Talk:Spanish language/Archive 2

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

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  All of Latin America is a Spanish region??? No! 

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

text: I've heard Chinese is the more popular language, period. --Requiem the 18th(email) 02:27, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  second most popular language? 

message: *Option A:
#More neutral. Compare "United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and others" on English language. –Hajor 16:10, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Votes

message: Why Cervantes? A bit like demonstrating English with Shakespeare. This language is so dated as to be a bad illustration of Spanish, SqueakBox 18:03, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
:You will have a serious problem trying to find a writer that would satisfy all the flavours of the Castilian language. At least Cervantes is universally accepted. -Mariano 08:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.. Besides hidalgo, adarga, and rocín, which are hardly used (which is understandable, since it's about a knight, ie: not modern times), I fail to see what qualify as dated. If I were to read "En un lugar de Panama, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo vivia un caballero de los que [something, give me a break, i'm not a writer]", I would hardly think of it as dated, certainly litery, but it's a book snippet, so... SpiceMan 13:20, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cervantes

message: What is a subdialect?
Isn't "dialect" enough?
--Error 20:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Subdialect

message: I'm really curious about something.  My American Heritage Dictionary lists the words "francophone" and "anglophone" but no similar word referring to Spanish.  I independently coined the word "hispanophone," but I find it hard to believe that someone else somewhere hasn't come up with it.  It's not that hard for anyone with a good education and a little creativity to use or understand such a term.
Does anyone have a dictionary that lists "hispanophone"?  I find it kind of odd (and frankly a little lazy) that we have a more errudite term for "French-speaking" and "English-speaking" but not for "Spanish-speaking."  Personally, I prefer these "-phone" words to these awkward, hyphenated phrases.  Why is "hispanophone" not in use like "francophone" and "anglophone"?
:Both these terms were coined as a result of the politicization of the language situation in Canada where, were there a significant hispanoparlante population, "hispanophone" or "castillophone" or something of that nature would no doubt exist.  Tomer TALK 00:03, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
I think the best word would be Hispanohablante (Spanish for Spanish speaker); as the french already use Francophone.
:I'm going to have to vote no on that one, as it's a spanish word, and this is the English version of wikipedia. I see nothing wrong with hispanophone; as this [site http://www.langmaker.com/db/eng_hispanophone.htm] explains, it's a perfectly cromulent word, albeit a somewhat new one. At the same time, I don't see what's wrong with the less-stuffy spanish-speaker and spanish-speaking. For example, "..large number of spanish speakers" sounds infinitely better than "..large number of hispanophones", and it prevents the ignorant from thinking hispanophone is some sort of whisper-in-a-circle game a la "Chinese Telephone" (I believe the PC crowd calls this game "Broken Telephone" nowadays) ThePedanticPrick 17:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of "Hispanophone" 

message: I realize this has been the subject of a ridiculous amount of sometimes frivolous debate, but I'd like to propose the adoption of a language box of more limited scope.  As it presently stands, the language box is a mini article all by itself, instead of acting as a quick guide to the language, where it's spoken, where it's official, etc.  As you can see (despite the fact that the interloping lines separating sections don't appear here on the talk page), this not only removes the silly sounding "and dozens of other" pedantry, but also distills the regions where it's spoken into something somewhat less precise, but this is a good thing...after all, that's specifically what the "regions" section is supposed to be for.
Discussion?
Not such a big difference, but it's OK with me. -Mariano 09:11, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even in this new proposal, the infobox is still way too big. If English language can cut it down to a decent size, than so could Spanish. If no one wants to take the responsibility and you're willing to trust someone who is neutral in terms of not being a native of any Spanish-speaking country, I can do it. Just please don't let it stay as bloated as it is now...Peter Isotalo 21:00, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks fine to me--it's only slightly larger than the box on the English Language page. Let's move on. ThePedanticPrick 17:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The region section has now been made optional. You can leave out either one of states or region. Simply leave out the parameter you don't need. The infobox is designed to be brief, so it does look awkward when it's crammed full of this stuff: an exercise in minimalism. --Gareth Hughes 17:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to shrink language box