Talk:Spanish language

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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 French Guiana]. Ejrrjs | What? 19:13, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

second most popular language?

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

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)Reply

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

States listing in the Infobox

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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 geografic 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 B:

I think Spain should be in front. Maybe even remove USA, or replace it with Peru--Marianocecowski 11:25, 20 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
Spain first (obviously), then the next three by number of speakers. — Chameleon 12:21, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Spain first, then the next four by number of speakers. Include USA as non-trivial trivia. Ejrrjs | What? 21:42, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Spain first, then the next four by number of speakers, making sure it is KEPT LIKE THAT! Al-Andalus 16:20, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC).

Option D:

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 citizens of the world).

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.

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 country. 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.

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.

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.

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 language spoken by Hispanics is Spanish. Al-Andalus 04:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC).