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Spanish is the second most common language in the United States, after English, being spoken in some grade by about 27.8 million people (or 10.5% of the population) in 2000. Nowadays, the United States has the fifth largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico, Colombia, Spain and Argentina. Spanish has a status of official language (along with English) in the state of New Mexico and in Puerto Rico, which is a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States.
HistoryThe Spanish language has been in North America since the 16th century. In 1513, Ponce de León was the first Spaniard known to have visited North America (specifically Florida). In 1565, the Spaniards founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied European city in the territory of the United States. The first reading grammar text was written in Spanish in Georgia in 1658. Spanish has been spoken in the country (singularly, in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana) since 1803, when Louisiana was sold to the United States and Spanish settlers in that region, descendants of Canary Islanders, turned into citizens of a new country. After the Mexican-American War (1846–48), nearly half of Mexico was lost to the United States, including parts of the modern-day states of Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, and the whole of California, Nevada, and Utah. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) made no explicit reference to language rights. California's first constitution approved an important recognition of Spanish language rights: "All laws, decrees, regulations, and provisions emanating from any of the three supreme powers of this State, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish". By 1870, Anglo-Americans had become a majority in California. Although both English and Spanish are official languages in New Mexico, and Spanish has been spoken around northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and the Mexican border since the 17th century. Some small influence of Spanish was felt in the U.S. during and following the Spanish-American War (also known as the Cuban Insurrection) which brought the first group of Cubans to the United States as visitors. These would travel between the two countries for decades until the Cuban Revolution in 1959 made the exile permanent. With the downfall of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship by Fidel Castro's Marxist-Socialist regime, almost one million Cubans left the island-nation, most to settle in lower and central Florida. Puerto Ricans are native U.S. citizens and Spanish is the first language of Puerto Rico. Many Puerto Ricans migrate to New York City, New York, adding to the Spanish-speaking population there. Some critics have referred to the survival of the Spanish language in the USA, especially in the southern areas bordering Mexico, as the "Amexica" effect. This term blends "America" and "Mexico". Similarly, on the East Coast, they speak of "Nuyorican", blending "New York" and "Puerto Rican". Spanish Place NamesAs a consequence of the Spanish and Mexican expeditions and their control in some territories, there are many places in the country, especially in the southwest, with Spanish names:
Varieties
Influx of EnglishThe influence of English on American Spanish is very important. Spanglish is the name for the combination of using Spanish and English together to effectively communicate something. On the other hand, some words have entered standard American English from Spanish. For a detailed list of borrowed words, see American English. Future of the Spanish in the United StatesGenerally, US Hispanics (13.4% of the population in 2002) are bilingual to some degree. A study by Simmons Market Research found that 19% of the Hispanic population speak only Spanish while 9% speak only English, 55% have limited bilingual proficiency and 17% are fully bilingual. Intergenerational transmission of Spanish is a better indicator of the future of Spanish in the United States than crude numbers of native Spanish-speaking immigrants in a given moment of time. Although Latin American immigrants have various levels of English proficiency, Hispanics who are second-generation American in the United States almost all speak English, but only about 50 percent speak Spanish at home. Two-thirds of third-generation Mexican Americans speak English exclusively at home. There are more Spanish speakers in the United States than there are speakers of French (the other language inherited from European colonization), Hawaiian, and the various Native American languages taken all together. Living an exclusively Spanish-speaking life is viable in some areas due to the constant influx of immigrants and the prevalence of Spanish-language mass media, such as Univisión, Telemundo USA, and Azteca America. The Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (North American Academy of the Spanish Language) watches the developments of US Spanish and the influence of English. American literature in SpanishSouthwest Colonial literature In 1610, Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá published his Historia de Nuevo México (History of New Mexico). Nineteenth Century Eusebio Chacón published El hijo de la tempestad in 1892. Twentieth century
See also
External links
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