<P> From the sixteenth century onwards, the language was taken to America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America . Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote, is such a well - known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). </P> <P> In the twentieth century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara, and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City . For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language . </P> <P> Most of the grammatical and typological features of Spanish are shared with the other Romance languages . Spanish is a fusional language . The noun and adjective systems exhibit two genders and two numbers, in addition articles and some pronouns and determiners have a neuter gender in singular . There are about fifty conjugated forms per verb, with 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2 aspects for past: perfective, imperfective; 4 moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; 3 persons: first, second, third; 2 numbers: singular, plural; 3 verboid forms: infinitive, gerund, and past participle . Verbs express T-V distinction by using different persons for formal and informal addresses . (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs .) </P> <P> Spanish syntax is considered right - branching, meaning that subordinate or modifying constituents tend to be placed after their head words . The language uses prepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns for case), and usually--though not always--places adjectives after nouns, as do most other Romance languages . </P>

How did the spanish language spread around the world