Will Spanish substitute English?

MJGR   Monday, May 26, 2003, 14:10 GMT
Everybody knows that every day there are in the US more and more people from the Spanish-speaking countries in South America, If it is very possible that the reason why English is so used today is because it is the national language of the United States, will Spanish some day become the language of americans, and so will it be used instead of English? What is your opinion?
Simon   Monday, May 26, 2003, 14:16 GMT
This could well happen. I think the importance of Spanish in the US is already having an impact on the social status of Spanish elsewhere. For example, more and more kids in the United Kingdom now want to learn Spanish, which is still less useful for them than French or German.

Concepts like "Latino" etc. are now part of our everyday vocabulary but not particularly meaningful in a European context.
Corey Graham   Monday, May 26, 2003, 17:52 GMT
Don't forget that big business is ran by a white majority, and since English is considered the "business language", English is probably here to stay.
Clark   Monday, May 26, 2003, 20:44 GMT
Also, no one seems to look at the children and grandchildren of the immigrants; they almost never learn Spanish fluently. English will never be replaced, substituted, or co-official with English in America.
Jim   Tuesday, May 27, 2003, 03:58 GMT
You never know but I'm not betting on Spanish, not that I thing it will never overtake English just not in our lifetime. I think that Chinese would have a better chance of becoming the next dominant language.
Clark   Tuesday, May 27, 2003, 06:45 GMT
I do not think that English will ever be replaced by any language in America unless America is attacked and taken over by a foreign power [or if America loses political/financial power].
Corey Graham   Tuesday, May 27, 2003, 14:20 GMT
More people speak English in China than any other country in the world.
350 million. I would think that english is pretty close to being a dominant language in the orient aswell.
saloth   Tuesday, May 27, 2003, 16:42 GMT
"More people speak English in China than any other coutry in the world"

Here we speak Singlish rather than English
tulip   Thursday, June 05, 2003, 20:23 GMT
Chinese is only spoken in China, Mongolia and S.E. Asia. English is spoken in all countries.
How can Chinese have a better chance than English of becoming the next dominant lagnguage ? Chinese speakers speak Enlish when they go abroad not Chinese.
Lollapalooza   Thursday, June 05, 2003, 20:31 GMT
Nunca. !Hay no posibilidad!
Dimitris   Thursday, June 05, 2003, 21:58 GMT
This could happen only if U.S.A. would lose its dominate position in economy.
Such a transition if ever happend, would take decates if not centuries.
It happend before under very diffrent circumstanses. Arround 300 B.C. Greek dominated the world after Alexander the Great conquered it. The same way Latin language made its appearense wolrdwide but could not dominate eastern Mediterrenean because Greek were very well established and a very mature language to be erased at once by an other. Any way theese two languages dominate until now the modern languages such as English with thousands of words wich are of origin either Greek or Latin.
McNight   Thursday, June 05, 2003, 22:21 GMT
I think it's pretty ignorant to assume that English became a universal language because of the United States.

After all, British spread English too........

West Indies,
Anguilla,
Antigua & Barbuda,
Barbados,
Bay Islands,
Belize,
British Virgin Islands,
Cayman Islands,
Cuba,
Dominica,
Grenada,
Guyana,
Jamaica,
Leeward Islands,
Montserrat,
Mosquito Coast,
St. Dominigue (Haiti),
St. Kitts-Nevis, 
St. Lucia,
St. Vincent,
Trinidad & Tobago,
Turks & Caicos Islands,
Windward Islands
Bahamas,
Bermuda,
Falkland Islands,
St. Helena and Dependencies,
South Georgia Islands
Botswana,
Cameroons,
Eritrea,
Gambia,
Ghana,
Kenya,
Lesotho,
Malawi,
Namibia,
Nigeria,
Sierra Leone,
Somalia,
South Africa,
Sudan,
Swaziland,
Tanganyika,
Tanzania,
Togoland,
Uganda,
Zambia,
Zanzibar,
Zimbabwe
Bahrain,
Egypt,
Iraq,
Israel,
Jordan,
Kuwait,
Libya,
Oman,
Qatar, 
United Arab Emirates,
Yemen (Aden)
Bangladesh,
Burma,
India,
Nepal,
Pakistan
British Indian Ocean Territory,
Maldive Islands,
Mauritius, 
Seychelle Islands,
Sri Lanka
British North Borneo,
Brunei,
Hong Kong,
Java,
Malaysia,
Sarawak,
Shanghai,
Singapore,
Tientsin,
Wei Hai Wei
Australia,
New Zealand, 
Western Pacific Territories,
Fiji,
Hawaii,
Kiribati,
Nauru,
Papua New Guinea,
Pitcairn Islands,
Solomon Islands,
Tonga,
Tuvalu,
Vanuatu, 
Western Samoa
Cyprus,
Gibraltar,
Heligoland,
Ionian Islands,
Ireland,
Malta,
Minorca,
Canada,

Not to mention the USA, which was the first colony to get independence. Add up the above populations and you would easily top 2 billion. The foreign policy of the British Empire was to make other nations adopt British principles, law, ideals, etc etc.....But most importantly "language". The Empire was decolonised from 1947-1985. I think the last decolonised nation was Hong Kong in 1996.
McNight   Thursday, June 05, 2003, 22:25 GMT
And Simon, French is the most popular second language in schools in the UK. Learning Spanish for English students has nothing to do with the rise of Spanish in the USA. British holidaymakers go to Spain on holiday, and it's more fashionable to go to Spain than France. It's therefore more useful to them than FRENCH or GERMAN.

No offence, but you've shown a complete lack of knowledge about the UK. Don't make statements about a country you know little about.
hp20   Thursday, June 05, 2003, 23:02 GMT
but simon IS british, right?
KT   Friday, June 06, 2003, 02:52 GMT
Hong Kong was returned to China on July 1, 1997.