 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
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.
The 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. The 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."
In 1870's-1880's the Anglo-Americans became 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.
The survival of Spanish in the United States is also a consequence of the Spanish-American War: today, 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.
There has also been much immigration from Latin American countries in the 20th century. Following the 1959 coup that unseated Batista and brought Fidel Castro to power, Cuban refugees began travelling to Florida.
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."
As 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:
The 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.
Generally, US Hispanics (13.4% of the population in 2002) are bilingual, speaking English better than Spanish. Although new arrivals 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 still speak some of Spanish. Two-thirds of third-generation Mexican Americans speak English exclusively at home.
Compared to the French (the other language inherited from European colonization), the Hawaiian or Native American languages, there are more Spanish speakers. Living a Spanish-speaking life would be a viable option in some areas due to the constant arrival of immigrants, and the Spanish-language mass media supported by the country's Hispanic population, as Univisión or Telemundo USA.
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.
Southwest 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
Chicano period
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
