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Spanish Language in the World

Spanish is one of the official languages of the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the United Nations, and the Union of South American Nations.

Spanish in Europe

Spanish is an official language of Spain, the country for which it is named and from which it originated. It is also spoken in Gibraltar, though English is the official language. Likewise, it is spoken in Andorra though Catalan is the official language. It is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland, Spanish is the mother tongue of 1.7% of the population, representing the first minority after the 4 official languages of the country.

Spanish in The Americas

Latin America
Most Spanish speakers are in Latin America; of most countries with the most Spanish speakers, only Spain is outside of the Americas. Mexico has most of the world’s native speakers. Nationally, Spanish is the official language of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico , Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (coofficial Quechua and, in some regions, Aymara), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language (co-official language English) in the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Spanish has no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize; however, per the 2000 census, it is spoken by 43% of the population. Mainly, it is spoken by Hispanic descendants who remained in the region since the 17th century; however, English is the official language.

Spain colonized Trinidad and Tobago first in 1498, leaving the Carib people the Spanish language. Also the Cocoa Panyols, laborers from Venezuela, took their culture and language with them; they are accredited with the music of “Parang” (“Parranda”) on the island. Because of Trinidad’s location on the South American coast, the country is much influenced by its Spanish-speaking neighbors. A recent census shows that more than 1,500 inhabitants speak Spanish. In 2004, the government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. Government regulations require Spanish to be taught, beginning in primary school, while thirty percent of public employees are to be linguistically competent within five years. The government also announced that Spanish will be the country’s second official language by 2020, beside English.

Spanish is important in Brazil because of its proximity to and increased trade with its Spanishspeaking neighbors; for example, as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc. In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making Spanish available as a foreign language in secondary schools. In many border towns and villages (especially on the Uruguayan-Brazilian border), a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.

In Jamaica, English is the official language; however, Spanish is recognized along the western coast, where the country’s neighbors reside, who are the Cubans, Costa Ricans, Panamanians and other people from Central America and Spain.

United States In the 2006 census, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Latino by origin; 34 million people, 12.2 percent, of the population older than 5 years speak Spanish at home.

Spanish has a long history in the United States (many south-western states were part of Mexico and Spain), and it recently has been revitalized by much immigration from Latin America.

Spanish is the most widely taught foreign language in the country. Although the United States has no formally designated “official languages,” Spanish is formally recognized at the state level beside English; in the U.S. state of New Mexico, 30 per cent of the population speak it. It also has strong influence in metropolitan areas such as Chicago and New York City. Spanish is the dominant spoken language in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. In total, the U.S. has the world’s fifthlargest Spanish-speaking population.

Philippines Spanish was an official language of the Philippines but was never spoken by a majority of the population. Movements for most of the masses to learn the language were started but were stopped by the friars. Its importance fell in the first half of the 20th century following the U.S. occupation and administration of the islands. The introduction of the English language in the Philippine government system put an end to the use of Spanish as the official language. The language lost its official status in 1973 during the Ferdinand Marcos administration.

Spanish is spoken mainly by small communities of Filipino-born Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Filipino mestizos (mixed race), descendants of the early colonial Spanish settlers.
Throughout the 20th century, the Spanish language has declined in importance compared to English and Tagalog. According to the 1990 Philippine census, there were 2,658 native speakers of Spanish. No figures were provided during the 1995 and 2000 censuses; however, figures for 2000 did specify there were over 600,000 native speakers of Chavacano, a Spanish based creole language spoken in Cavite and Zamboanga. Some other sources put the number of Spanish speakers in the Philippines around two to three million; however, these sources are disputed. In Tagalog, there are 4,000 Spanish words and around 6,000 Spanish words in Visayan and other Philippine languages as well. Today Spanish is offered as a foreign language in Philippines schools and universities.

Spanish in Africa

In Africa, Spanish is official in the UN-recognised but Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara (coofficial Arabic) and Equatorial Guinea (co-official French and Portuguese). Today, nearly 200,000 refugee Sahrawis are able to read and write in Spanish, and several thousands have received university education in foreign countries as part of aid packages (mainly Cuba and Spain). In Equatorial Guinea, Spanish is the predominant language when counting native and non-native speakers (around 500,000 people), while Fang is the most spoken language by a number of native speakers.

It is also spoken in the Spanish cities in continental North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla) and in the autonomous community of Canary Islands (143,000 and 1,995,833 people, respectively). Within Northern Morocco, a former Franco-Spanish protectorate that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish.It is spoken by some communities of Angola, because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War, and Nigeria by Afro-Cuban ex-slaves. In Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal Spanish can be
learned as a second foreign language in the public education system. In 2008, Cervantes Institutes centers will be opened in Lagos and Johannesburg, the first one in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

Spanish in Oceania

Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is also spoken in Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile.

According to the 2001 census, there are approximately 95,000 speakers of Spanish in Australia, 44,000 of which live in Greater Sydney, where the older Mexican, Colombian, and Spanish populations and newer Argentine, El Salvadorian and Uruguyan communities live.

The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, since Marianas and Caroline Islands were Spanish colonial possessions until late 19th century (see Spanish-American War), but Spanish has since been forgotten. It now only exists as an influence on the local native languages and also spoken by Hispanic American resident populations.

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