This updated and expanded version of a 1991 book provides an account of the development of Spanish over the last 2,000 years. The six chapters include: (1) "Introduction" (e.g., Indo-European, Latin, and Romance); (2) "Phonology" (phonological change, transmission, suprasegmental features, development of the vowel system, development of the consonant system, development from Latin to Old Spanish, phonological change since the Middle Ages, and chronology of phonological change); (3) "Morpho-syntax" (general concepts, the noun, the adjective, the adverb, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, other word classes, and conditional sentences); (4) "Lexis" (e.g., vocabulary inherited from Latin, Latinisms, Hellenisms, Arabisms, Lusisms, and Italianisms); (5) "Semantics" (causes of semantic change, types of semantic change, and consequences of semantic change); and (6) "Past, Present, and Future" (the nature of language history, World Spanish, convergence and divergence, and English and Spanish). The book also includes a glossary of terms, topics for discussion and further reading, a word index, and a subject index. (Contains approximately 178 references.) (SM)