The future of Spanish language in USA

Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:31 am GMT
Hi!, I am European, and I read that Spanish is spoken by a lot of people in USA:

-34 million of Hispanics officially

-12 million of illegal Hispanics

-6-10 million of students in USA

-4 million of Puertoricans

60 million, total speakers.



If there are 60 million of speakers in USA (I don't know it these data are true) which is the future of Spanish in this country?
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:51 am GMT
There's no future. It's difficult to find a 2nd generation person in the US willing to give up their USness, most of them don't even speak Spanish: think J. Lo, who learned it in her 20ies, and her Spanish is far from good.
Christina Aguillera finds Spanish a nice language to sing, but she didn't bother to learn it.

Cameron Diaz responded to that question: Spanish? What? Is that a language or a slang? Sorry? I'm a blond? Too difficult 4me.
LOL
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:21 am GMT
"Currently there are over 44 million Hispanics in the US, with that number expected to surpass 100 million by 2050"

http://blog.diversityjobs.com/little-known-facts-about-hispanics-and-hispanic-heritage-month


According to the US Census, there will be 100-105 million of Hispanics in USA in 2050.

So, you need to add Puerto Rico, 10-15 million of illegal Hispanics and 10-15 million of students of Spanish: 125- 140 million of Spanish speakers by 2050.

At the same time, Mexico will have 130-140 million of Hispanics. So, more than half of the NAFTA population (North American Economic Union) will speak Spanish.


Hmmm... I think that Spanish will be a healthy language in USA.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:43 am GMT
Juan Gonzalez speaks Spanish.

John Gonzalez doesn't want to remember that his parents used that immigrant gibberish.
greg   Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:54 am GMT
L'hispanophonie états-unienne est appelée à un bel avenir. La question est surtout de savoir dans quelles régions des États-Unis son influence sera la plus grande, disons à l'horizon 2050-2060.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:09 am GMT
But a lot, in fact even the majority of Hispanics don't speak Spanish at all.
Mallorquí.   Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:13 am GMT
Bonjour, Greg, et tous les autres,

Je crois que vos analyses sont erronnées du fait que vous prenez comme base pour vos calculs de population future les taux de natalité actuels.

En fait, la natalité dans les pays hispanophones est en train de chuter. Vous vous trompez en prophétisant le chiffre de 150 milions d'hispanophones aux États Unis dans cinquante ans.

Le Magrib nous en offre un exemple pareil: il y a vingt ans, le taux de natalité y était très haut (sept enfants pour femme), tandis que, à l'heure actuelle, il a chuté jusqu'à 2,5.

Donc, je pense que:

1) L'immigration hispanophone aux États Unis finira pratiquement par s'arrêter.

2) Comme il est en train de se passer de nos jours, les "hispanos" s'intègreront à la langue et la culture des États Unis.

Lors d'un voyage aux États Unis, quelques uns de mes amis l'ont constaté. Il y avait pas mal d'hispanos qui refusaient de parler espagnol avec eux: c'était pour eux une question d'image, de prestige. En effet, même si entre eux ils parlaient un espagnol très anglicisé, leur langue restait quelque chose avec des connotations de classe basse. Il va sans dire que la grande majorité des hispanos aux États Unis parle anglais à leurs enfants, et que pour leurs petits enfants l'espagnol n'est qu'un souvenir.

Cela sans compter que l'espagnol des hispanos est une langue de plus en plus abâtardie: le spanglish.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:20 am GMT
I don't get this complex the Hispanics have... Why do they need to 'conquest' the USA or whatever they want to make us believe? It's not like Spanish is a lowly language as it is, why do you need the USA to boost it's status? Most USA Hispanics speak dreadful Spanish anyway.. So you'd think the Hispanic fanatics would prefer they didn't pollute their language and just spoke Enlgish from the get go.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 11:13 am GMT
I think that the point of view of the Hispanics is changing...and very fast. Nowadays, they know that a lot of companies want bilingual people in their staff. These bilingual people earn more money that monolingual English speakers. And the language more interesting in the CV in USA is Spanish.

Spanish is the most spoken language of the Americas. So, if the companies want to sell-buy products in the whole area they need Spanish speaking workers.

You say that the immigration to the United States will be less important. I am not sure about that. There are almost 600 million of Hispanics (including Brazil) in the Americas, and at least 400 of them would like to live in USA.

Although the population will increase not so fast in Latin America, it will be always a lot of Latin Americans that want to be American citizens.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:43 pm GMT
The ads are just for ignorant 1st generation illegal hispanic immigrants.

Why, there are lots of products there with ads in Frenchand with Spanish and of course English. French always comes out first before Spanish.
greg   Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:14 pm GMT
Salut Mallorquí !

Je n'ai proposé aucun chiffre car la prospective en matière de démolinguistique est un art périlleux, surtout à 50 ans d'intervalle... En revanche l'impact culturel de l'hispanophonie états-unienne est loin d'être déjà circonscrit dans la mesure où nul ne sait ce que seront les États-Unis dans cinq décennies. Ce qu'on sait déjà, c'est qu'au niveau économique ça va faire mal — très mal — au moins pour les 5-10 ans à venir. Avec la multipolarisation grandissante et la décadence du capitalisme hyperfinanciarisé, il n'est pas exclu que les États-Unis connaissent, dans un avenir proche et au niveau tant politique que territorial, le sort de la défunte URSS. Les cartes seront alors probablement rebattues.

Avec plus de 40 millions dans les seuls États-Unis (presque autant qu'en Espagne, en Argentine ou en Colombie) sur 400 ou 500 millions de locuteurs dans le monde entier, le castillan états-unien s'inscrit dans cette perspective rapprochée.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Map-Hispanophone_World.png
Veracruzano   Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:59 pm GMT
Most of second generation Hispanics don't really speak Spanish very well. Or if they do, then it's limited only to day to day Spanish spoken at home with English words thrown into it.
By the third generation, most can't speak Spanish anymore and have to take a course if they want to learn it.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:25 pm GMT
Spanish will share the fate of every other immigrant language that has arrived within the past 150 years.
REAL Veracruzano   Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:50 pm GMT
lol, the message above wasn't me either, but just so you know I won't use this nick anymore so if you ever see it again, it's not me, adios.
Guest   Sat Jul 12, 2008 4:18 pm GMT
The power of Spanish language is always amazing! It is not only spoken in USA by 60 million people (according to the first post).

At the same time, it is yet spoken by 1 million in Canada! And increasing...


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Map-Hispanophone_World.PNG


Including Canada, there are 30 countries where there are, at least, 1 million people speaking Spanish.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellano