Short answers, pulled from the story.
Elio Antonio de Nebrija presented his grammar book to Queen Isabella I of Castile in the year 1492. This event marked the moment Spanish transitioned from a collection of regional dialects into a tool of statecraft and conquest.
The Spanish language originated in the Kingdom of Castile and was forged from the Vulgar Latin spoken by Roman soldiers and settlers who arrived during the Second Punic War beginning in 210 BC. The earliest written traces of this language appear in the Cartularies of Valpuesta from the 9th century.
Spanish has a total of 636 million speakers worldwide, including both native and second-language speakers. Mexico emerges as the nation with the largest population of native speakers.
The Royal Spanish Academy was founded in 1713 to oversee the standardization and regulation of the Spanish language. It exercises a standardizing influence through its publication of dictionaries and grammar guides to ensure a unified form of the language.
Judaeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino, is a variety of Spanish that preserves many features of medieval Spanish and some old Portuguese. Spoken by descendants of the Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th century, the language is in serious danger of extinction.