!

So can you learn it? With enough motivation, absolutely.

Speaking of motivation, if you’re interested in learning a language, my students seem to be pretty motivated by my method!

If you’re new here, I teach languages using story, because stories are the most natural way to learn any language.

Stories are how you learned your first language. And you can learn a new language with stories, too. It’s called the StoryLearning method. You can download my free Spanish StoryLearning Pack below to get started.

#5 Aranese

If you go hiking in the Pyrenees mountains, there’s one place you’re really going to love if you’re into languages.

It’s an enchanting valley with vast alpine meadows, forests, beautiful rivers and lakes, and an abundance of wildlife.

It’s the Aran Valley, and people here speak Aranese. 

Aranese is a variety of a language called Occitan that used to be a really big deal in Europe in the Middle Ages.

After Latin, it was the first language to show up in literature, poetry, music, dancing… all of the cultural things! 

For example, this Occitan book, Le Ramelet moundi de tres flouretos, o las Gentilessos de tres boutados del Sr Goudelin, is considered a masterpiece.

It’s full of poems, drinking songs, dialogues, And it ends with a 100-page dictionary! Haha. 

Aranese has an amazing vitality for such a tiny language.

The interesting thing is, these days there are more young people, not old, who can speak, read and write Aranese.

Yes – exactly like Basque! What does this tell you?

A lot of people still speak Occitan in France, but Aranese is the dialect of it that’s mainly in Spain, with about four thousand speakers.

It’s closely related to Catalan, and it used to be considered a dialect (actually a dialect of a dialect!) until 2010 when it was declared an official language.

If you go to school in the Aran valley, you have to learn Spanish, Catalan, and Aranese. And some schools also make you learn French and English.

Each language gets 2 hours a week – sounds like a great education to me!  

Another cool fact about Aranese is it’s the closest you can get to the language of the Troubadours of the High Middle Ages. 

Troubadours were travelling poet-musicians who sang songs in everyday language, which was a first for those times!

They were a really big deal. 

So if you want something thrilling to do with your life, get your Spanish up to scratch, then learn Aranese!

Minority Languages

If you think that’s all for Spain, think again. 

Many of these languages have dialects and pidgins. And then there’s a bunch of unofficial regional languages, not to mention Spain’s three sign languages, and the whistle language of Silbo Gomera!

There’s one minority language I really want to show you. Do you know about the Romanis?

The Romani people of Spain call themselves Calé and their language, Caló, is a mixed language from contact between Spanish and Romani over the past six centuries. 

It’s a type of para-Romani, with Romani words and Catalan or Castilian grammar. Isn’t this cool? 

And the Romanis up in Basque country have a different combination language – Romani and Basque, called Erromintxela.

But that’s a whole other story that requires hiking boots and I’ve been warned they have a fear of outsiders prying into the secrets of the Romani! 

As for Spanish, well Spanish itself has distinct dialects like the Andalusian or Canarian dialects.  

And I haven’t even mentioned the languages left over from the past, like Berber and Arabic – they all helped shape modern Spanish.

What Languages Are Spoken In Spain?

So there you have it – the answer to the question – what languages are spoken in Spain?

If you want to practise your Spanish, then check out the video below from the StoryLearning Spanish YouTube channel where you'll learn about languages spoken in Spain, in Spanish!

If reading about the languages spoken in Spain has inspired you to learn Spanish, then why not do it through stories rather than rules thanks to Spanish Uncovered, my course powered by the StoryLearning method. Try it free for 7 days here.