A brief history of Spanish: Ted-Ed [video]

I think the reason why Spanish is still a language, is because how people are in Spanish speaking countries, vs. Europe. In Europe, people are proud of being of a specific village, and having a special dialect, and food traditions, etc. What in Italy is called "campanilismo". Totally opposite, in south America people what to be part of something bigger. They want to understand each other. People from Uruguay would be ashamed if they cannot understand somebody from Chile.

Where in Spain, some people in shops in Catalunya will not speak with you Spanish, even when they can, or some Italian will speak in closed dialect, people in south America will try to speak more slowly and in a more common fashion. --of course, this is a awful generalisation, but with a lot of truth--

Anybody in Argentina and Uruguay will stop using "vos" and switch to "tu" immediately in the presence of somebody from outside those countries.