ABSTRACT
Spanish is a language of migration. It is a language that owes its internal and external forms to the fact that, together with its speakers, it has been migrating for centuries across the length and breadth of the world. Population movements from Europe to the Americas, the return of Spaniards to their lands of origin, movement between neighboring Hispanic territories and waves of migration from the Americas to Spain or the United States (US) have all played a role in giving Spanish a character defined by the exchange of influences and the gradual incorporation of manifold geographic and social elements. In sociological terms, the Spanish language is as complex as the history of the countries and territories where it is spoken as the main or vehicular language, namely in all or part of Spain, the Latin American republics, Equatorial Guinea, and the Philippines. Of course, migration has contributed to this historical complexity as well as to the appearance of the linguistic varieties that make up the Spanish-speaking world.
