Talk:Spanish language/Archive 4

message: This is becoming a very messy page... 
Regarding Spanish in U.S., consider these facts:
*U.S. has no federal official language.
*At state level, there are several: English, Spanish, Hawaiian and French (I don't know if there are more). Of these four, English is used as national language; Spanish is used by a sizeble part of non-immigrant population (New Mexico, for instances); Spanish is a language of the U.S., just like Welsh is a language of U.K. or Catalan of Spain. 
*Real Academia de la Lengua acklowledges U.S. "Academía de la Lengua".
U.S. has a first language, which is English (just like Spanish in Spain). But, in fact, Spanish is as much a language of U.S. as French is of Canada, Catalan of Spain, or Welsh of U.K. - i.e., they are official languages of parts of the respective country. Don't forget: Spanish is official in some parts of U.S.
Please, answer these arguments calmly and open-mindedly. Best regards to you all, Marco Neves 18:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not all excited about including the US, I'd rather say "Some US States", if that is the case. The US as a whole is not a "spanish speaking country". Furthermore, French is indeed a Federal official language of Canada, so let's not compare to that. Catalan is a regional language, accepted in Catalunya but the federal language of Spain is Spanish. I think that's an important distinction. --Sebastian Kessel Talk 18:19, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We shouln't compare to Canada if English were an official language of US at federal level. It isn't. In fact, federally speaking, the official status of Spanish is the same as of English (none), just like French status is the same as English in Canada (official). So, in US, the official language is decided in state-level and, in that level, Spanish is official in some states (just like English is official in only a few states). Marco Neves 20:12, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  (Please, do not call Spanish comunities "provinces". Provinces, in Spain, are another kind of division. Basque Country is a community divided in three provinces. And linguistic situation is controversial but no one denies that Spain has four official languages, although only one in the whole territory. Catalan is used in schools and courts.Marco Neves 20:16, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

text:  Regarding U.S., Spanish is official in New Mexico, at least. As for litmus test regarding schools and courts, well, that would mean changing lots of articles throughout Wikipedia. England used French in courts for centuries and English remained the main language. The fact is: Spanish is used by a significant number of non-immigrant people in U.S. and is official in parts of the territory. Marco Neves 20:12, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

text:  I'm spanish and basque speaker, do you know that in Spain our constitution recognizes basque, catalan and galego as different languages and it allows to use them in administration, schools... there is no controversy. Spain has an official language = Spanish, and the other languages are official in some autonomic communities (no provinces), the big difference with US, is the fact that the non spanish languages in Spain has a big culture, history and delimited zones; there are no big changes in the last 500 years in the composition of languages speaked in Spain. In US with migration and people movements the languages change a lot, and now the spanish is becoming an important language in US, more important than all together minor languages in US.--82.130.166.113 13:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The courts thing is nonsense. You can't speak Kurdish in a Turkish court. Does that mean that Kurdish is not spoken in Turkey? And Welsh was, famously so, not in use in Welsh schools until fairly recently. Did people only start speaking Welsh recently? These are all just excuses to exclude the States. Grace Note 05:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, in this context, the proper way to address the importance of the relevance of the use of Spanish in courtrooms is as follows:  in the US the business of the court can be carried on in any language, although in most locales it is conducted in English.  That said, the business of the court must be conducted, if only via translation, in a language clearly understood by a representative of the court, and by the plaintiff[s] and defendant[s].  Therefore "excuses to exclude the States" is just as ridiculous an assertion as is the assertion that the use of Spanish in courts in the US is an "excuse to include the States".  If Spanish is used in the courts, it's to ensure that someone whose knowledge of English might be insufficient to convince the court [i.e., the judge[s] ] that the plaintiff[s] and/or defendant[s] understand all the proceedings(, thus reducing the likelihood of a mistrial declaration or appeal based on "X didn't understand the language"), knows exactly what's going on ... it is for that reason, and that reason alone, that that particular criterion is, in this context, utterly irrelevant.  <edit>Use of this criterion would indicate that perhaps Mordvinian should be considered an important language of the US, if a defendant could communicate reliably in only that language.</edit> Tomer TALK 01:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

text: True, but in the US, some states DO have spanish as an official language (New Mexico is one, if im not mistaken). Regarding the spanish problem, it's better resolved in the Catalan or Basque page, nobody here will deny that Spanish is spoken there. --Sebastian Kessel Talk 18:44, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Spanish in U.S.

message: Although "Spanish" is the word used to describe the allies of Mexico who helped to repulse invaders from the north colonizing Texas, the appropriate word should be "Hispanic" which indicates tribal culture of the Caribbean Sea region.
The constant mis-use of the term "Spanish" is irritating and self-defeating, as is the political use of the academic language discipline applied to Texas (U. S. A.) history and politics.  It is more irritating than the constant defamation of the French after their landings on the Mexican coast, thousands of miles from home port in Europe.  Beadtot 10/19/2005  00:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: talking how you feel about the issue does not make the issue clearer. What's the issue ? SpiceMan (??) 18:16, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish as the native language of Spain in Europe 

message: I have reworded the sentences about ch and ll to reflect the quote from the RAE in the Feb 2005 discussion in the archives. I'm new at this Wikipedia thing, and I'm still not fully satisfied with my edit, but I think it's clearer now. I'm still concerned about a couple of things. For example, the paragraph implies that vowels with accents are special letters that Spanish uses, but surely we think of those as accent marks used over the same Latin vowels, rather than as five additional vowels? I'd like to see this addressed. Maybe I'll do it myself when I get the courage.... BLT 22:18, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabet 

message: I don't like the use of that term throughout this article.  The term is used often historically to discuss times when no language had yet been named spanish.  And it is sometimes used to mean spanish, as opposed to other languages of the kingdom of spain in present day.  But it is never used, except on wikipedia, to mean spanish from spain.  I am changing it to something universally understood.
I agree. It isn't ever used here in Central American either, SqueakBox 15:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In English, castellano is called Spanish. The term is politically problematic given the history of regional nationalism in Spain, but sources in English always say "Spanish" except, as stated above, when talking about Castilian in a historical setting. There's already an explanation in the article regarding the alternative names. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:08, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Castilian Spanish