Talk:Spanish language

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

• Archive 01 (Aug 2002 to Mar 2005):

1 Incorrection | 2 Loss of vosotros/vuestro in parts of South America? | 3 IPA and SAMPA usage and inconsistencies | 4 History | 5 Major changes in the 19th century? | 6 Semivowel or not? | 7 También and compadre have /n/ (arch)phoneme | 8 Inverted question marks | 9 Spanish syntax | 10 Castilian or Spanish? The situation in Spain | 11 Separate Grammar Page | 12 one of the oldest languages in the world | 13 Sound bites | 14 Oh dear | 15 Help with article | 16 MadriD | 17 Misspellings | 18 Adjectives | 19 Second person, third person, questions | 20 Castellano and Español | 21 digraphs as letters | 22 Countries that say castellano | 23 POV addition by anon | 24 Brazil | 25 Spanish word list | 26 Languages of... | 27 Northern Morocco

Please add new threads at the bottom of this page

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Contents

1 Number of speakers 2 All of Latin America is a Spanish region??? No! 3 second most popular language? 4 States listing in the Infobox 4.1 Votes 4.2 Comments 5 USA or not USA

Number of speakers

Where do the new figures for number of speakers come from? I don't mind people updating stuff without references per se, but this kind of thing should be substantiated with sources...and there is no way anyone can authoritatively update such a thing (population figures) without sources...especially not when dealing with millions of speakers. Tomer ^TALK 02:02, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

All of Latin America is a Spanish region??? No!

In the info box section the "region" of the Spanish language says the language is spoken in "Spain, almost all of Latin America," - that is total nonsense. Brazil is a part of Latin America, in fact it is the largest(geographically) and most populous country in the region with more than a third of its population and Spanish is NOT widely spoken in Brazil. I changed the statement to "Central and South America, Caribbean islands," --212.82.166.162 09:46, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)Harold

Maybe it should say: "almos all countries in Latin America". --Marianocecowski 11:25, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That is still too much considering the size and population of Brazil. The problem is "almost all countries or all in Latin America" is quite misleading because then it sounds as if the region was overwhelmingly Spanish speaking and, distorts the fact that Brazil is home to more than a third of all Latin Americans and about half of South America's land area. Haiti like Brazil is also Latin America and non-Spanish speaking but unlike Brazil, Haiti is a small country with a small population. If Haiti were the only non-Spanish speaking state in the region I would say "almost all countries" is okay. Brazil is only one country but home to huge percent of the region's people. Any statement with all or almost all is misleading in this subject because it basically classifies Latin America as a overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking region, which it isn't. --212.82.166.162 15:50, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)Harold

That's why in Spanish there is a distinction between Hispanoamérica (all Spanish speaking countries in the continent), Iberoamérica (ditto plus Brazil) and Latinoamérica (to make room for Haiti and ]. Ejrrjs | What? 19:13, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just a list of non-hispanic speakers(--Jondel 05:01, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)):

• Brazil -Portuguese
• Haiti -French
• French Guiana-French
• Belize - English
• Suriname - Dutch
• Guyana - English

latin america comprises more than 30 countries, and according to that list, 3 don't speak in spanish (yes, 3. English and Dutch are not romance languages, thus not part of latin america). Saying 'most countries' seems appropriate to me. Or would you say that half asia speaks russian because russia is such a huge country? Not stating "almost all countries in Latin America" is more misleading that not saying it, as you would think that latin america has a large number of spoken languages, which is not the case, IMHO. SpiceMan 13:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So, 90% of the countries and 66% of the people within the region speak Spanish (I agree with Spiceman's stats), SqueakBox 14:39, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

second most popular language?

Not even close. English is the winner hands down:

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

As far as influence and importance goes, again, not even close:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_1.htm

Value as a language in the modern era:

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JohnnyLing.shtml

Spanish has fewer then 100,000 words, a large number of which can be said to have been borrowed from English.

This is supposed to be an Encyclopedia, not a forum for pushing political agendas.

Read your own sources, to start with. Ejrrjs | What? 20:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Chinese is also more popular than Spanish.--Jondel 02:08, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Excluding Asia, is Spanish the most popular language? India is a significant bloc for English.--Jondel 00:13, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

States listing in the Infobox

from Marianocecowski :

This has been a subject of many edits lately, and maybe it would be wiser to discuss it here. The different views seam to be the following (please add any needed):

Spoken in:

• A - By number of native speakers (Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Argentina, USA, and dozens of...)
• B - By "importance" of the country's language influence (Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, USA, and dozens of...)
• C - By minimalistic geographical coverage (Spain, Latin America, USA, and dozens of...)
• D - By relevance to English speakers (this is, after all, en:WP): (Spain, Mexico, Argentina, etc., see distribution)

Votes

• Option A:

1. More neutral. Compare "United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and others" on English language. –Hajor 16:10, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
2. Concur with Hajor. Many nations have rich literature, i.e Chile and Pablo Neruda. It's POV to decide which is more imporant to the language. -JCarriker 16:40, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
3. Although I'd have no problem if "Option B" were to be applied, I am changing my vote to "Option A" after reading and agreeing with the short but straight statement made by JCarriker in his vote. Al-Andalus 08:06, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC).

• Option B:

1. I think Spain should be in front. Maybe even remove USA, or replace it with Peru--Marianocecowski 11:25, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
2. Spain first (obviously), then the next three by number of speakers. — Chameleon 12:21, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
3. Spain first, then the next four by number of speakers. Include USA as non-trivial trivia. Ejrrjs | What? 21:42, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Option D:

1. The distribution is discussed at length in the article itself, and if people really want a detailed list, that's where they're going to go anyways. The language table is meant to be a quick guide, not an article of its own accord. Tomer ^TALK 07:12, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Comments

• The push to include the USA in the list seems to me to be POV-pushing. While it's true that there are a significant number of hispanoparlantes in the EEUU, its influence pales in comparison to English, which is actually a historically important language in Honduras, Nicaragua and Panamá (eventhough none of these countries are even mentioned at English_language#Geographic_distribution, and is culturally influential (moreso than Spanish in the US) throughout hispanoamerica, yet you'll notice that there is no big push to include any of those countries in the list of English speaking countries. That said, importance-wise, Spanish is clearly far more important in Venezuela or even Paraguay than in the US. The argument might be made that "well, English-speakers don't feel as oppressed" or whatever, but this is WP, not a clearinghouse for gripes. Tomer ^TALK 07:21, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

• Tomer: I agree with you, as I expressed it voting for B removing USA. Problem is that some poeple just undo edits without cheking the discussion pages. Even though little poeple voted, I think we have some consent on the ordering. The question of leaving USA out or not is, still to be resolved. We should wait a bit longer to decide on this, OK? Thanks, Mariano 11:40, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

• The reason I initially pushed for a list of the top 5 countries in numeric order, followed by a general comment, was that people made the exact same changes proposed by Mariano; "Maybe even remove USA, or replace it with Peru." That thinking of giving priority to one country because it has Spanish as an official language, in this case Peru, over another that doesn't but which happens to have more speakers than the first country, in this case the USA, is what initially caused the category box to be longer than the article itself; and in an order changed by the nationality of every new wikipedian modifying the list. This is especially true for Peru (which has Spanish as one of three official languages, with Quechua and Aymara), where despite Spanish being an official language, a great proportion of the population are Amerindian-speakers. That's when we had small population countries like Bolivia before large countries like Colombia, Cuba before Chile, Peru before Argentina, Costa Rica before Ecuador, and even the Philippines (with 3,000 Spanish-speakers amidst 107 million Austronesian-speaking Filipinos) but no mention of Belize or the USA (c. 30 million Spanish-speakers.) Al-Andalus 16:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC).

• On a related note, may I mention that on the English language article, the "Spoken in" category is in the current format used on this article ("Option A"), that is by number of native speakers; United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and others. Notice United States is placed before United Kingdom because of numeric supremacy, the same format is currently used here, but the change wants to be made to "Option B" to place Spain first, and THEN the next four in numeric order. If the change is made to "Option B" (which I support, as long as it is maintained) then I would encourage the same changes to be made to the English language article. Al-Andalus 16:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC).

• I don't think the number of speakers is so important. Otherwise we would put Colombia before Spain. If you'd like to compare this article to its English counterpart, please note that it's short list does not include India, where English is an official language, and a lot of people speaks it. I Consider the worldwide cultural influence of the country regarding the Spanish language. Therefore (and even I'm not Peruvian) I consider Peru to be culturally far more important in the Spanish speaking world since it gave the world writers such as Mario Vargas Llosa. But I wouldn't force Peru to the list, I just think that USA shouldn't be in the short list, because it's culturally not important to the Spanish language. Mariano 08:03, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

As a citizen of a country outside of the Americas, I would counter your argument that the United States is not culturally important to the Spanish language, and its diffusion around the world (at least as it perceived by the non-American citizens of the world).

• You seem to be, at first glance, correct. US culture, and consequently, American English, is culturally pervasive throughout the Spanish-speaking world, although "leastmost" in Spain, where Spanish is spoken as a first language by only barely as many people as wild conjecture based on US Census data indicates it is spoken in the US. There's more to this, however, than first glances, and I don't believe, that you have begun to comprehend Mariano's point. I believe what he was attempting to convey is the very relevant point that Spanish, as a language spoken in the US, is utterly irrelevant to the influence the US has internationally, including in hispanoamerica. As a citizen of a country outside of the Americas, also apparently a non-Spanish speaker, I submit to you that your perception, at least as you've worded it, is completely without concrete basis. Tomer ^TALK 08:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

I can almost guarantee you that the countries responsible for pushing the greatest influence in the spread (conscious or not) of the Spanish language towards the rest of the world are; Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile AND the United States of America.

• Your ability to "almost guarantee" anything is hereby horribly suspect, since there are no countries "pushing the ... spread of the Spanish language". The only country that ever pushed the expansion Spanish was Spain, the international influence of which, already waning, came to a complete screeching crashing halt with the Spanish-American War, over a century ago. Tomer ^TALK 08:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Off topic: Cervantes Institute (http://www.cervantes.es/) is a public organization created by Spain for promoting and teaching Spanish language and spreading Spanish and "Hispano-American" culture. Ejrrjs | What? 19:06, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The inclusion of four of these countries (Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile) is based largely on the great number of well-known literary contributions to the world in that language, more so than any other Spanish-speaking countries. Added to this is the fact that three of those countries (Spain, Mexico, Argentina) also contribute largely to international cinema, viewed and associated with the Spanish language by millions of non-Spanish speakers. Finally, in the modern globolised world that we live in, the most important and consciously significant medium by which Spanish is diffused today (purposefully or not) is by television.

• Wonderful. So why, pray tell, do you insist on pushing for the inclusion of the US?Tomer ^TALK 08:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

The contributions made by the medium of television (which has been primarily important across the English-speaking world) is arguably the greatest and most important that the Spanish language has ever had in its linguistic and cultural diffusion, as recognised by your average citizen of the world. The large Hispanic population of the US (the largest minority) has consequently lead to the inclusion of their ethnicity, culture and language in the plots, characters and discourse in the vast majority of programming. As such, after English, Spanish is a language commonly associated (by non-American English-speakers) with the United States. This should be no surprise. In an English-speaking country (Australia as an example) television content can be well over 70% American produced, and most Spanish is introduced via this medium. Programmes such as CSI, NYPD, Desperate Housewives, Oprah, flood television viewing time slots, which is why Australian broadcasting laws dictate at least 25%[?] of content be Australian produced.

• Your first sentence is characteristically (for you) incomprehensible. It is full of English words, but its structure is so mangled that by the time you get to the end of it, those of us who actually speak English are left wondering "wtf are you talking about?!" The "large Hispanic population of the US" is a census bureau category, and living in the US, I can tell you, there are a great many Hispanics whose Spanish is even worse than your English, if they speak any Spanish beyond "gringo" and "no". The census bureau's definition of "Hispanic" is even looser than the UN's definition of "Palestinian". BTW, "lead", pronounced "led", is an element, Pb. The word you're looking for is "led". That said, "Hispanic" includes a number of hispanoparlante ethnicities. Your horribly-worded assertion "The large Hispanic population of the US (the largest minority) has consequently lead to the inclusion of their ethnicity, culture and language in the plots, characters and discourse in the vast majority of programming" is almost completely meaningless...and what little meaning as can be gleaned from it is unequivocally false! If you Ozzies associate Spanish with the US, especially as a result of your being swamped by American TV shows, that's a sign of Ozzie ignorance, not of the influence of Spanish on American Culture, or more relevantly, of Spanish spoken in the US' importance vis à vis Hispanoparlante culture in the rest of the world. CSI:Miami and NYPD Blue happen to be based in two of the 3 largest urban concentrations of hispanics in the US, and are completely unrepresentative of US culture, even US urban culture. Desperate Housewives and Oprah are unspeakably irrelevant to this discussion, as is the makeup of Australian television broadcasts.Tomer ^TALK 08:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, if you were to ask a person at random the following question What countries would you associate the Spanish language with?, in an Australian reply most would answer Spain (for obvious reason), then Chile and Argentina (these two constitute most of Australia's Hispanic population) and THEN the United States of America before any other country. This very inclusion of the USA before another Spanish-speaking country is because of the role television plays in the modern world and its perceptions. As already stated, television programming for the English-speaking world comes largely from the USA. Most references to "Hispanic culture" and the greatest exposure and awareness to Spanish (in words, phrases, etc. used by Hispanic characters on US programmes) comes from American produced television, which highly influences the association of that language with the contemporary United States.

• Great. Since the US is utterly irrelevant, as mentioned above, let's just leave it at 3 countries then...especially since the US is already mentioned, along with every other fracking place in the world with at least 3 spanish-speakers, later on in the article. I would submit to you that the inclusion of the US has more to do with Australian ignorance of the rest of the world, since that's what you're describing, than with any comparative importance of the US when it comes to a description of the importance of Spanish. Tomer ^TALK 08:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Your average non-American in an English-speaking country (unfortunately quite ignorant to extra-cultural knowledge) would be hard pressed to know places by the names of Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Nicaragua or Honduras even exist, nor would they know what languages are spoken there, and much less would they associate these countries with the Spanish language. But they would definitely know the United States, they would also know that the largest proportion of Americans after "non-Hispanic Whites" are Hispanics (as seen and taught by TV) and that the language spoken by Hispanics is Spanish, thus associating the USA with Spanish. Al-Andalus 04:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC).

• Your wanton hubris in pretending to speak for the average non-American is breathtaking (but not surprising anymore). If people really don't know of places such as Perú, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Nicaragua and Honduras, that's pretty sad. That said, however, your idea that we should be stooping to the lowest common denominator is in direct conflict with the ideology that drives the entire Wikipedia project. This isn't Funk and Wagnalls for First Graders, nor Dumbed Down World Encyclopedia. Tomer ^TALK 08:06, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Hold on a second, we should include USA because the ignorants think its important? I thought this was trying to be an Encyclopedia... -Mariano 07:28, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

To those who voted A, on comments about English language: Let me remind you that not even in that page people agree on the Population scheme. UK is still in the first place. (At list right now) .-Mariano 09:04, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

USA or not USA

Guys, I suggest we cool down a bit, and lower the tone of the argument. I believe Al-Andalus has not successfully showed the importance of including USA in the short list of countries where Spanish is spoken. Wether other countries deserve to be there or not seams to be secondary, as most of us would prefer to have only Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia.

I trust we will find a solution in a civiliced way, and that we can all keep open to a different opinion. -Mariano 10:35, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

As Mariano implied before, an encyclopedia should attempt to enlighten the reader, not to conform to its preconceptions and likely associations. It is very possible that people around the globe associate Spanish with the USA because there are a lot of Hispanics in US TV shows, but this is an artifact of demographics and the media. "References to Hispanic culture" in the US may be abundant, but outside the US "Hispanic culture" means "what American TV shows Latinos doing, even if their Spanish is horrible", i. e. unrepresentative regarding Spanish-language culture. Also, this... "The contributions made by the medium of (English-speaking) television ... is arguably the greatest and most important that the Spanish language has ever had". Hello? Cervantes? Borges? Vargas Llosa? García Márquez? --Pablo D. Flores 11:16, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pablo D. Flores, I stand by my statement "The contributions made by the medium of (English-speaking) television ... is arguably the greatest and most important that the Spanish language has ever had". The only thing I will clarify about this statement is that it is meant in the sense that it is the most important medium Spanish has ever had among the masses, among your average joe who gets most of his knoweladge from modern visual/audio media, not among the educated, literate people such as yourself. I do understand your immediate questioning of great literary authors such as "Cervantes? Borges? Vargas Llosa? García Márquez?" but I was speaking of the average person. Like it or not, most people hardly ever pick up a book, much less of such literary greatness as those produced by the authors you have quoted. It is educated people like you (not sarcasm) that know such authors, and educated people like you that have the brains to associate the Spanish language with said authors. However, to the worlds's misfurtune, most people aren't as interested in reading books as you, and therefore they take what little they know from visual media such as movies and TV. Al-Andalus 15:17, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC).

I'm not sure you actually understand what we are trying to tell you. English speaking television can only give a cultural stereotype of the Spanish speaker (probably Mexican) and it has nothing to do neither with the Spanish language nor with the importance of the language in USA towards the world. I don't consider No problemo to be Spanish language influence. Again, it's of an Encyclopedia to clarify what people misconceives. -Mariano 09:15, 2005 Jun 16 (UTC)

In fact, it might be more than simply misconception. See this page on Mock Spanish (http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/SPAN/mockspan.html). I'm not implying that every American TV series denigrates Hispanics or the Spanish language (though I think the abundance of Latinos is suspicious - in many cases it's obvious that token Hispanics are just a recent addition to the already compulsory token Blacks and token gays on TV). What we are saying is that the kind of "Spanish influence" being talked about is not the kind exerted by a maid called Rosita or a policeman called Carlos or Bart Simpson saying "Caramba" on American TV. This is exotic flavouring or mock Spanish or a crude attempt at showing ethnic tolerance, but not Spanish language culture (only American culture that employs Spanish). --Pablo D. Flores 14:03, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)