Talk:Spanish in the United States

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Contents 1 Basques 2 Spanish in the United States 3 Official status of Spanish in US states? 4 Texas? 5 Inconsistency 6 Sphere (with spoiler) 7 Oregon or Oregón 8 American Literature in Spanish 9 American Spanish? 10 Spanish someday as important as English in the US 11 Varities of Spanish, "New Mexican" 12 DVDs 13 Last sentence in the introductory paragraph 14 A legacy of self-imposed isolation or cultural segregation? 15 "hundreds of thousands of Mexicans became Americans literally overnight" 16 El Camino Real 17 Complete reorganization of history section 18 Spanish Essay due.. help! = ) 19 Hispanics in the United States - requested move 20 Spanish legacy

[edit] Basques

Did the Basques who came to Newfoundland speak Spanish or Basque? -- Zoe

In the 15th century the basque people spoke probably both, almost vip's (captain, priest, ...), the rest of the basque crew surely only basque (today are many people in the basque country who speaks deficient spanish). Willy

It is not true aboat those Basque people speaking deficient Spanish nowadays at all. Anywere, I do believe that those 15th century sailors at Newfoundland (and even on 13th and 14th centuries, in hidden trips to avoi rivallities about fishing) spoke Basque among them.

Most of them Basque, many also Spanish or Gascon (French?). Actually there was a pidgin registered in Iceland spokern by Basques. It had Basque elements, Romance, English,... An example: Crist Maria presenta for mi balia, for mi presenta for ju bustana. "If Christ and Mary give me a whale, I will give you the tail". -- Error

But... There is more people in the basque country who speaks deficient basque

I have seen a few sources saying that the US has the 3rd largest Spanish population in the world. See: chamisamesa and Population Resource Center. lddev

[edit] Spanish in the United States

The table in the top of the document seems to state (?) the percentage of Spanish speakers in certain states in the USA. However, aren't the numbers too exaggerated? The table assumes that everyone with Hispanic ancestry automatically speaks Spanish as well; however, demographic enquiries show high levels of anglicization in later generations?

The table must be obviously wrong as the percentages given for Spanish-speakers only appear to be higher than the aggregate percentage of speakers of any language (including Spanish) other than in English, see reference [1]. 200.177.192.7 20:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Official status of Spanish in US states?

In Spanish language it says: On a state level, however, Spanish does hold co-official status in various states. [See Spanish in the United States for further information.]

Could someone please clarify which are those various states (other than New Mexico, that is) where Spanish is co-official? I could't find that information here. At least Florida, California, Arizona and Colorado seem to be English-only, as far as official status is concerned. --Jonik 12:43, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah, Puerto Rico, according to List of official languages. But that is not exactly a state, is it? -- Jonik 12:53, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's certainly not official as far as the laws say, but it is a de-facto language the government uses to deal with people -- the state governments of California and Arizona, at least (I know that much), make many accommodations for Spanish-speakers. So while debates on the floor of the state senate are still always in English (we'll have to wait until we have more Latin@ state senators before we can see if that will change ever), and state laws are still published with the only legally binding version in English, post offices, police departments, municipal governments, and state governmental offices (department of transportation, in certain casses the office of the governor, and other departments which have to deal with citizens directly) tend to acommodate Spanish speakers, at least to a certain degree. If you call the government the person answering the phone still says "Hello", but in a somewhat discriminatory (but not uncommon) fashion, if you go to apply for a food handler's card in Maricopa COunty, the desk attendant will speak to you in Spanish if you are Latin@, and English if you are not.

It is definetly not, Puerto Rico has its own National Academy of the Spanish Language (http://www.acaple.org) along with the rest of the spanish speaking countries of Latin America. It is correct to mention puertoricans in the article as part of the hispanic minorities of the US along with Cubans and Mexicans but it is incorrect and highly POV to include Puerto Rico in this article since Puerto Rico is self governing since 1952 and remains an unincorporated commonwealth associated with the US.-- vertical123 02:43, 29 Nov 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Texas?

The article states that Texas does not have an official language. Is that true? I thought it had adopted English at some point in recent years. (I remember the issue coming up a couple years ago, when one border town attempted to make Spanish its language of government.) Funnyhat 20:21, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistency

This article claims (with a grammatical error and a mistake in hyperreferencing Mexico) that the US is the "second largest Spanish-speaking country". However, Wikipedia's article about Spanish Language contradicts this and it is hard to see how the US could be number two when there are only 30 million native speakers.

Filur 07:24, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sphere (with spoiler)

What drilled for me the notion of a future bilingual US, was the scene in Sphere (movie) where they find the ship with Basura - Trash bins. Should it be mentioned? It's a bit of a spoiler after all. --Error 01:59, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oregon or Oregón

The article claims Oregon comes from Orégano which is a herb used to condiment food. It's actually a Spanish Family name spelled Oregón. {unsigned by User:Tequendamia. Niteowlneils 22:25, 8 September 2005 (UTC)}

The Spanish surname is Obregón, not "Oregón". None relation between that surname and the name of Oregon is recorded, however. Today, the origins of the name Oregon are still obscure despite claims about Spanish, French and Native-American origins.--Menah the Great 00:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American Literature in Spanish

I think the current entries should be deleted and/or replaced with new ones: the name "American" presuposes *modern* (at least as old as the time the United States turned an independent nation) literature written in the Spanish language, not literature written in Spanish at very ancient times in parts of modern day U.S.A. that just happened to be under Spanish control at the time, or literature written by Spanish or Latin-American expatriates while in the States - those written samples, as wonderful individually as they may be, cannot qualify as "American" nor are they representative of work done by Spanish speakers born in the States.

If nobody else does it, I'll myself check up my books on "Chicano Literature" and bring up some names of modern authors, and replace those entries with them.

[edit] American Spanish?

"American Spanish" redirects here. Don't you think that an article named "American Spanish" should be about the difference between the Iberian Castillian and it's American (continent) counterpart?

[edit] Spanish someday as important as English in the US

Well, I might be European and only judge from the distance, but I believe in 50 years from now Spanish will be the most spoken language in the Southern US states and even get official recognition on federal level. While it is true that most immigrants before lost their original language after a few generations. But, their never was a immigrant group, at least that large one, were the same language was also spoken in geographically so close countries to the US. As I notice most Hispanics settle in the Southern US states, which all share a border to Mexico, which itself is the largest Spanish speaking country in the world. So, with the large immigration and the higher growth rates in the hispanic countries, it is quite reasonable to assume that Spanish on the american countinent increases faster than English, concering the number of native speakers. Seems in the Southern US states English becomes more and more marginalized, at least as a native language. --Lucius1976 16:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about 50 years — I would say 100. A lot of things would have to change before Spanish could achieve official status. Probably the biggest factor is the strong social pressure on Spanish-speaking kids to assimilate into the dominant English-speaking culture due to the fact that the U.S. economy is overwhelmingly service-oriented. All advanced professions in the United States (law, medicine, accounting, architecture, science, engineering, the military, etc.) require a thorough knowledge of English. For example, all popular high-level computer programming languages are based on the English language, and all of the important papers in the history of computer science (with the notable exception of Konrad Zuse's work) have been written in English. Although there are a few journals about the social impact of computing that are published in Spanish (mostly in South America), I've never seen a computer science journal publishing cutting-edge research in Spanish.

On the other hand, I have to concede that American society is already beginning to make major concessions to Spanish speakers, such as with the ubiquity of Spanish language signage and pamphlets, and the presence of Spanish language customer service agents at the call centers of government agencies and corporations. So we might end up with a kind of "uneasy coexistence" bilingualism as in Canada, which has two official languages (French and English) and not much indication that either language group will agree to switch to the other official language any time soon. --Coolcaesar 00:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't meant that immigrants do not learn and speak English anymore. I rather meant that Spanish will become the everyday language in some Southern US states. Surely, for professions and science English is essential, but that does not mean it is essential in everyday live. It is like the situation in many western European states or Franco-Canada. While English use is becoming widespread in scientific and interborder communication, that does not mean it the language in everyday communication will be replaced by English. It is also a part of the identity. I guess that in might become comparable with the situation that might happen in primarily hispanic US states in a few decades.

Also in economics I guess the need for Spanish knowledge in the Americas will become progressivly important, even to the non-native speakers. Spanish already is the most spoken language in the Americas and also it's economic importance will certainly rise when the economies will growth. I believe it is just a matter of time. --Lucius1976 12:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that as Southern and Central American countries become more and more industrialised, as they are slowly but steadily doing, Spanish will almost certainly become the language of communication of the southern states at least. A fully developed and economically viable Mexico could not by any stretch of imagination, fail to have a massive impact on the souther US.

It is hard to say what is going to happen in the future. Now it is clear that Spanish is growing in the country, not only in terms of Native speakers, but also in schools and universities. In any case, some people in the US do not realize the enormous potential that a country would have being bilingual in two languages like English and Spanish.

The last unsigned comment is a reactionary comment that contains a number of flaws and inconsistencies. First of all, there is no indication that any Latin American economy will grow and become a first world country. The opposite is true in many cases like Mexico. Even if it were true that Mexico magically becomes an industrialized country (and I have a feeling there's a hint of nationalism here), how would that relate to the Spanish language in the US? If Mexico becomes richer, there will be fewer immigrants (especially illegal) because there won't be a reason to come to the US anymore. Then, as Mexican-Americans assimilate and lose their Spanish, there won't be any other native speakers that follow. If we were to be reasonable and assume that Latin American countries will not grow into first world countries, then we can assume there will be more waves of legal and illegal immigrants to the US, thereby increasing the Spanish languages' presence in the US. However, keep in mind that in almost every period in US history where there has been a mass immigration, there followed a period of massive restriction, presumably because of a reaction to the new immigrants (1920s a perfect example). This has given the new immigrants time to assimilate and lose their native language. Recent legislative efforts on immigration confirm this trend toward further restrictions after a massive wave. There is also no connection between a neighboring country's language and our own. Do we speak French simply because we're close to Canada and have extensive trade contacts? It seems like there is a dangerous contigent of disaffected Hispanic immigrants who insist on keeping Spanish. I understand this is a reaction to the like of Tom Tancredo and other nativists, but these La Raza guys shouldn't be ruled by emotion either. --jps

The percentage of the US residents whose most commonly spoken language at home is not English has always been relatively high for the simple reason that the US is a country that has received and continues to receive successive waves of immigrants. Over time, however, immigrant populations end up being assimilated into the English-speaking majority as younger generations begin to switch to English as home language. Despite some claims to the contrary, I see no reason why it would be different with the Hispanic population. The fact is that English is the "de facto" language of business, education and government in the US so that one eventually has to learn English if he/she wishes to move upwards in American society. The incentive therefore for children of immigrant parents to become Anglophones and later raise their own children as Anglophones is huge! In fact, if you look at the latest US Census figures, out of the 28 million people age 5 or over who claimed to speak Spanish most often at home, more than half , i.e. over 14 million, also said they can speak English "very well" and approximately 20 million said they speak English either "very well" or, at least, "well". If, at some point, continuing immigration from Latin America slows down (as it will eventually), it is very likely that the existing stock of Hispanics in the US will be fairly quickly assimilated into the Anglophone majority, just like Germans, Poles, Scandinavians, Italians and other immigrant groups in the US were in the past!

The only realistic chance for bilingualism in the US would be if there existed an American equivalent of Quebec, i.e a particular state where 80 % or more of the population spoke Spanish as first language, Spanish was the sole official language, and the local government not only used Spanish as a working language, but also imposed the use of Spanish in schools and business through legislation. Note that, in Canada itself, French is dying outside Québec and has only survived (and is actually thriving) in Québec because Québec managed to assert itself as a culturally distinct society within the Canadian federation. 200.177.192.7 20:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Varities of Spanish, "New Mexican"

The variety of Spanish listed as "New Mexican" (see below) should be moved as a sub-section under "Mexican."

New Mexican (1598-)

   * Tradicional (1598-): Center and north-center of New Mexico and the south-center of Colorado.
   * Renovador (20th century): The border regions of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico, as well as southeastern Colorado

My source is Rúben Cobos, "A Dictionary of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish" (1983 edition) where he writes:

"Pronunciation of local Spanish is akin to that of northern Mexico, and both differ from Castilian Spanish pronunciation with respect to c, z, ll and y." (page vii)

"Basically Spanish in its morphology and syntax, New Mexico and southern Colorado Spanish is an offshoot of the Spanish of northern Mexico, especially with respect to usage and pronunciation. This is understandable since New Mexico was an integral part of New Spain (Mexico) from 1540 to 1821 and a part of Mexico from that year until 1850, when it became a territory of the United States." (page viii).

I would disagree -- "Mexican Spanish" tends to refer, in the US, to those varieties of Spanish brought relatively recently from Mexico (mostly Northern Mexico). New Mexican Spanish, on the other hand, has been spoken in the same place for hundreds of years. It also has striking grammatical differences from any other dialect of Spanish in the world -- in Nuevomexicano you say "Yo seigo de Taosi"; in Mexican Spanish you would say "Yo soy de Taos".

---

Keep in mind that each community keeps archaisms in their own dialect that fall out of use in other parts of the linguistic community (i.e. the usage of "vos" in Argentina and Uruguay not commonly found elsewhere).

The Spanish of New Mexico is closer to that of northern Mexico than dialects you find in Spain.

Ron habla hispana 13:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

---

Ah, Cobos... great book! Anyway, I think we can all agree that making NMSp a sub-section of MxSp would imply that NMSp is a dialect of MxSp. And so the real question is what kind of relationship do NMSp and MxSp have. In other words, is the implication that one's a dialect of the other correct?

I think the confusion here arises from not taking into account the factor of time (2 different synchronies in this case). If we go back 300 years, we could reasonably say that 1700s NMSp was one of several dialects spoken in Mexican territories in the 1700s. Keep in mind that its lack of power, prestige or an army didn't make it a dialect OF the Spanish of e.g. Mexico City, just one of several contemporary dialects IN the area.

But the passage of several centuries brings with it language change, and the various Spanish dialects in question have all changed, to the point that NMSp and MxSp have diverged vastly. I'm sure we can all agree on that too.

And so I believe the correct relationships of these dialects are as follows:

2000s NMSp < 1700s NMSp < 1600s Spanish in Mex.

2000s MxSp < 1700s MxSp < 1600s Spanish in Mex.

That's perhaps not too clear, so in English: modern NMSp and modern MxSp are both descendents of the Spanish spoken in Mexican territories in the 1600s. Ergo, NMSp should not be categorized as a sub-section of MxSp.

Steve Fishboy 00:19, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DVDs

If "Spanish is the second most common language in the United States after English" & "There are more Spanish speakers in the United States than there are speakers of French". Why most DVDs has subtitles only in English and French? --MarioV 21:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

They market to the United States and Canada. Remember, in Quebec, Canada, the official language is French and almost everyone speaks French over there. They don't market products to Mexico. But it is still possible that Spanish will be used in more places.

Not only because of the Canadians. The American Creoles speak French too.

[edit] Last sentence in the introductory paragraph

"Although Spanish is not the most spoken language in any one U.S. state, it is the second most spoken language in 43 states and in the District of Columbia." I can't find a source for this, any help? 00:27 GMT, 2 August 2006.

[edit] A legacy of self-imposed isolation or cultural segregation?

This is the question lacking in the article, because the Spanish language has thrived for generations in enclaves along the Mexican border. The barrios of the Southwest U.S. are compared to ghetto, where racial minorities tend to live apart by social or legal restrictions and sometimes, a minority group wanted to preserve their culture. It is a fact mainly poor immigrants move to low-income vacated sections of urban areas, but the inner-cities in the U.S. behave like a trap door to keep an ethnic/racial minority inside and is difficult for a group to leave the "ghetto" to integrate/assimilate into the socially advantaged majority. In Los Angeles, New York and Miami, the large percentile of Hispanics in inner-cities are culturally separate to a point many Spanish-speakers admit they never learned English, when they can't totally blend into the larger mainstream society. But to many social critics, the Spanish language is promoted for multiculturalism and basically political purposes for an interest group to gain Latino votes or to increase a socio-cultural barrier divided by those unable to learn English. --Mike D 26 06:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I share your concern Mike D (see response to comments above), but keep in mind that linguistic enclaves are by no means new. There were island communities (like German) throughout the US. I have no problem with Hispanics speaking Spanish at home. I am an Asian American who speaks Chinese at home. However, the problem lies in an inablity to use basic English in public. If Latinos cannot even use English in basic everyday life, then they are doomed for a life of poverty and misery. Furthermore, they are creating isolated communities where they can get away with not learning English. This will cause them to insist on not speaking English, which further polarizes our country (it should be noted that this is a problem in Chinatowns as well). People who live in enclaves tend to hold onto political loyalties of their native countries as well, which is a highly undesirable trait. The bottom line is that the English language was, has been and will be a basic part of assimilation. That doesn't mean you are required to give up your native language (or another language that's spoken often at home), but it does mean that you should learn English and speak it in public. Is that so much to ask?

Furthermore, the last sentence in the future of Spanish paragraph is from a source that REJECTS the very premise that is being stated, saying that the idea of the US turning into a country like Canada "does not hold water." He proceed to successfully demolish that point with hard facts and good reasoning, some of which was the same as the English proficiency statistics given in this article. So, I'm going to eliminate that sentence unless someone can find an actual source. --jps

[edit] "hundreds of thousands of Mexicans became Americans literally overnight"

The history section as currently written states:

"After the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), nearly half of Mexico was lost to the United States, including parts of the modern states of Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, and the whole of Alta California, Nevada, and Utah. Subsequently, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans became Americans literally overnight."

This seems high; my understanding is that, if you don't count native Americans that did not speak Spanish, the existing Mexican population of these areas was much lower at the time of annexation. Two other Wikipedia articles make this assertion:

• Tejano:
  • "By 1830, the 30,000 [Anglo] settlers in Texas outnumbered the Tejanos [Texans of Mexican descent] six to one"
• Mexican–American War#Results:
  • "The annexed territories contained about 1,000 Mexican families in California and 7,000 in New Mexico."--A. B. 11:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] El Camino Real

Real in this article is translated as Royal. In spanish, royal is a cognate and real means "main". "El camino real" means Main Street.

False. Main Street should be "Calle Mayor". "Camino Real" means Royal Road, or King's Road.--Menah the Great 00:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complete reorganization of history section

I’ve reorganized the history section into two sections, “History” and “Official Status” (which were muddled together), each with sub-sections. I’ve tried to keep all the same information, but I’ve added a little from other Wikipedia articles to add to clarity, and removed a few things that made no sense. This whole article still needs cleanup and copyediting.

Removed:

• (From the opening paragraphs): “The first reading grammar text was written in Spanish in Georgia in 1658.” – The first ever in the whole world? This may be a legitimate sentence, but it needs to be qualified, I’m sure.
• (From Aftermath of Mexican-American War): “The two proposed territories over that land agreed with the US government on the rights of its Spanish-speaking residents (populations varied from 7,500 to 20,000 in California, and 25,000 to 50,000 in New Mexico) became American citizens.” – What two territories? What agreement? The grammar of this sentence is flawed to the point that it makes no sense.
• (Related to the Cuban revolution): “In 1959 made their exile permanent.” – This must be a fragment left over from some previous edit. If anyone knows what it means, add it back with the rest of the sentence.
• I’ve also removed the “hundreds of thousands” fact that seems to be false, leaving just “thousands”.

Jaksmata 18:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish Essay due.. help! = )

Hi, im a fresmen in High School and im writing an essay for Spanish 1 on why it is important for me to take this class, the benefits it will give me later in life, & how it is related with the u.s and how I live. I suck at writing, & I really have no idea what to put & its due tomm. so could someone give me some hints on what to put? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.1.129 (talk) 21:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hispanics in the United States - requested move

Hello everyone. There is at present a discussion going on at Hispanics in the United States, due to the request that the page be moved to Hispanic Americans. Would you like to comment please? Thank you. The Ogre 18:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish legacy

I want an article about of the Spanish legacy in the USA.

thanks

1. 88.19.28.240 (talk) 16:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)