Autonomous communities of Spain
Spanish legislation, most notably in the Statutes of Autonomy of the bilingual communities, use the term "own language", or "language proper to a community", to refer to a language other than Spanish that originated or had historical roots in that particular territory. The Statutes of Autonomy of the respective autonomous communities have declared Basque the language proper to the Basque Country and Navarre, Catalan the language proper to Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community—where it is historically, traditionally and officially known as Valencian—and Galician to be the language proper to Galicia. There are other protected regional languages in other autonomous communities. As a percentage of total population in Spain, Basque is spoken by 2%, Catalan/Valencian by 17%, and Galician by 7% of all Spaniards. A 2016 Basque Government census revealed 700,000 fluent speakers in Spain (51,000 in Basque counties in France) and 1,185.000 total when passive speakers are included.
Names given to the Spanish language
During the presence of Moors in Hispania, Spanish was sometimes given the name "cristiano" ("Christian") to distinguish it from the Arabic and Hebrew languages. This term is still used occasionally today to refer to the language, in a jocular tone.
The expression "Hábleme en cristiano" "talk to me in Christian", uttered to people not speaking Spanish at the moment, is used in opposition of the other languages of Spain, which is felt as annoying by them (Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country, but not in the Americas). "Háblame en cristiano" is also a phrase used to ask for clarification in a conversation, when the topic of the discussion is not clear or is vaguely hinted at by one of the speakers.