The History of the Spanish Language
The Spanish language was developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Basque and Arabic, in the north of Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año) and diphthongation of breve E/O from vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo); similar phenomena can be found in most Romance languages as well.
The Catholic church preached the natives in selected local languages like Guaraní, Quechua and Aymará in the Americas, and Tagalog in the Philippines, rather than Spanish, for ease of conversion and to keep them apart of the direct influence of the non-missionary Spaniards, held by the church to be evil and unfavourable for the natives.
In the Americas its usage was continued by the descendants of the Spaniards, whether by the large population of Spanish Creoles or by what had then become the mixed Spanish-Amerindian (Mestizo) majority. After the wars of independence fought by these colonies in the 19th century, the new ruling elites extended their Spanish to the whole population to strengthen national unity.
There are important variations in dialect among the various regions of Spain and Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the North Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or laismo of this dialect is deprecated).
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