Friday Fun Fact: Spanish languages

Rebajas. Rebaixes. Rebaixas. Beherapenak. Big Spanish clothing stores such as Zara announce their sales in multiple languages, and it’s all for the home crowd: Spain has four official languages.

Spanish, as we know it, is technically classified as Castilian (castellano), and 74 percent of Spaniards speak it as their first language. Spain’s northeast corner, Catalunya, is home to the 17 percent of Spaniards whose first language is Catalan (català), a mix of Spanish and French. The northwest corner, Galicia, adds 7 percent whose first language is Galician (galego), a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. Finally, in the Basque Country (north-center, near the Pyrenees), the mosaic is complete: 2 percent claim the mother tongue of Basque (euskara), an ancient language with myteriously unknown origins.