Talk:Spanish language/Archive 5

message: Latin America has been for decades the back yard of the United States, and many Americans think that it will always be that way, but it won't. Many Hispanic American countries have a great capacity of growing and Brazil has decided to lead them into the future. Brazil has just a handicap to get that: Spanish is not spoken there; yet. In July 2005 Brazilian parliament established Spanish as a subject which all high schools in the country had to offer to their pupils. Due to the huge interest (necessity) of Brazilians in learning Spanish, and to the Spanish-Portuguese resembling, Brazil is going to be a bilingual Portuguese-Spanish country in 20 years. This will let Brazil lead the rest of Latin American countries in a natural way. 
Meanwhile in the USA Spanish is ignored in primary and secondary education, in spite of  being the second most important language in the world (it’s said to be the international language, with English, in the future). Will USA be so short sighted as not to implement a national plan to establish Spanish as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools so that Americans of tomorrow be able to speak it? Will USA lose on its influence over Hispanic countries?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.36.187.45 (talk • contribs) 18:42, 20 December 2005
:Just for the record: I've previously reverted this very comment, as I thought it was in the article page itself. I was wrong, and I apologize. User:Ejrrjs  says What? 22:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, because more and more americans are of hispanic ancestry I don't think it will be ignored forever. But, currently the political elite in the USA is of white protestant heritage. It will change one day, but nobody knows how long it will take. --Lucius1976 08:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  USA and the Spanish language

message: Why is Brazil colored green and not Canada? The US is a Spanish speaking country and should be the same color as the other countries in Latin America. If you go to Google News and type in 'Spanish language' you will get an idea on the vast presence of Castilian in the US.
Zedkoman 15:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As someone who speaks Spanish almost fluently as a second-language, I'm well aware that Spanish is widespread in the US. However, it is misleading to say that the U.S. is a "Spanish-speaking country", as it implies that Spanish is our primary or official language. The US as a whole has no official language, and although Spanish has been given what would be considered co-official status in some areas, it is still far more accurate to say that the US is a country where spanish is spoken. I think this would be a compromise in wording that would please both sides of this debate. ThePedanticPrick 17:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I absolutely disagree. We have had this argument extensively alrerady, (see above). The US is an English speaking country, for the reasons I outlined above (education and judiciary are in English, etc) and I would strongly oppose any attempt to equate the US with Sp LatAm countries on the basis that the Spanish language presence in the US is not in any way comparable to how Spanish is used in almost two thirds of Latin America, where it is in fact comparable to the way English is used in the US, or the way Portuguese is used in Brazil. Describing the US as a Spanish speaking country is about as accurate as describing the UK as an Urdu speaking country. Zedkoman, please read the earlier discussions, SqueakBox 15:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You and Claire have had a robust exchange of ideas and thoughts. Comparing the UK and the US is like comparing apples and oranges. One is not identical to the other. 12% percent of US resident have Spanish as their native language. Spanish has a historical presence in current US territory that predates the existance of English. You should read this PBS article by Phillip Carter of North Carolina State University. http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/spanglish/usa/ Puerto Rico is United States territory and the language of the courts and of the schools is Spanish. In New York there is bilingual education where one could take all of their high school subjects in either English or SPanish. The regents exams in NYS are offered in both English and Spanish. This is one example of US nationwide phenomena where Spanish is utilized. Their are countless periodicals, magazines, radio and TV stations to serve the Spanish speaking population. There is even a Spanish speaking station in Bangor, Maine! I of course am not mentioning the Spanish speakers in Louisiana and the southwest of the US that have spoken Spanish since the first European exploration of that part of the American continent several centuries ago. The Urdu speakers in the UK are not equivalent to people speaking a European language like Spanish in the American continent for half a millenium. Urdu is a phenomena of the post WW2 immigration of South Asians to the UK. One can however state that Turkey is a Kurdish speaking country, Finland is a SWEDISH speaking country (even though 5% of Finns are native speakers), or that Spain is a Catalan speaking country. That might get the majority riled up, but it is true. But this article isn't about politics, it is about Spanish and its use in the world. Claire showed statistics from the Census Bureau that prove everything that I am saying in regards to the sheer number of US American Spanish speakers. Zedkoman 19:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm afraid that an encyclopaedia should not cater to the whims of people...there is an old saying in Spanish regarding flies, their taste on food and the truth that I think could apply here :-) User:Ejrrjs  says What? 21:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish, like English,  is not an official language of the USA, but it is a Spanish speaking country.  

message: In the info box "Spanish (español, castellano)" it is said: "Spoken in: Most of South and Central America; Mexico and substantial minorities in other parts of North America and the Caribbean; the Iberian Peninsula; and enclaves and immigrant groups on all continents"
I don't think this is precise in two important points:
# "Most of South America" - As Brazil occupies almost half the territory of South America and Brazilians makeup a bit more than half of all South Americans, instead of "Most of South and Central America", it should be something like "Half of South America and most of Central America..."
# "the Iberian Peninsula" - The territory of the Iberian Peninsula is occupied by four politically independent entities: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. Andorra's official language is Catalan; Gibraltar's official language is English; Portugal's language is Portuguese; Spanish is the official language in Spain, but other regional languages are also co-official there: Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician. So, instead of saying "the Iberian Peninsula" as one place where Spanish is spoken, it should be better if you simply say "Spain". In spite of occupying 4/5 of the peninsula, Iberia is not exactly the same as Spain. Moreover, the Balearic and Canary islands are also part of Spain, but not of the Iberian Peninsula.
:I agree with point 2, however, my two cents on point 1 is that "most", in this context, does not necessarily refer to geographical area or population. When you have 15-20 countries on a continent and the vast majority of these countries speak Spanish, it is natural to say that spanish is spoken in most of that continent. I'd be okay with explaining in detail the geographic distribution and population figures for spanish in South America, but simply removing the word "most" on the grounds you suggest seems overly pedantic. ThePedanticPrick 17:25, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you could explain your grounds for doing so? If I'm not mistaken, Belize is the only country in Central America where spanish is not the official language. ThePedanticPrick 17:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It seems like people are trying to insert their own POV and play down the influence of Spanish in the Americas. Why not just say most of Latin America? Most of the Americas? Spanish is the most spoken language in the w hemisphere. In Europe, although Spanish is only official in Spain, it is widely spoken in Andorra and Gibraltar as a second language although it does not have official status. To say most of the Iberian peninsula is better because it is factual. Is there mention of Northern Africa? Zedkoman 22:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole thing has been invented to avoid saying that Spanish is widely spoken in the United States. It's done for exactly the reason you suggest. Grace Note 08:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Where Spanish is spoken

message: Equatorial Guinea should be dark green as it is a s much a Spanbish speaking country as Guatemala or Paraguay, SqueakBox 19:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That´s already ;] Yug  00:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Equatorial Guinea should be dark green

message: While the Voiceless dental fricative (/θ/) does exist in European Spanish, it doesn't exist in American Spanish. It is replaced by the Voiceless alveolar fricative (/s/). All of the IPA pronunciation examples, however, exclusively use the θ. Any objection to adding the American pronunciations as well? -Chef Ketone 16:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Replacement is not the best word to use there. /θ/ and /s/ developed parallel to one another from different historical sources in an earlier stage of the language. Dave 06:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: /&#952;/ and /s/

message: You know, there are plenty of comical sights on Wikipedia, many of them driven by POV pushing, but the contorted use of regions rather than countries to avoid noting that Spanish is spoken by many citizens of the United States is among the most hilarious. Well, if you insist on doing that, you cannot say Spain, but must parallel region for region. The same goes for Mexico. This is, of course, ridiculous, but shrug that's the way it goes. Grace Note 08:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL indeed. It isn't even a Spanish speaking country. They speak this language called English there. Have you ever actuially been to a Spanish speaking country? which is one where Spanish is the dominant language. If we mislead our readers we just make wikipedia into a laughing stock as everyone knows the US is an English speaking country, SqueakBox 04:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Alright, there's a lot of absurdity that's gone into this rehashed [ad nauseum] subject (although the last assertion there really takes the absurdity cake)...  Essentially, however, the problem is US hypernationalists pushing the POV that since Spanish isn't the foremost language of the US, that the US shouldn't be mentioned, opposed by a group of hyperproud hispanoparlantes pushing the POV that since Spanish is the 2nd most widely-spoken language in the US (which makes them very proud), that the US must be mentioned.  My POV is that both camps are wrong to use the arguments they're using...what should be being discussed is the affect this argument is having on the article.  Nobody, AFAIK, is arguing to exclude the US from the discussion of the geographical distribution of Spanish [speakers] later on in the article.  So, what's the issue?  "We disagree about the infobox."  The fact of the matter is that this discussion is never going to go anywhere.  Neither side will convince the other.  We need, instead, to come up with an agreement about the parameters that will be used in order to determine what will and will not be included in the infobox.  I am, of course, compelled to agree with Grace Note's recommendation (which, as it happens, is identical to what I recommended here 9 months ago already).  Tomertalk 03:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  As spoken in.... (don't mention the States!) 

message: Mexico and maybe parts of central america are the only places in the whole spanish speaking world that refer to their language as Español. Almost all of Spanish speaking countries refer to Spanish as Castellano. In Spain it is considered offensive in many places (Basque Country, Catalonia, etc.) to refer to the language as Español.
Vivaperucarajo 01:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Castellano vs. Español