The global calendar reserves April 23 for a singular coincidence: on this day, the UN simultaneously celebrates Spanish Language Day and English Language Day. Although each language carries its own roots and trajectories, the United Nations Department of Public Information unified these celebrations in 2010 to promote multilingualism among its six official languages, choosing a date that symbolically unites the two giants of universal literature: Cervantes and Shakespeare.
A coincidence that made history
This dual celebration stems from a historical curiosity. The date of death of the greatest Spanish novelist, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, coincides on the calendar with that of the most prestigious English playwright, William Shakespeare. Or at least that is what the legend says, because although both died in 1616, they actually did so on different days for two reasons.
The first: although burial records in Madrid register the interment of the “One-Handed Man of Lepanto” on Saturday, April 23, 1616, Cervantes died the previous Friday, April 22. The second: when Cervantes passed away, England still used the Julian calendar. Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582 by order of King Philip II, while the English only took that step in 1752.
In 1616, the discrepancy between the two systems was ten days, which places Shakespeare’s actual death — April 23 on his own calendar — on May 3 of the Gregorian calendar. In absolute terms, the Bard of Avon survived the “One-Handed Man of Lepanto” by 10 days.
Despite that gap, collective memory merged them into a single date and transformed it into a symbol.
Cervantes and Shakespeare: pillars of language
Cervantes transformed Spanish with The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. His work provided the language with a modern structure, unequaled irony, and a narrative architecture that subsequent centuries inherited without exhausting. For his part, Shakespeare expanded the boundaries of English: he contributed hundreds of words and expressions—from break the ice to lonely—that still circulate in everyday language.
Both elevated their respective literatures to a level of introspection and expressive richness that their languages had not known before. This simultaneous celebration recognizes that, beyond borders, literature builds the ultimate bridge between cultures.
The demographic power of two giants
Figures confirm the global dimension of this day. Today, Spanish exceeds 635 million potential speakers worldwide, and its native-speaking community surpassed 500 million for the first time in 2025, reaching 520 million. This places Spanish as the third most spoken mother tongue on the planet, trailing only Mandarin Chinese and Hindi.
English, for its part, has around 1.5 billion speakers between native and non-native speakers, maintaining its role as the lingua franca of science, business, and international diplomacy. Together, the speakers of these two languages encompass more than a quarter of humanity, underscoring the real reach of this anniversary.
Sant Jordi and the origin of World Book Day
The choice of April 23 as a celebration of letters has an antecedent in the medieval tradition of Sant Jordi in Catalonia. According to legend, Sant Jordi kills the dragon, and from its blood sprouts a rose bush from which he gives a rose to the princess.
In 1931, Catalan booksellers pushed to move Book Day — which then fell on Oct. 7 — to April 23, to coincide with the anniversaries of the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare. The day quickly grew in popularity because it also coincided with the feast of Sant Jordi and the Rose Festival.
The significance of that Catalan holiday was so great that in 1995, the UNESCO General Conference declared April 23 as World Book and Copyright Day. What began as a legend of knights and dragons in northeastern Spain ultimately became the seed of the most important linguistic and literary celebration of the modern world.
Today, every April 23, the streets of Barcelona fill with book and rose stalls, and the United Nations commemorates in parallel two languages that, together, narrate a large part of the history of civilization.