Spanish in the United States
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| Spanish in the United States Idioma español en Estados Unidos |
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| Pronunciation: | /espa'ɲol/, /kaste'ʎano/ or /kaste'ʝano/ | |
| Spoken in: | — | |
| Region: | — | |
| Total speakers: | First languagea: 322<[1][2]- c. 400 million[3][4][5] Totala: 400–500 million[6][7][8] aAll numbers are approximate. |
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| Ranking: | 2-4 (native)[9][10][11][12] Total: 3 |
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| Language family: | Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish Spanish in the United States |
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| Writing system: | Latin (Spanish variant) | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | us-es | |
| ISO 639-2: | us-spa | |
| ISO 639-3: | us-spa | |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Spanish is the second most-common language in the United States after English. There are more Spanish speakers in the U.S. than there are speakers of French, Hawaiian, and the Native American languages combined. Per the 2000 United States Census, most frequently, Spanish is spoken at home by about 28.1 million people aged 5 or older.[13] The U.S. is home to more than 40 million Hispanics, making it the world's fifth-largest Spanish-speaking community after Mexico, Colombia, Spain, and Argentina.[14][15] Roughly half of all U.S. Spanish speakers also speak English "very well", based on the self-assessment Census question respondents.[13]
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[edit] History
Spanish has been spoken in North America since the 16th century. Ponce de León is the first Spaniard known to have visited the what is the contemporary U.S., in 1513. In 1565, the Spaniards founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest, continuously occupied European settlement in the modern U.S. territory.
Historically, the Spanish-speaking population increased because of territorial annexation consequent to wars and land purchases, while modern factors continue increasing the size of this population.
Mrs.Nancy Daniels, was the founder of the small town called Vienna in Georgia. She was the first Caucasian to ever speak spanish in her small town. Mrs. Daniels beleives that she was born in the wrong place. She should have been Mexican.
[edit] Louisiana Purchase
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Spanish rule encompassed most of the contemporary U.S. territory, including the French colony of Louisiana that briefly was under Spanish control from 1763 to 1800, and then part of the U.S. since 1803. When Louisiana was sold to the United States, its Spanish and French inhabitants became U.S. citizens, while retaining their native Spanish and French tongues.
[edit] Annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American War
From 1821, Texas was part of the Republic of Mexico until the Anglo settlers' revolution of 1836. Per the 1850 U.S. census, fewer than 16,000 Texans were of Mexican descent, and nearly all were Spanish-speaking people who were outnumbered (six-to-one) by English-speaking Anglo settlers.[citation needed]
Mexico lost almost half of its northern territory to the U.S. in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848): parts of contemporary Texas, and Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, California, Nevada, and Utah. Although the lost territory was sparsely populated, the thousands of Spanish-speaking Mexicans resultantly became U.S. citizens (Americans).[citation needed] The war-ending Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) does not explicitly address to language rights.
[edit] Spanish-American War
In 1898, consequent to the Spanish-American War, the U.S. conquered Cuba and Puerto Rico as American territories. In 1902, Cuba became independent from the U.S. while Puerto Rico remained, and remains, a U.S. territory. Spanish is Puerto Rico's first language and its citizens hold statutory U.S. citizenship.
[edit] Modern migration
The influx of many Spanish-speaking immigrants to the U.S. has increased the number of Spanish-speakers in the country, resultantly they are majorities and large minorities in many political districts, especially in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the U.S. states bordering Mexico.
Immigration to the United States of Spanish-speaking Cubans began because of Cuba's political instability upon achieving independence. The deposition of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship and the ascension of Fidel Castro's communist government in 1959 increased Cuban immigration to the U.S., hence there are some one million Cubans in the United States, most settled in southern and central Florida, while other Cuban Americans live in the Northeastern U.S.; most are fluent in Spanish.
Many Puerto Ricans have migrated to New York City, New York, increasing its Spanish-speaking population. Millions of Puerto Rican Americans living in the U.S. mainland are fluent in Spanish. In Hawaii, where Puerto Rican farm laborers and Mexican ranchers have settled since the late 1800s, 7.0 per cent of the islands' people are either Hispanic or Hispanophone or both.[citation needed]
[edit] Official status
| State | Spanish-speaking population | Percentage of state population |
|---|---|---|
| New Mexico | 823,352 | 43.27% |
| California | 12,442,626 | 34.72% |
| Texas | 7,781,211 | 34.63% |
| Arizona | 1,608,698 | 28.03% |
| Nevada | 531,929 | 22.80% |
| Colorado | 878,803 | 19.10% |
| Florida | 3,304,832 | 19.01% |
| Georgia | ||
| Ohio | ||
| Michigan | ||
| Minnesota | ||
| Oklahoma | ||
| Hawaii | ||
| New York | 3,076,697 | 15.96% |
| New Jersey | 1,294,422 | 14.90% |
| Illinois | 1,774,551 | 13.94% |
| Indiana | ||
| Tennessee | ||
| Connecticut | 371,818 | 10.63% |
| Utah | 253,073 | 10.45% |
| Rhode Island | 111,823 | 10.35% |
| Oregon | 343,278 | 9.56% |
| Idaho | 123,900 | 8.88% |
| District of Columbia | 47,258 | 8.53% |
| Washington | 526,667 | 8.48% |
| Kansas | 220,288 | 8.06% |
| North Carolina | ||
| Arkansas | ||
| Louisiana | ||
| Pennsylvania | ||
| Massachusetts |
Although the United States currently has no official language, English is the de facto national language. Most state and federal government agencies use Spanish. Many states, such as California, require bilingual legislated notices and official documents, in Spanish and English, and other commonly used languages. In the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Spanish is the official and most commonly used language. Throughout the history of the Southwest U.S., the controversial issues of language as part of cultural rights and bilingual state government representation has caused socio-cultural friction between non-Hispanic Anglophones and Hispanic citizens. Currently, Spanish is the most widely-taught second language in the U.S. [16]
[edit] California
California's first constitution recognized Spanish language rights: All laws, decrees, regulations, and provisions emanating from any of the three supreme powers of this State, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish. By 1870, English-speaking Americans were a majority in California; in 1879, the state promulgated a new constitution under which all official proceedings were to be conducted exclusively in English, a clause that remained in effect until 1966. In 1986, California voters added a new constitutional clause, by referendum, stating that English is the official language of the State of California, however, Spanish remains widely spoken throughout the state, and many government forms, documents, and services are bilingual, in English and Spanish.
[edit] Arizona
In Arizona, English is the official state language.
[edit] New Mexico
New Mexico is commonly thought to have Spanish as an official language alongside English, because of its wide usage and legal promotion of Spanish in the state, however the state has no official language. New Mexico's laws are promulgated bilingually, in Spanish and English, although English is the state government's working language. Spanish has been spoken in the New Mexico-Colorado border and the contemporary U.S.-Mexico border since the 16th century.
[edit] Texas
In Texas, English is conventionally used in government; the state has no official language. The continual influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants increased the import of Spanish in Texas. Even in the twenty-first century, Texas's southernmost counties, in the Rio Grande Valley are mostly Hispanic, hence, Spanish is the common language of the region's multi-generational Mexican Americans, yet, they are more English-proficient than their southern counterparts.
[edit] Puerto Rico
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico recognizes Spanish and English as official languages; Spanish is the dominant first language.
[edit] Spanish place names
[edit] Learning trends in the U.S
Spanish is the most widely-taught non-English language in U.S. secondary schools and of higher education ([1]), thus establishing its importance to non-Hispanic Americans.
More than 1.4 million university students were enrolled in language courses in autumn of 2002 and Spanish is the most widely-taught language in American colleges and universities with 53 per cent of the total number of people enrolled, followed by French (14.4%), German (7.1%) Italian (4.5%), American Sign Language (4.3%), Japanese (3.7%), and Chinese (2.4%) although the totals remain relatively small in relation to the total U.S population. [2] [3]
[edit] Common words derived from Spanish
See also List of English words of Spanish origin
- Corral
- Desperado
- Lariat
- Lasso
- Potato
- Ranch
- Siesta
- Tornado
- Chocolate
- Buckaroo
[edit] Variation
The influence of English on American Spanish is very important. In many Latino youth subcultures, it is fashionable to variously mix Spanish and English, thereby producing Spanglish. Spanglish is the name for the admixture of English words and phrases to Spanish for effective communication.
The new generation of American Hispanics want to preserve knowing and using Spanish as equal to learning and using English. The small Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (North American Academy of the Spanish Language) tracks the developments of American Spanish (U.S. Spanish) and the influence of English upon it.
Language experts distinguish these varieties of American Spanish in the United States:[citation needed]
- Cuban (1959-to date): Florida and New Jersey
- Dominican (1943-to date): New York, Miami, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence
- Salvadoran-Honduran (1598-to date): New Jersey, Washington D.C, Los Angeles, Baltimore,
- Isleño (Islander) (18th century-to date): St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
- Mexican (also Chicano or Tex-Mex [20th century]): the Mexican-American border, from southern California to Texas to Illinois
- New Mexican (1598-to date)
- Traditional Spanish (1598-to date): Central and north-central New Mexico and the south-central Colorado
- Renovador (Renovating Spanish) (20th century): The border regions of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico, and southeastern Colorado
- Puerto Rican (1898-to date): New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other large northeastern cities, and Illinois, Orlando and Tampa, Florida.
Analogously, many Spanish words now are standard American English. For a detailed list of borrowed words, see American English.
[edit] Future of Spanish in the United States
Many factors indicate that Spanish in the U.S. is healthy. Living an exclusively Hispanophone life is viable in some areas because of continual immigration and prevalent Spanish-language mass media, such as Univisión, Telemundo, and Azteca América. Because Hispanic immigration remains the greatest source of immigrants, and because of it closeness to Spanish-speaking areas, it is possible that the language in the Southern U.S., i.e. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida, will continue using Spanish in quotidian life.
Moreover, because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it is common for many American manufacturers to use trilingual product labeling using English, French, and Spanish. Besides the businesses that always have catered to Hispanophone immigrants, a small, but increasing, number of mainstream American retailers now advertise bilingually in Spanish-speaking areas and offer bilingual, English-Spanish customer services.
The State of the Union Addresses and other presidential speeches are translated to Spanish, following the precedent set by the Bill Clinton administration. Official Spanish translations are available at Whitehouse.gov. Moreover, non-Hispanic politicians fluent in Spanish speak in Spanish to Hispanic majority constituencies. There are 500 Spanish newspapers, 152 magazines, and 205 publishers in the U.S.; magazine and local television advertising expenditures for the Hispanic market have increased much from 1999 to 2003, with growth of 58 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively.
This guarantees Spanish's survival in the U.S., yet, it is necessary to remember that, historically, the immigrant's original languages tend to disappear or become reduced through generational assimilation. Spanish disappeared in several countries and U.S. territories during the twentieth century, notably in the Pacific Island countries of Guam, Micronesia, Palau, the Northern Marianas islands, and the Marshall Islands. In the Philippines, it is virtually extinct; 2,658 speakers, per the 1990 Census, although Spanish loan words persist.
The English-only movement seeks to establish English as the sole official language of the U.S. Generally, they exert political public pressure upon Hispanophone immigrants to learn English and speak it publicly; as universities, business, and the professions use English, there is much social pressure to learn English for upward socio-economic mobility.
Generally, U.S. Hispanics (13.4% of the 2002 population) are bilingual to a degree. A Simmons Market Research survey recorded that 19 per cent of the U.S.'s Hispanic population speak only Spanish, 9.0 per cent speak only English, 55 per cent have limited English proficiency, and 17 per cent are fully English-Spanish bilingual.
Intergenerational transmission of Spanish is a more accurate indicator of Spanish's future in the U.S. than raw statistical numbers of Hispanophone immigrants. Although Latin American immigrants hold varying English proficiency levels, almost all second-generation Hispanic Americans speak English, yet about 50 per cent speak Spanish at home. Two-thirds of third-generation Mexican Americans speak only English at home.
Calvin Veltman undertook, for the National Center for Education Statistics and for the Hispanic Policy Development Project, the most complete study of English language adoption by Hispanophone immigrants. Mr Veltman's language shift studies document high bilingualism rates and subsequent adoption of English as the preferred language of Hispanics, particularly by the young and the native-born. The complete set of these studies' demographic projections postulates the near-complete assimilation of a given Hispanophone immigrant cohort within two generations. Although his study based itself upon a large 1976 sample from the Bureau of the Census (which has not been repeated), data from the 1990 Census tend to confirm the great Anglicization of the U.S. Hispanic population.
[edit] American literature in Spanish
Southwest Colonial literature
In 1610, Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá published his Historia de Nuevo México (History of New Mexico).
Nineteenth Century
In 1880, José Martí moved to New York City.
Eusebio Chacón published El hijo de la tempestad in 1892.
Twentieth century
Federico García Lorca wrote in America his collection of poems, Poeta en Nueva York, and the two plays Así que pasen cinco años and El público. José Vasconcelos and Juan Ramón Jiménez were exiled to the U.S.A.
Chicano period
[edit] See also
- Languages in the United States
- History of the Spanish language
- Bilingual education
- English-only movement
- List of U.S. cities with Hispanic majority populations
- Isleños
- List of U.S. cities with diacritics
- Bilingualism in Canada
[edit] References
- ^ Ethlogue-Spanish-language]
- ^ Encarta-Most Spoken languages
- ^ Ciberamerica-Castellano
- ^ El Nuevo Diario
- ^ Terra Noticias
- ^ Universidad de México
- ^ Instituto Cervantes ("El Mundo" news)
- ^ Yahoo Press Room
- ^ Languages of the world by Ethnologue
- ^ Most widely spoken languages by Nations Online
- ^ Most spoken languages by Ask Men
- ^ Encarta Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People
- ^ a b 2000 Census, Language in the US. Retrieved on 2007-06-05.
- ^ US, 5th largest Spanish speaking community. Retrieved on 2007-06-05.
- ^ Puerto Rico Herald, Spanish speaking community in the US. Retrieved on 2007-06-05.
- ^ Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Learning, MLA Fall 2002.
[edit] Resources
[edit] External links
- Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (in Spanish)
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Chicano Spanish · Chicano Caló words and expressions · Chicano English · New Mexican Spanish · Spanish in the United States · Spanish profanity · Spanglish |
