Talk:Spanish language/Archive 7

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Archive 1

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Archive 5

Latin American Spanish

I wanted to learn proper Latin American Spanish, not a dialect that favour slang, or slang words, I an edcuated dialect that if hispanic for Latin American heard who think I from their country almost universal sounding dialect, one people won not would, he favour this country dialect, he learn this way, I told in 1993 that Puerto Rico was a convenient hub for the entire Spanish speaking world. Should I favour Puerto Rican Spanish today? If not where? Plus in proper Latin American Spanish the letter: v is not said as b, but v is v. The other is slang!

Uhm... what? JuJube 05:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Latin American Spanish

I wanted to learn proper Latin American Spanish, not a dialect that favour slang, or slang words, I an edcuated dialect that if hispanic for Latin American heard who think I from their country almost universal sounding dialect, one people won not would, he favour this country dialect, he learn this way, I told in 1993 that Puerto Rico was a convenient hub for the entire Spanish speaking world. Should I favour Puerto Rican Spanish today? If not where? Plus in proper Latin American Spanish the letter: v is not said as b, but v is v. The other is slang!

Uhm... what? JuJube 05:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Taco means "swearword"?

Simple question: Does "taco" really mean "swearword" in Mexico, as claimed by the article? I thought "taco" referred to some body part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.246.253.205 (talk) 22:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

"Taco" really does mean "swear word", at least in Spain.--Mlg8472 04:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Western Sahara???? and Morocco!?"

Is Spanish really spoken by enough people to be on the map?

Have a look at ethnologue to see what I mean. It states that Spanish is spoken in Morocco in MELILLA! The last time a checked Melilla is a small dot on the map so you can't colour in the entire country. Also, Ceuta and Melilla belong to Spain not Morocco!

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Even if you pretend that Melilla and Ceuta are Moroccan cities you still have a problem as only 20,000 people would speak Spanish in the country out of a total population of over 33 million people! That is if you include Ceuta and Melilla.

Please have a look at the following web site. NO mention of Spanish! https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.74.218 (talk)

Spanish is spoken by 20,000 people as mother tongue, but a lot of people speak it as second or third language. I was there and everybody know a basic Spanish. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.138.239.205 (talk • contribs).

I'm sure that everybody knows basic French and Arabic too alongside Berber etc. I'm sure that a lot of people speak English in Spain as a second language. I know lets list Spain as an anglophone country! Please use your logic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs) 05:11, 28 May 2007.

To both non-signing contributors above: please discuss with facts and provide verifiable sources. Neither anecdotical evidence nor sarcasm will do. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've provided two links. I suggest you take a look.

There are zones in Morocco where it is spoken Spanish, zones that formerly were Spanish colonies, also there are Moroccan writers who only write in Spanish. Also there are descendants of Spaniards who speak Spanish. Saharauis speaks Spanish, therefore it is logical that Western Sahara leaves in the list.

Let me tell you that most Western Saharaui children from the refugee camps of Algeria spend their Summers with host families in Spain from a very early age so they actually speak Spanish perfectly well, as if it were their mother tongue. On the other hand I agree with Morocco not being included as a Spanish speaking country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.31.144.87 (talk) 12:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused. You claim that Western Sahara should be included because Western Saharaui children spend their summers in Spain???? These chidren live in Algeria not Western Sahara! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.168.183.150 (talk) 15:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

como como como como como como

Found an error in the solution: it's not ¿Cómo, cómo como?, it's ¿Cómo "cómo como"?. It's a mistake easy to be made, due to the short pause after ¿Cómo, a result of the quote. Helios 21:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, either punctuation is right. FilipeS 17:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm spanish (español) and y think that this sentence don't mean anything because the traduccion is how eat, como? como is a food??? in Spanish not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.173.125 (talk) 18:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Change the map as it is not accurate

For example, Morrocco should not be coloured in. Have a look at ethnologue to see what I mean. It states that Spanish is spoken in Morocco in MELILLA! The last time a checked Melilla is a small dot on the map so you can't colour in the entire country. Also, Ceuta and Melilla belong to Spain not Morocco!

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Even if you pretend that Melilla and Ceuta are Moroccan cities you still have a problem as only 20,000 people would speak Spanish in the country out of a total population of over 33 million people! That is if you include Ceuta and Melilla.

Please have a look at the following web site. NO mention of Spanish! https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.74.218 (talk)

Furthermore, nortwestern Brazil should not be colored in light blue. That is actually a very sparsely populated area where the locals probably either speak an indigenous language or vernacular Brazilian Portuguese. I seriously doubt that there is a significant number of native Spanish speakers in that region. Please double-check !200.177.193.47 01:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Brazilians dont speak Spanish, they speak Portuguese, SqueakBox 01:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Yet, the map shows a huge section of northwestern Brazil (the states of Acre, Roraima, and parts of the states of Amazonas and Rondônia) in light blue, indicating that, according to the map's author, there is a significant Spanish-speaking minority in that region. Is that accurate ? 161.24.19.82 12:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

By clicking on the map, I assume the Brazilian areas are supposed to show speakers of Portuñol, not Spanish proper. 惑乱分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Portuñol is spoken in the extreme south of Brazil, mainly in a small number of border towns between Brazil and Uruguay . It is by no means widely spoken in all southern Brazilian states as shown in the map, much less in the Brazilian Northwest (the Amazon). Of course, if the map's author can show reliable evidence to the contrary, e.g. official census data indicating that Spanish or Portuñol are spoken in those regions, then I will drop the discussion. 200.177.192.10 10:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Conversational similarities in the Romance languages

Very informative article about the Spanish language. However, I have some concerns about the assertion that Spanish speakers can converse with Italian speakers, and that communication with a French speaker is also possible. Although the languages unquestionably are related by their Latin heritage (a friend of mine said that Spanish was nothing but bad Latin!), their current use makes them very distinct and separate languages. As a native Spanish speaker, and quite articulate in my tongue, if I do say so myself, I can tell you that I can understand virtually nothing of what an Italian says to me, except to catch some occassional words. There are definitely word similarities, and structural grammatical similarities, but when a native Italian speaker is rattling off at me, I really have great difficulty understanding what he's trying to say (other than the hand gestures). As for French, it may as well be Greek. I just came from a vacation in France and I assure you that even though I've had three years of high school French, coversation is totally impossible based only on my command of Spanish. It is true that the written French language is more intelligible to me, and I could make out signs, etc., (at times), but I'm fairly certain my high school French was helping me out there more than my Spanish.

The only language in which I can make myself understood, and I can understand a good portion of it, is Portugese, whose similarity I've found is the closest to Spanish.

Just thought it might be interesting to let people know how a native Spanish speaker views other Romance languages. Cd195 00:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I have been told several times that, although Portuguese vocabulary and grammar are very similar to Spanish, it is difficult however for Spanish speakers to understand spoken Portuguese, mainly because Portuguese has a more complex phonology (basically a larger set of vowels and diphtongs that do not exist in Spanish). Is that true ? 200.177.193.47 01:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It's quite true: I can defenitelly better understand written Portuguese than spoken; pronunciation can be tricky, specially when it contains slang terms which the written language doesn't make use of .--Mariano(t/c) 01:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

As a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, I find it generally easy to understand spoken Spanish. Intelligibility however varies somewhat. It's easier for example to understand a TV newscast than, let's see, an Almodóvar movie. I also find Castilian Spanish accents tougher to understand, perhaps because of the frequent occurrence of the voiceless fricative [ɵ], which sounds completely foreign to us. By contrast, Mexican Spanish is probably the easiest to understand, as, from the subjective point of view of a BP speaker, it appears to be spoken more slowly than European Spanish. Mbruno 17:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This is clearly a subjective matter. For me (European Portuguese speaker), European Spanish can be easier to understand, because it's more clearly pronounced. Many American varieties of Spanish are pronounced so "softly" that they can become a blur to my ears. Well, of course being more exposed to European Spanish is also a factor... FilipeS 21:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this Spanish guy here saying he doesn´ t understand French nor Italian has a problem with languages; French may be difficult (for me, it´s much more difficult than English, maybe due to its strange froggy phonemes), but after studying three years you must have a basic command in any language. And as for Italian, I can understand the programmes on TV (news, etc) without having studied Italian in my life. The movies are more difficult because more slang is used. Portuguese is indeed very difficult to understand, because the sounds are very different (even from Galician), although the written form is very easy to understand (I would say it shares 70% of the lexicon). Sorry, I forgot to say I´m a Spaniard.--Xareu bs 19:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I can understand a lot from Italian-language TV without having ever studied Italian, although it depends on the speaker and the subject (a Spaniard too here).

Terça feira

In the table of derivations, isn't Terça feira Wednesday rather than Tuesday in Portuguese? Please enlighten me. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 16:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope, Wednesday is Quarta feira [1] as Sunday is the first day of the week, SqueakBox 16:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I know that the same system (Sunday=1 etc.) applies in Hebrew, Arabic and Modern Greek; the reason for my mistake was that "feira" is derived from ecclesiastical Latin "feria", meaning weekday (so though Monday is the second day of the week it is the first feria). Could the Portuguese use have been a direct calque from Arabic, indicating that in the Islamic period Sunday was indeed a normal weekday? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 13:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The Portuguese numeration system has its roots in the ecclesiastical calendar of the Catholic Church. See Days of the Week. FilipeS 13:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Rank by number of speakers

So there have been constant reversions of the range of speakers on this page, and I was starting to wonder why. I checked out the entry in Spanish Wikipedia and found out. There are some discrepancies between this page and that one. On Spanish Wikipedia, the rank seems based on cites saying Spanish is spoken by about 400mil natively and 100mil as a second language. That's about the same as on this article -- but I don't see anything in those cites (like the Universidad de Mexico link) ranking the language. That seems based on the Ethnologue link, which we also have here but which we range along with the Encarta rank.

I thought a discussion would be good. I think a range, based on the Ethnologue and Encarta data, is more appropriate, because ranking is such a hard thing to determine. The only thing that seems uncontested is that Mandarin is the most spoken by native speakers. But after that I think a range is more accurate because these things are difficult to measure accurately. SpiderMMB 22:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving this down as the edits have continued and no consensus seems to have been reached. In terms of native and non-native speakers, none of the citations showed that Spanish is not the most popularly spoken of the Romance languages. The only claim the cites, which do not seem academic to me, claim to make is that French is the second most widely taught foreign language after English. That is the claim made on the French language page, but regardless of its verfiability, it has no place in this article. There is no mention at all in the lead about where Spanish ranks in terms of its being taught as a second language (and indeed, there should be none until someone can provide a citation).

In terms of rank, at this point, given that the CIA also ranks Spanish as the second most spoken language by number of native speakers, I'm willing to simply list Spanish as "2" by number of native speakers. Two reasons: 1) I'm willing to say that since the CIA & Ethnologue data is almost the same, that this information is correct and Encarta is way off (which I've heard before); 2) consistency with the Spanish Wikipedia entry for Spanish language. But before the change is made I'd like some feedback from other consistent editors of this page. SpiderMMB 21:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I've searched high and low on the CIA reference, yet I see nowhere that lists a ranking of any variety for language. Can the reference be changed to take it to the appropriate place? Otherwise, please remove this as a reference for ranking.
Ethnologue clearly gives Spanish the 2nd rank based on the numbers it has tabulated, although I do have numerous reservations about their methodologies.
The Encarta link clearly gives Spanish a rank of 5, although I find it peculiar that they reference SIL (the publishers of Ethnologue) for information. However, I see no evidence to presume that Encarta is any worse than Ethnologue.
In sum, I think ranges are the best way to report rankings and in this case it should be listed as 2nd to 5th. AnthroGael 01:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe the problem is that the Wikipedia uses different methodologies to count the number of speakers of English and the Spanish. In the case of English, only native speakers are considered, whereas, in the case of Spanish, residents of a majoritarily Spanish-speaking country who are not native speakers, but can nonetheless speak the language, are also added up. Note that those quantities may be significantly different in some countries. For example, in the United States, the number of native speakers of English as percentage of the total population is approximately 82 %, but the percentage of US residents who are capable of speaking English and actually use it on a daily basis is much higher (well over 90 %). Roughly speaking, the Wikipedia figures tend to overestimate the number of Spanish (and, to a lesser extent, Portuguese) speakers, while, at the same time, they underestimate the number for example of French or English speakers. Mbruno 12:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. I find the article very bias. For example, Guarani is an official language in Paraguay and is spoken by the majority of the population. Some people are even monoligual. This fact is however ignored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.168.183.150 (talk) 15:34, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Bias article

This article seems to be overstating the use of Spanish. For example, parts of Brazil and Morrocco are coloured in even though Spanish is not spoken in these countries by any significant and I repeat significant minorities.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Also the number of speakers seems to be a bit too high. There are many people that live in Spanish speaking countries that aren't native speakers of Spanish. For example, many people speak Guarani language in Paraguay. So you can't just look at the total population of all hispanic countries and say that that number equals the number of native speakers. Please look at the English language article to see what I mean.

Page stretch

Is it just my browser (Firefox) or can anyone else see the page stretch on the article? It stretches about a few pixels on the screen, but I can't seem to find what exactly is causing it. Just one little bit of page stretch triggers the horizontal scroll-bar which is very annoying. It might be a long URL or something similar. Any ideas? –Se bi ~ 10:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the word "Castellano"

The IPA transcription for the word "castellano" in the article is /kasteʎano/. Shouldn't however the alternative "yeísta" pronunciations be noted as well, not least because the palatal lateral approximant pronunciation of "ll" is now minoritary throughout the Spanish-speaking world ? 200.177.22.212 10:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's easy. It suffices to add the alternate transcription /kasteʝano/ where it is implied that /ʝ/ may be realized as [ʒ], [dʒ], [ʃ], or [j] depending on the dialect.

Another option would be to just use /ʝ/, which is by far the most common pronunciation. Of course, this might clash with traditional grammar... FilipeS 17:12, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Country colours on the map

Paraguay should be a different colour on the map

Countries that have Spanish as an official language alongside another language should be treated differently. The majority of the people in Paraguagy speak Guarani. This article is extremely bias. Guarani has even become an official language of Mercosur so maybe you could acknowledge this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs).

Totaly agree

Brazil should not be coloured in

The areas you have coloured in are sparesly populated. I don't think you'll find many Spanish speakers in those regions. You are more likely to find tribes that still speak their own languages along with portuguese.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Brazil

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs).

Oh your the guy that went on the English talk page and madly insisted the editors of the English language to name every single country in the world that spoke English even adding the People's Republic of China because the Spanish language, German langague and Russian language page had too many countries listed and the English language page didn't. Since it didn't worked out and the editors actually thought you were "silly" you come to the Spanish talk page and insist the map or the page is not accurate and should remove some countries listed. Well about Paraguay let me tell you that the country recognize's Spanish and Guarini both as offical languages and 95% of the population is mestizo (mix Spanish and Amerindian) and 5% other(?) meaning the people that does not speak Spanish could be a very small amount which are most likely to be isolated ethnic groups, and as a fact a year ago I went into a Latin-American multi-city journey and while in Asunción read in a national newspaper the goverment of Paraguay and Bolivia as well were teaching the native ethnic population that were non-spanish speakers how to talk, read and write Spanish, and btw the primary language spoken in Asunción was Spanish. About the map highlighting Brazil, I'm sure many Brazilians speak a good ammount of Spanish which I've experienced personally with many Brazilians speaking a reasonably amount of Spanish which is actually funny since is not vise versa, most Spanish speakers in Latin America does not speak any amount of Portuguese. About some months or a year ago the Brazilian president approved a bill that makes Spanish being taught as a second language in the country's public and private primary schools which traditionally the country has been closed to foreign languages and where the teaching of other foreign languages was not required (you can read it in this article 1. Do not know where the source comes from these highlighted border regions which part of the population is able to speak Spanish but in this sentence written in the article says: "For some time now Brazilian universities have offered Spanish classes in response to Spanish speaking Mercosur growing influence. Actually in Brazil's border states that have authority over their educational systems Spanish have been taught for years." Seems like Spanish do have an influence in these border states. DanishWolf 08:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No DanishWolf your wrong. I didn't add China I only added countries where English is an OFFICIAL language or where it is used by the more than 80% of the population to the list.

If I used your logic I would have added China to the map. You think that just because Spanish is learnt by many people in Brazil Brazil should be coloured in. I don't think that China should be coloured in just because a lot of people learn English in China. Get it? Learning a language in highschool does not make you a native speaker

I am not aware of any significant Spanish-speaking population in northwestern Brazil. So, why are the Brazilian states of Acre, Amazonas, and Roraima colored in light blue ? Incidentally, even in southern Brazil, Spanish or, more accurately, Portuñol-speaking minorities are found only in a small number of towns close to the Uruguayan border. There is no rationale therefore to color the entire states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in light blue, not least because, as it is widely known, see e.g. Immigration in Brazil, the most common languages spoken in those states besides Portuguese are actually German and Italian, not Spanish !

I think it is important to stress, particularly to international readers who may be unfamiliar with Brazilian culture, that Spanish is not a commonly spoken language anywhere in Brazil. The few native Spanish speakers found in Brazil are either rapidly-aging European Spanish immigrants who settled in the country in the 20th century, or more recent Latin American immigrants from neighboring countries like Argentina, Chile, or Bolivia. All together, their numbers probably add up to no more than one hundred thousand or so in a country of 190 million people !

Furthermore, I should emphasize that the frequently mentioned argument that Spanish is now a compulsory subject in Brazilian public high schools is also immaterial to the discussion whether Brazil should be colored or not on the Spanish language map. First, the law requiring the compulsory teaching of Spanish has not been fully implemented yet and many schools throughout the country are still not offering Spanish as a regular subject. Second, English has been also taught as a compulsory subject in Brazilian schools for quite some time now and, still, very few Brazilians can actually speak it! Besides, as far as I know, no one has ever used that as an argument to propose that Brazil be colored in light blue on the English language map ! In other words, limited foreign language instruction (twice a week at most) in a public school environment is by no means a guarantee of effective acquisition of the language under study, at least not up to a minimal functional level. That is equally true BTW for Spanish as it is for English, except that in the case of Spanish, it is often more difficult for external observers to note the sheer inability of Brazilians to speak, much less write it properly because, due to the similarity between Spanish and Portuguese, spontaneous broken "Portuñol" or even standard Brazilian Portuguese per se may be occasionally perceived, especially by untrained English-speaking visitors/tourists, as some form of dialect of Spanish.

Finally, as far as the Paraguay debate is concerned, I agree with previous posters that the Wikipedia should not use double standards when counting the number of speakers of a given language. The uniform standard should be to count first-language speakers only. I bet the majority of the 12 % or so of native Hispanophones in the US are also bilingual in English or, at least, use English to a certain extent on a daily basis (in school or in the workplace). In fact, US Census data show that the percentage of US residents who can speak English is much higher than the percentage of those who claim to have English as their native language. Still, the Wikipedia does not count non-native, albeit fluent English speakers (in the US, India, Nigeria, or elsewhere !) in its estimate of the number of Anglophones worldwide. Why are native speakers of Quechua, Guaraní, Catalan or other languages included then in the Spanish tally based solely on the argument that they also speak and use Spanish on a daily basis ?200.177.48.199 14:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN SOUTH OF BRAZIL? NO ONE SPEAK SPANISH. WHO KNOW ANOTHER LANGUAGE, KNOW ENGLISH AND (ESPECIALLY IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL) ITALIAN.

WELL. SPAIN IS AN ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRY BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE LEARN ENGLISH THERE SO BRAZIL MUST A SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRY BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE SPEAK SPANISH THERE.

I'm not sure if this is relevant but has anyone seen the episode of the Simpsons where they go to Brazil. Bart learns how to speak Spanish because he thinks that people in Brazil speak Spanish. When he finds out that they speak Portuguese in Brazil he tries to forget all the Spanish he had learnt. I think this episode is relevant as it highlights the stereotype that all South Americans are Spanish speakers. Wikipedia should not perpetuate this stereotype. French, English, Dutch, Guarani, Quechua and Portuguese are also official languages in South America.

yes, and in south america, portuguese (51%) is more spoken than spanish.

That's all very interesting, but the reality is that parts of Brazil remain colored in light blue on the Spanish language map. How long will the Wikipedia allow that blatant mistake to persist ? 200.177.25.244 12:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

As a Brazilian who lives in Argentina, I join the crowd in saying that the map is wrong. Hardly anyone speaks Spanish in Brazil, except perhaps in some border areas. The extent of the coloured area in Brazil shown in the map is totally wrong. It would be very nice to remove that. Fsouza 00:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Why aren't parts of France coloured in?

A growing number of students are learning and speaking Spanish in France. That means that France is a Spanish speaking country and should thus be coloured in.

It means nothing. Also i Italy a lot of people speak spanish. But you cannot color Italy or France

The 18 most common surnames in France are Spanish so I bet that a lot of people there speak Spanish.

No one speaks Spanish in France, I assure you. (On the contrary many Spanish people learn French). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.182.200.138 (talk) 07:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Number of speakers by country

Rejoining some of the above criticisms, while there are many reasons why different figures can be arrived at for totalling numbers of speakers, I really have to question several of the numbers given in this list. First off, the title says number of speakers, not native speakers, so I recognize that the numbers can easily be larger than those listed for mother tongue, but perhaps this should be made clear with a revised title such as "Number of speakers (first and second language) by country". However, the figure given for Spain is 44 million speakers, yet the link to Spain says the 2007 Census places the country's entire population at 40 million. Additionally, I find it hard to believe that there are not some people in Spain who don't speak Spanish. There are, for certain, a substantial number of Spanish citizens whose first language is not Spanish. Similarly, the figure given for Mexico is 106 million, which matches the entire population of the country, suggesting--incorrectly, i suspect--that everyone in the country is a Spanish speaker. The Mexico entry itself points out that at least 3% of the population speaks only an Aboriginal language, to say nothing of those who speak it as a second language. Likewise, the 1% of the population that is English-speaking American probably have significant numbers that don't speak Spanish. Taking just these two countries as examples, I think it may be a good idea to verify the figures for all these countries and/or give precise sources for each of the figures (e.g. The Census Bureaus of each of the countries)

Total speakers 500 million/ranked second and third??

Sounds a bit much. Got any evidence to support your claims? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs).

Yep, in fact two bits of reliable information back up that statement. This link and this link are being used as references for the statement. –Se bi ~ 05:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

You make me laugh. The first link provides the following info.

En el mundo lo hablan aproximadamente 400 millones de personas; Ocupa el cuarto lugar después del mandarín, más de 1000 millones; el inglés 500 millones y el hindi 497 millones; Adicionalmente 100 millones de personas hablan español como segunda lengua; Es el idioma oficial de 21 países; En los Estados Unidos el 13% de la población habla español como su primera lengua; En 50 años el español será la primera lengua de la población de los Estados Unidos;

Translation: Spanish is the fourth most spoken language after Mandarin, English and Hindi...In 50 years time Spanish will be the primary language of the US. Come on! This is not a reliable source as it is obviously POV and bias.

And the second link is just an article that restates what the first link says. Es la cuarta lengua del mundo por hablantes después del chino, el inglés y el indio.

IF YOU ARE SO CONFIDENT THAT THESE LINKS ARE CORRECT THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHANGE THE RANK OF SPANISH IN THE INFOBOX FROM SECOND AND THIRD TO FOURTH.

For those of you offended by capitalisation here it is again. If the two links are so reliable then you should change the infobox as it currently states that Spanish is ranked second and third. The two links claramente dicen que el castellano ocupa el cuarto lugar. In other words both links clearly state that Spanish is the fourth most spoken language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs).

The Spanish language ranking as well as the English, Mandarin and so on are after Ethnologue's world language ranking, you should see before talking [2]. In total the rounded up 500 million speakers it's a worldwide ESTIMATE, anyone with a working brain knows that since the exact number or any spoken language on earth it's unknown. Now, since you claim that the rounded up 500 million it's incorrect, why don't you please prove the real exact number of native/second language Spanish speakers since you seem to know it, until then I do not believe the page should be changed since it's not written for babies. And please, also remember to sign your posts, it's just 4 (~) at the end of your post. Thank you. DanishWolf 08:37, 9 June 2007 (UT

It appears as though you just pick and choose whatever data suits you best. Spanish is still ranked second and third in the infobox despite the fact the two links provided clearly state that Spanish is the fourth most spoken language. Also according ethnologue SPANISH IS NOT SPOKEN BY 500 MILLION PEOPLE. Anyone with a working brain knows that not everyone in a hispanic country speaks Spanish. BELOW IS A LINK TO ETHNOLGUE THAT PROVIDES THE REAL NUMBER OF SPEAKERS. I suggest you check your sources before you attack someone.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Population total all countries: 322,299,171.

I will provide the link for DanishWolf a couple more times.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

If you are still not convinced that you don't know what you are talking about check the wikipedia article on languages. You seem to have confused ethnologue with the two bias sources provided by Sebi that state that Spanish is spoken by 500 million people while at the same time saying that it is the fourth most spoken language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs).

I'll have you know that I have not' found those sources myself and used them as sources in the article to back up the claims. If you do not find these sources back up the claims are reliable at all, go and find some sources that are. Don't just sit back and make us do all the hard research, and yell comments at us. Wikipedia's motto after all is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Anyone meaning you. As far as I am concerned, the page is not protected from editing by IP addressess, so that means you can add your own sources, and prove the infobox wrong. Please see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and Wikipedia:Civilty before commenting on this discussion again. –Se bi ~ 09:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I HAVE PROVIDED MY OWN SOURCES. Please click on the link to have a look at my source

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Also if you are happy with the other two sources then change the infobox so Spanish is ranked fourth. I haven't got a problem with the sources per se. I only have a problem with the fact that you only pick and choose parts of the sources that suit your bias. IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE A SOURCE USE IT PROPERLY. OTHERWISE YOU CAN USE WHATEVER SOURCE YOU FEEL LIKE. JUST MAKE SURE YOU'RE CONSISTENT.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sp

Spanish language page or Super Fraud

The references provided do not match the information in the article. First of Spanish is ranked second and third according to the article yet the sources provided rank it fourth.

[3]

[4]

Second the article states that Spanish is spoken by 500 million people but the source states that it is spoken by 323 million

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Third the map is bias as parts of the world where Spanish is not spoken are coloured. Specifically the entire country of Morrocco and parts of Brazil.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.74.218 (talk) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

For a long time, we had a range of ranks to match both the Ethnologue and Encarta data. The bottom line is that none of these figures are going to be accurate, because numbers of speaks in the world is an almost impossible statistic to match accurately. I tried to start a discussion on this a few weeks back, but no one bothered to respond to my requests. I find it insulting that now charges of bias are being thrown about recklessly when my request for discussion went entirely unmet not too long ago. I have always advocated a range of ranked speakers, and changed it recently to match the Spanish Wikipedia page and to stop the influx of editing. I did this, also, in the face of citations that ranked Spanish the second most spoken language by number of native speakers (as per the AMERICAN CIA factbook). Again, I reiterate, if this information is inconsistent at all it's because this information is never going to be measured accurately. The data, though conflicting, tending to point towards this current edit, and in the face of potential inconsistencies I have always been careful to add the qualifier of "probably" to any alleged rank, even after there have been attempts to edit that out (again, check the history).

Finally, the only bias I have ever seen consistently comes from your anonymous IP addresses. You systematically edit the discussion pages both here and on the English language page, showing an inherent desire to demote Spanish and promote English. For all your criticism of the rankings on this page, I seem to remember you pushing vehemently for English to be pushed up the rankings despite conflicting data. Furthermore, your continuously disruptive and abrasive style on both discussion pages has made it absolutely impossible for anyone to work with you or take you seriously on either page. I sincerely doubt most of those opposing you on English language are "biased" against English, yet they consistently decline to support your edits, as we do here despite your accusations of our Spanish "bias." I would suggest that you rework you approach if you intend to get anywhere on Wikipedia. After nearly half a year (as far as I can tell) of editing, you still edit anonymously, refuse to sign you posts, berate your fellow editors, type in all caps, etc., etc. Change your approach if you intend people to take you seriously or work with you at all. SpiderMMB 19:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. So far many of my edits have resulted in changes in articles. I don't understand why you think that I'm promoting English and demoting Spanish. All I'm doing is fixing the articles so that they reflect the truth. I have no idea why the people editing the Spanish language page insist on having every single country in the world that has at least some Spanish speakers listed in the infobox (U.S., Belize, Morrocco etc.) while the people that edit the English language page only include a fraction of the countries where English is spoken or why the English language page only counts native speakers while the Spanish language page counts every single person living in an hispanic country as a Spanish speaker. All I've done is point out that the Spanish language page is bias as only the parts of sources that maximise the importance of Spanish are used. For example, one source says that Spanish is spoken by 500 million people making it the fourth most spoken language while another says that it is spoken by 322 million people making it the second most spoken language. What do you do. You cherry pick and come up with. Spanish is spoken by 500 million people making it the second most spoken language.

Furthermore, unlike the English language page the map of where Spanish is spoken does not show where it shares official status with other languages as in Paraguay for example. The editors of this page seem to have put in a lot of effort to show where Spanish is spoken in the US where it is not an official language while forgetting to acknowledge that Guarani is co-official with Spanish in Paraguay or that Quechua is an offical language of two South american countries. If this is not bias then I don't know what is.

First of all, if you want to talk about "cherry picking" I'll point out, again, that for the longest time we had a range of ranks here. I also did this for the English language page back in February (2/23/07 to be exact). Yet every time I tried to range the rank of English speakers, you changed the ranks insisting that English was the most spoken language in the world. First you did this based on some ESL website that was not reliable at all, and then on ONE stub of an Economist article and some ill-conceived notion of "leaners" as a third category of spoken language after "native and "second" that all of the other editors refused to accept. The article in question didn't even cite to its methodology or any sort of way in which it gathered its statistics, probably because they were probably using estimates, just like all the other language pages. Yet you reverted this and the native speaker ranges, insisting that English be ranked higher despite the fact that Encarta listed English as low as FOURTH by native speakers and other estimates have it second by total speakers behind a combination of the Chinese languages.

The information on this page has not been "cherry picked" with any specific purpose. As I mentioned above, I invited a discussion on this a few weeks ago and no one, including yourself, felt inclined to join. My purposes, again, as I've already mentioned, were consistency with Spanish Wikipedia and to stop the constant reversions to the opening paragraph that made it completely unreadable. I don't intend to engage you in this for much longer, because your history of edits has been confrontational, and you seem more prone to demands like "change the map now," and slander like "super fraud" or trying to block SqueakBox rather than contributing in any constructive manner. For instance, you have been asked to sign your posts multiple times yet you still refuse to do so. If you want to have a meaningful conversation on this, or anything, than please feel free to bring it up as a discussion where you will civilly both talk AND listen. But if you continue to contribute as you have, I have to warn you not to expect anyone here, on English language, or anywhere else, quit frankly, to be very receptive to your ideas.SpiderMMB 01:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You've got me confused with someone else. I never ever insisted that English is the most spoken language as even if more people spoke English than Spanish or vice versa Chinese (specifically Mandarin) is the most spoken language. Also, I feel offended that you'd think that I'm so dumb as to count learners of a language as speakers. How dare you accuse me of making such silly edits. I only ever refer to ethnologue and wouldn't use some ESL website. It is you my friend that used a Spanish Second Language website from Universidad de Mexico. You may not take me seriously or value my input but if the sources provided don't match the information in the article then you should change it. All I want is for this page to

acknowledge that Guarani is co-official with Spanish in Paraguay and that Quechua is official in two South American countries by showing this on the map.

acknowledge that not every one who lives in a country that has Spanish as an official language speaks Spanish. For example, Nahuatl is spoken by many in Mexico.

and finally acknowledge that not every hispanic in the US speaks Spanish.

what's so wrong with that?

I agree with last post (well, as for Chinese, it is not so easy; it´s more a set of languages than a single language; some dialects are more different between themselves than Spanish is from French). Regarding Hispanics in the USA (Hispanics, not Spanish, please don´t steal our nationality), many of them do not speak Spanish, or their Spanish is very poor (for me, Spaniard, it is very difficult to understand what they´re speaking; maybe, the lack of scholarization in Spanish causes this degradation). But please, do not count them as Spanish speakers.--Xareu bs 08:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I somehow find it highly unlikely that you, and a handful of other anonymous IP addresses just like you, all of which have the exact same abrasive style and refuse to sign their posts (as you STILL refuse to do), that are ALL routed through a server in Milton, QLD, AU, are not the same person. If that is in fact the case, you and some very similar minded people with eeriely similar posting styles and that are closely situated towards one another are swamping these boards.

Finally, it's become apparent to me, especially in light of your refusal to sign your posts despite so many requests by different editors, that you are only interested in pushing our own agenda and not cooperating with any of the other editors. As such, I'll simply join the long and growing list of Wikipedia editors who simply ignore rather than indulge your continuingly disruptive posts. SpiderMMB 01:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you please let me know how my posts are disruptive. Does Paraguay have two official languages? Yes. Does the map show this. No. What's abbrasive about facts? By ignoring facts and refusing to even think about another view you are showing your bias. If anyone is being disruptive it's you. Why don't you back up your posts with sources to show me that I'm wrong. Find a source that says that Guarani is not the co-offical language of Paraguay and I'll shut up.

The truth is that the references provided do not match the information in the article. First of Spanish is ranked second and third according to the article yet the sources provided rank it fourth.

[5]

[6]

Second the article states that Spanish is spoken by 500 million people but the source states that it is spoken by 323 million

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Third the map is bias as parts of the world where Spanish is not spoken are coloured. Specifically the entire country of Morrocco and parts of Brazil.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.28.74.218 (talk • contribs). http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

I've provided sources to back up my claims. All you've done is accuse me of pushing my agenda and not co-coperating without backing up your statements with sources. All I want for the article to do is:

acknowledge that Guarani is co-official with Spanish in Paraguay and that Quechua is official in two South American countries by showing this on the map.

acknowledge that not every one who lives in a country that has Spanish as an official language speaks Spanish. For example, Nahuatl is spoken by many in Mexico.

and finally acknowledge that not every hispanic in the US speaks Spanish.

You can ignore me but you can't ignore the truth.

I just checked the article and realised that some of the things I had problems with have been removed from the infobox. Thanks. At least not everyone is bias and some people are trying to improve the article.

Is the Guarani language an official language of Paraguay

Currently Paraguay is the same colour as other hispanic countries on the map. I was just wondering whether I'm wrong in thinking that it should be a different colour to show that the status of Spanish in Paraguay is different to its status in other countries. I've been accused of pushing my own agenda and not co-operating. If anyone has any source to prove that Guarani is not an official language of Paraguay please post the link on the discussion page. I've spent hours on the internet but so far I've only come up with sources that say that Guarani is co-offical. Please help.

Guarini and Spanish are both official languages of Paraguay, the CIA and all other Paraguay profile articles list Spanish as primary and then Guarini, but as I was reading at the Wikipedia Paraguay article in the demographics section it's written Guirini it's spoken by 94% of the population while Spanish is spoken by 75% although it does not provides any references, if it is reliable I do believe it should be highlighted light blue on the map. BTW, why don't you ever sign your posts? and thanks for not using caps. DanishWolf 08:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't sign my posts because I'm not a member. I've decided that I will join wikipedia cos I spend so much time editing and discussing things so my posts will be signed just as soon as I think of a good name. Plus I don't want people confusing me with someone else.

The following link states that the majority of the population of Paraguay speaks Guarani. Spanish is mostly spoken in the capital. Let me know if this source is reliable enough.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=PY

Seriously, this is my last message to you, and I'm only doing it because you've repeatedly decided to accuse me of bias on this page AND my talk page. I'm not against representing Guarani in Paraguay, or even debating the ranks (as I mentioned, I invited a debate a few weeks ago). What I object to is both your attitude and your double standards. While pushing and pushing for the map to shade Paraguay lighter, you do realize that on the English page you could make several similar arguments -- in Canada, for instance, why not suggest that New Brunswick be shaded a lighter color since both English AND French are official languages. Why not insist, as you have here, that the English language infobox reflect the range of speakers from the lowest possible estimate to the highest? Or why not insist that Nigera be shaded lighter, where even though English is official (as Spanish is in Paraguay) there are approximately 521 languages spoken?!

You don't persistently bring this up on the English page. In fact, on the English page what you insist upon are things like adding every English speaking country to the infobox. It's only on this page where you repeatedly show up and demand consistency and accuracy and a lack of "bias," which usually amounts in your mind to downplaying the importance of Spanish in any given country.

Finally, as for an explanation as to why I won't engage you anymore? Because you steadfastly refuse to change your ways, and I'm not the first to notice it or point it out. If you ever come around, I'm sure you will find people much more receptive. Until then, though, I can't be bothered with pointless and circular debates. I have a life outside of Wikipedia, and when I'm on here it's because I enjoy it, and I want the time I spend here to continue to be enjoyable. SpiderMMB 02:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks please. You seem to not realise that I'm not the only person in favour of changing the map. Some people agree with me while others obviously (you in particular) don't. We are trying to discuss here the pros and cons of changing the map. If you are going to post something please make sure that it is relevant to the discussion. Could you please let me know what you think is wrong with the following maps and please please please explain why the Spanish language map can't have a similar format. I.e. a different color for Paraguay as most people speak Guarani and two dots showing where Spanish is spoken in Morrocco rather than colouring the entire country. What's your opinion? Don't forget that accusing me of bias or attacking me for not signing my posts are not relevant points. Explain to me how my arguments are circular and back your points up and I'll gladly listen to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map_German_SpeakingWorld.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Francophone_World.png

Yes, I know a few things about changing maps. I successfully pushed to have the new map replace the old inaccurate one that shaded the entire U.S. light green (and I finally did so on the MAP discussion page, where this is more appropriately discussed). If you want to make accusations of personal attacks, I think you should look at your own history, which includes systematically accusing editors on this page of bias, calling the page a "super fraud," and trying to get SqueakBox blocked. But whatever you do, just stop spamming my user page discussion board. As I've already indicated, I have no desire to discuss this issue further with you. SpiderMMB 15:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

What's your opinion of the maps then???????? I'm tired of you constantly bringing up unrelated stuff. I reallly hope that was your last message.

Number of speakers and map

I've changed the number of speakers and ranking sections of the infobox. I believe I made it as most accurate and clear as possible by not given an exact number since that exact number it's unknown and it could be anywhere in-between from the numbers listed. Please, if you have an opinion about it discuss it here with no personal attacks since it seems to be the primary way of discussing at these talk pages. About the map, I agree with some people here about removing Morocco, Western Sahara and the highlighted regions of Brazil since none of them provides reliable references. Morocco does has a small region which many are able to speak Spanish but it's so small that if it's highlighted on the map it would not be seen and as a fact the CIA does not list Spanish as to be spoken by any important number of the population there nor in Western Sahara or those regions of Brazil. Would like to know other opinions. DanishWolf 08:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with the changes you've made to the infobox. No one knows the exact number of speakers and this is probably the best way of showing that. Regarding the map maybe we could just put two blue dots or something where the two Spanish cities are in Morrocco and leave the rest of the country uncoloured. I still think it would be useful to colour in Paraguay a different shade of blue to indicate that Spanish is co-official of Guarani though. What do you think?

The following link states that the majority of the population of Paraguay speaks Guarani. Spanish is mostly spoken in the capital. Let me know if this source is reliable enough.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=PY

I like the way the French and German language pages have done it. Please, feel free to have a look

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map_German_SpeakingWorld.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Francophone_World.png

I think that the maps show that German and French are spoken all over the world without having to colour in entire countries. I also like the fact that Quebec is a different color from the rest of Canada as it shows the special status of the region within Canada. What's your opinion?

I am agree. Guarani is the first language i Paraguay. When paraguy football team play, is fanny, becouse they speak guarani. But don' t use ethnologue, is so old! No one update it!

Portunol today Spanglish tomorrow

I realised that some areas of the map that are coloured in reflect Spanish based creoles etc. I am not sure why these are included as most of these are as different from Spanish as Italian is. Even more so in the case of those spoken in the Phillipines. If you were asked to colour in parts of the world where Latin is spoken would you include areas where Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian are spoken. I think not. They are different languages. What's your opinion.

Ethnologue

I have edited the page to the Ethnologue. Please stop reverting it. I have made the article better. First language speakers. Second and Total is a good idea. (Cokes360 14:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC))

I am Spanish and the official alphabet we use daily consider that "rr", "ll" and "ch" are not letters properly but "double letters", that is, we do not consider them in the same level as, for instance, "b" or any other, although they have a proper sound completely different from the one they would have if you take separately both letters.

On the other hand, in fact there are a little group of proper Spanish words writen with both, "k" or "w" (as anyone coming from the Greek root "kilo" between other), but especially for the second one, their use in our language is almost unexisted. Any way, there is a Spanish grammar-spellig rule which indicates that any word finishes with the sound /k/ it should be written ended with "k"; so, for example, "Iraq" in Spanish ought to apper in newspaper ... as "Irak", even if, when you want to talk about a man or a woman from this country, you must recover the normal spelling rule changing that "k" for a "qu". It means that: "Irak" and a person coming from there "Iraquí".

I do not know if this is the answer you were waiting for.

How much longer will the map be left unchanged?

If you read the discussions there seems to be a lot of agreement that parts of Brazil should not be coloured in and that Paraguay should be a different colour as more people speak Guarani in Paraguay than Spanish. Why hasn't the map been changed?

Please remember to sign your comments with four tildes (~) so we can recognize who is speaking. Acroterion_(talk) 00:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Better discuss your opinion here as this is where the map and its legend are really able to be modified

Reversions

I've made the following reversions:

1. Added Belize and Andorra back to the infobox. Both of these are cited to in the article. In the case of Belize, the recent census data shows a majority of the population speaks Spanish.

2. Removed the sentence, "it should be noted not all hispanics speak Spanish." Unnecessary. The sentence that follows states that 32 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish. Since that is less than the 42 million hispanics mentioned in the preceding paragraph, it should be clear to anyone who can do the math that not all hispanics in the U.S. speak Spanish.

3. Reinstated "and an important language of business communication in those countries as well." A study was cited for this (which ironically enough was not removed when the sentence was -- footnote 29). If you have issues with the study, discuss it here before deleting it again.

4. An official langauge of the European Union along with more than 20 other languages. True, but I question the motives. If Mr. 58.107.35.34, who edits the English language page heavily, also adds it there, then I promise I won't touch it. That would also go a long way in proving that he is not "bias" against Spanish. SpiderMMB 03:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It should be included that it is an official language along with other languages. By stating that it is "the" official language you are excluding other languages. People may not realise that even a language like Maltese spoken by not even a million people is an official language of the EU. By stating that Spanish is one of twenty official languages people will realise how important Spanish really is. You should realise that English, German and French are the working languages of the EU making them more important than Spanish when it comes to the EU.

lol German? SqueakBox 23:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I found it surprising but it's true. I guess it's one of the working languages as it is the most spoken language in the EU when you just look at native speakers. English is only the most spoken language in the EU when you look at first and second language speakers. German is one of the three working languages of the European Commission, along with English and French. ...

http://www.answers.com/topic/german-language

Fantasy countries

The following info is in the opening paragraph

In total, twenty-five nations and territories use Spanish as their primary language. In addition, it is an important language in twenty other countries.

Which twenty other countries is this supposed to include? Spanish is important in the countries where it is an official language and in the US. No where else is it any more important than French, German, Russian etc.

This page seems to be suffering from US bias/American bias

I have noticed that this page seems to be pushing the idea that Spanish is the most important language in the world or at least equal most important. I fully agree that it is extremely important in the USA where there are millions of Hispanic immigrants be they legal or not. The US also shares a border with Mexico so yes Spanish is important in the US. However, where else in the world is the language important? Certainly not in Asia. Chinese, Japanese and English are the most important languages of Asia. What about Africa? Well French, English, Portuguese and Swahili play a key role there. And Europe? Well, the working languages of the EU are English, German and French. Looks as though the only place Spanish is really important is the US and since the US is not the centre of the world you can't claim that just because many people speak Spanish in the US the world does.

Where is it important? err...Latin America? SqueakBox 23:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about countries where Spanish is a native language. I fully agree that it is the most important language in the world in those countries where it is an official language and spoken by the majority of the population. So, yes it is the most important language in Spain and Latin America. However, do you see my point. Latin America is right next to the US hence the "importance" of Spanish there. What this article is suffereing from is American bias. And I mean both the Americas. North and South.

What other countries are you talking about? The infobox only lists the U.S., Belize, and Andorra as places where Spanish is not official but important. The rest of the article only mentions other countries where Spanish is actually important or where Spanish has had an influence in the past. I.e. non-Spanish speaking Americas talks about U.S., Belize, Brazil; Asia talks only about the Philippines in detail; Japanese Peruvians, and small communities in Europe are only mentioned in passing.

BTW SqueakBox, good to see you back again. SpiderMMB 01:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If you check the article's history you will see that someone added Australia, Canada and Germany to the infobox. I removed them. Have you read the article lately SqueakBox? The following is a sample of what's in it.

Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In European countries other than Spain, it is spoken in communities in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and an important language of business communication for those countries as well

Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is also spoken by 3,000 inhabitants of 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.[37]

I understand why you think Spanish is so important as it will in fact be the main language of the USA in fifty years time according to a source used in the article. But please refrain from thinking that the US is the same as the world.

[7]

Why is Australia included. 95,000 Spanish speakers out of a total population of around 21 million people does not seem significant to me. Unless of course you are trying to make Spanish look more important than it is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.107.35.34 (talk • contribs).

First of all, you're right, those countries should not be in the infobox. However, when you removed them you also removed Andorra and Belize. Why? As mentioned above, those countries have sizeable, cited Spanish-speaking populations -- check the history of the talk page to find a long debate on the matter.

As for the other entries, I'll take them one by one. What is wrong with the Europe entry? Everything stated there is true. It says Spanish is an official language of the European Union, and not the official language, as you alleged above. Second, there are Spanish speaking enclaves in Europe, that is a fact. No one is saying that that there are sizable Spanish speaking populations, or that these countries are Spanish speaking. That's why the word "communities" is used. The reason those countries in particular are mentioned is because they are three important countries I found citations for (for the record, I did write that section). If you have a problem with it, you have to at least offer a rationale (beyond calling us "biased") for why the citations are wrong.

I did not write the part about Australia or Easter Island, but assuming it's correct what is the big deal? Granted it's not a huge population of speakers, but it's in the appropriate section (Spanish in Oceania) and if it's cited properly then it's probably an accurate statistic. Why would putting the correct number of speakers be trying to make Spanish look more important than it is? SpiderMMB 03:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Must every single person be mentioned? I.e. one person speaks Spanish in Tonga, 2 people speak Spanish in Samoa etc.

Unreliable source for Japan

This particular article has many POV statements. Unverified POV must be supported with citations or facts to back up statements. Japan is removed for valid reasons due to the fact that the citations provided in this section is unreliable and dubious. Issues with disputes must provided "real" up to dated facts such as "Government census statistics". Ramírez72 18:45 pm June 27, 2007 (UTC)

Spanish will become the main language of the US in fifty years time

According to one of the sources used in the article it will. Looks like POV to me.

[8]

I do not quite agree with the estimations for the US. First of all, I consider that some of the supposed Spanish speakers have a poor knowledge of the language (I am Spanish, and I find many US Spanish speakers difficult to understand, which does not happen with speakers of other origins, Spanish being a quite homogeneous language. Secondly, many are illiterate in the language. Thirdly, I think second and third generation Latin immigrant are being counted, when it is dubious they really have Spanish language skills. --Xareu bs 09:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a silly statistic to me. FilipeS 12:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

This citation is labeled "Universidad de México", but the URL provided is a (soon-to-expire) page cached by Google from the personal account of someone named FRANCISCO A. MARCOS-MARÍN on a computer system operated by an organization calling itself Labratorio de Linguistica Informatica (their Contact page lists Francisco Marcos Marín as the contact person for that organization). Without looking at the content of the cited item, I would question the reliability of the cited source. Please see WP:RS, WP:V, WP:CITE, and other relevant WP:WP pages. -- Boracay Bill 21:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

If you don't think this source is reliable I can't see how you can use the same source to support the claim that 500 million people speak Spanish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 02:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Comments

This discussion will become academic when that cached page expires in Google's cache on their machine with IP 209.85.135.104
The citations of this page are, IMHO, very questionable and should be removed.
Regarding reliability, the page seems to be a paper by someone named Mario Melgar. I have no idea what his credentials might be.
Regarding POV, if a notable and/or respected well-credentialed source makes an assertion such as this, the fact that such an assertion has been made should probably be mentioned and a source reporting the assertion cited. If the article reports the assertion, reactions from other sources should also probably be reported.

-- Boracay Bill 03:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

What does this mean?

The following extract is found in the article.

Some 32 million people (12% of the whole population) aged 5 years or older speak Spanish at home.[25] While this may be due to immigration, Spanish is also the most widely taught foreign language.

Is this trying to imply that non-native Spanish speakers that are learning Spanish at school are strating to use it at home?

No, what it means (and again, I wrote the sentence) is that the 32 million is probably due to immigration, but that's not the only reason Spanish is important in the U.S. For instance, it is the most widely taught foreign language. I'll separate the two to make it clearer.SpiderMMB 03:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Andorra, New Mexico, Curacao, Aruba

Under spanish speakers in countries/ territories where it is not official language, Andorra, New Mexico, Curaçao and Aruba could be added to Gibraltar and Belize. Further, in New Mexico it is a de facto administrative language to the best of my knowledge. I believe the french Wiki page makes reference to this. Vasco franco 15:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Some little errors with Mexico's info

The Mexican Constitution declares that there are not official languages in Mexico. Although Spanish is the major spoken language, and is the official language de facto, the article misleads to believe that is the only official language in the country. I suggest that a new color in the map is added and the situation explained. Also, the "voseo" in Mexico is unexistant. No one in Mexico uses "vos" as a pronoun, neither on everyday language nor massive media.

Fair enough. I will take Mexico off the "official languages" list (as the U.S. and U.K. are not included in the English official language box). However, I'm going to leave it in the "spoken in" box, as, clearly, it is spoken in Mexico.SpiderMMB 19:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Why it is so important to have a map that is not bias

Almost anyone can add nonsense to the article or the infobox. Only a few know how to change the map. Therefore if you have a map that is unbias it doesn't matter what people put in the article. For example, someone may claim that parts of Brazil are Spanish speaking or that Morrocco is a Spanish speaking country. If these regions are not coloured in then people are far less likely to believe the nonsense that is regularly added to the article.

OK, with all due respect, I really think you need to give up this war on the Spanish map. If you look at other Wikipedia pages, you'll see that nonsense is added all the time regardless of what infoxboxs or maps might say. In the Cold War article they removed the infobox entirely (which some people seem to advocate Wiki-wide) but there are still constantly back and forth revisions over nonsense. Also if you want to push this, you should do so, like I referenced above to the Brazlian, on the map discussion page. It's just that you bring this up over and over again, and there have been 5 or more topics on it already. I hope you realize though that the map is not the be all, end all. Nonsense will still be added to Wikipedia (ALL wikipedia, not just this article). That is simply the nature of the beast.SpiderMMB 19:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Spanish speakers

In the Geographic distribution section, under Oceania, I removed the {{fact}} tag. It is really easy to find a source for census-related things, and it is even better now that the 2006 census data has been released. However, I have searched through the census data on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website and there is nothing under Languages spoken about the amount of Spanish speakers in Australia. If anyone is able to find this out, it would be great, so we can start removing some of those stupid {{fact}} tags. Sebi _[talk] 06:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Significant parts of Australia do not speak Spanish!

Why do people constantly feel the need to make the claim that anglophone countries are Spanish speaking?

And why anglophone people feel afraid about the large number of speaking-spanish people? The spanish is spoken in a lot of places, if you want to change that in wikipedia, you are free, but in the reality is the truth.--84.122.175.162 23:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Do not include the Philippines in the infobox

Come on now, this has been discussed to death and the Philippines is NOT a Spanish-speaking country. Deal with it. --Howard the Duck 07:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. However, there are some people that keep on including the Philippines, Brazil and other countries as Spanish speaking countries in spite of having no evidence to back up their claims.

Howard The Duck, I do know that you are Filipino, but you cannot speak for the entire Filipino population. The Philippines is not a Spanish-speaking country in majority, but there are Filipinos who do speak Spanish as a first language (2.9 million from an Instituto de Cervantes study, out of a population of 70 million, it is a minority group, but it's a substantial group of people none the less), and a valid Creole Spanish, as a first language. This is a fact not known by many people, because these Filipinos are usually not recognized face-wise immediately as Filipino due to their Spanish ancestry, for example, Antonio Morales Barreto, Junior of Los Brincos, viudo de Rocio Durcal, is Filipino and speaks Spanish fluently from birth. Isabel Preysler is Filipina, and she also learned Spanish from birth. Or futbol legend Paulino Alcántara, and Jaime Zobel de Ayala and their family, and many other Filipino families who do speak Spanish. And not to mention that Filipinos who were born with Spanish as a first language often have to hide it, because most Filipinos ostracize them for it and taunt them for it (out of jealousy because of Spanish being viewed as an elite language) or consider them "un-Filipino", and I know this personally and from recounts in books written about the subject, and from my family and friends, so the fact that there are Spanish-speaking Filipinos will continue to remain a hidden secret among most of the people of the world due to several factors. I don't care whether or not the Philippines is included in the list, because either way it would be correct to a certain degree, but I just wanted to enlighten you on the subject. I don't care what others think about my culture and I don't care about racist people's false assumptions or stereotypes about our ancestry or identity or about how we look like or about how we're supposed to look like, I know my culture and that's all that matters. All I know is that when I watch Tagalog shows on The Filipino Channel, I understand everything that is being said, and when I change the channel to Univision or TVEspañola to watch La Fea Mas Bella or Cristina, I understand every single word that is being said as well. When I conversate with my friends in Tagalog, I understand everything, and when I conversate with my aunts and uncles in Spanish, I understand everything as well. And of course, Brazilians speak Portuguese. Thank you for listening.

Where did is the Instituto de Cervantes' study claiming that 2.9 million Filipinos speak Spanish? This very study should looked over thoroughly to see if it's valid before it's used. But I don't think there is such a study, it is just a mention on their webpage. Their source is a British linguist who used it in a paper about Chavacano. And I contacted this British linguist, who got this figure from an Italian almanac, which didn't state its source. This is the papertrail thus far, and it doesn't look too promising. And as such, this 2.9 million figure shouldn't be used.

Furthermore, even if it were used, it wouldn't represent the number of Filipinos who speak it as a native language. The 1990 census already says that less than three thousand speak it. That's as reliable as you're going to get. The only way that the Philippines should be considered a Spanish-speaking country is if a substantial amount of speakers speak it as a first language. And less than one half of one percent is far from meeting this expectation. --Chris S. 16:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Como dije, a mi no me importa para nada si Filipinas esta en la lista o no, lo que quería hacer es compartir mis experiencias para que la gente puede aprender más sobre las diferencias clases sociales y lenguas usadas entre la gente de Filipinas y otras cosas así.

A Spanish friend of mine works at the Institute of Cervantes in Manila, and he wrote a paper on this subject and has the findings based on the study done by the Institute. I believe a PDF of it is on the website (or was), and I'll ask him, and when I find it, I'll get back to you on this subject.

All I got to say is that if only the people of the world would actually follow Cristina Saralegui's advice and stop being so racist and discriminatory to one another, we would all get along just fine in this world.

Señor(a), ¿está diciendo que Howard the Duck y yo somos racistas? No tiene nada que ver con la racista lo que escribimos en este talk page. Es que decimos lo obvio - que la mayoría de filipinos no hablan español. No es necesario ser racista para saber eso. No se deben poner informaciones falsas en Wikipedia. Ojalá que convenga Ud. con este punto. --Chris S. 15:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

My Spanish may be very bad but I sure as hell can understand that (lol). In the end of the day, I'll choose the 1990 census that the study of the Instituto Cervantes, probably a biased organization to conduct a study, BTW. --Howard the Duck 10:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

According to the article Spanish in the Philippines (and this very article), the current president, Arroyo, recently declared 'to reinstate Spanish as an official language by January 2008'. Since this hasn't been quite official, the Philippines shouldn't be include yet. However if this truly does happen, I think the Philippines shall as well sooner or later be included in the infobox. --Idolmonkey 04:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This is so predominant in Spanish websites but I haven't seen this on the local news. --Howard the Duck 08:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for clarifying because it didn't seem so widely broadcasted. A national language change seems like a very big deal to me, and if it hadn't even hit local news, then validness should be question. Let's just see how this will carry out over time. :) --Idolmonkey 03:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AFAICT, what President Arroyo spoke of is not a national language change, but a declaration that Spanish is an official language of the Philippines (I'm not really sure what the President did say, as I have only seen Spanish-language articles abut this (e.g., [9]) — I don't speak Spanish, and the Google translater makes a real mess out of the translation.

My understanding is that a change in the constitution of the country would be necessary in order to add Spanish to the list of official languages of the Philippines (see Article XIV Section 7 of current RP constitution), and such a change is not likely to happen. -- Boracay Bill 23:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[hr] Spanish Language will always be apart of our culture, and my mom still using spanish when she pray and our great grand old parents used this language before for more than 3 centuries and even derived a thousands of spanish words to tagalog like: Pantalon, Mesa, Casa, Banyo, or even the calendar months we pronounce Enero, Pebrero, Marso, Abril, Mayo, Hunyo, Hulyo, Agusto, Septyembre, Oktubre, Nobyembre, Disyembre or even the way we say the time like alas singko y medya.. and days like Lunes, martes, Miyerkoles, Huwebes, Biyernes, Sabado. our national independence was written in Spanish, original Anthem was written in Spanish even the history of the Philippines so what is the different if they will return the language... I am not against it cause this language is already a part of who we are... even our national heroes wrote spanish poems.. our literature.

check this one THE PREMIO ZOBEL longest-existing literary award in the Philippines... they shown old pictures, newspapers, and story that was written in spanish in the Philippines. more than 3 centuries of our historical details was written in Spanish and most of the words was not properly translate in english or tagalog... so what is wrong if they will return the spanish language that our old folks used in communication and it's easier to learn cause tagalog and spanish had similarities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf31h-tj58M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEa_o3WHwF4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED17KtQmyAU —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.194.35.235 (talk) 18:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Will the map be included again?

If it's not that's fine as the map has been a source of much debate and removing it permanently does not in any way affect the article. However, I would still like to see an unbias version of the map as wikipedia articles in other languages still use the bias map. Thanks.

External links

Just removed three spammy links and suggest we put a link up to this site instead: http://www.notesinspanish.com - technically originally a blog but it's been featured in a number of places such as the Guardian, New York Times, etc.: http://www.notesfromspain.com/about/

Good link? Mithridates 17:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's discuss the map

As a Brazilian, I must strongly protest against the colouring of Southern and Northwestern Brazil in light blue on the Spanish language map. Those are regions where the number of native speakers of Spanish as percentage of the total population is insignificant. Even if we accepted the (false) premise used before in the discussion that there are nonetheless many Brazilians in those regions who can speak Spanish as a foreign language, that would not justify the colouring of Brazilian states in light blue as the number of L2 speakers is normally not used in the Wikipedia to colour language maps (otherwise, the whole world should be coloured for example on the English map considering that there are now many EFL speakers in virtually all countries on the globe !). 161.24.19.82 14:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't doubt you're right. I think we've had a few other Brazilians come here and say the same thing. However, you have to realize that the map has its own

discussion page. Any changes that are going to be made should be discussed there. I think, like the U.S. argument before, you probably have a good case w/ Brazil and people there would be willing to listen to you. SpiderMMB 19:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If you don't doubt it then do something about it. Discussing the issue somewhere else will not help. The map is bias and should be changed! The majority of people agree that Brazil is not Spanish speaking so what the !#@? is going on?

Done,. I notice they claim Spanish isnt spoken throughout Colombia either. Ignorance or what? SqueakBox 00:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Moving this to the bottom so that it is more noticeable. First off, to the IP address, you know I just recently made a request for the American states to be changed. You clearly saw that as you responded to my comment, so I don't know why you're accusing me of not "doing something about it." The only reason I haven't changed the map myself is frankly because I don't know how. However, the person who did alter the map requested that he be contacted here. For that reason, I told the Brazilian, just like I'm about to tell anyone else who is interested, that we should discuss the map there.

I'm planning to stop by the WikiMedia discussion page and post a list of suggested changes. I'm going to mention that I think the American states should be recolored, that Brazil should not be colored at all unless there are adequate citations, and likewise with West Sahara and Morocco. What I will not be suggesting is that Paraguay be recoloured; since Spanish is an official language, I see no reason it should be shaded lightly. However, if you still feel that way, I suggest you raise the issue yourself and see what people think.

SqueakBox, I'm not sure what you mean about Columbia. Perhaps I'm just not seeing it properly. Could you elaborate? SpiderMMB 09:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe that the map is back without any changes.

SPANISH IS NOT SPOKEN IN BRAZIL!

NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE SPEAK SPANISH IN MOROCCO FOR IT TO BE COLOURED IN!

THE PHILLIPINES? COME ON.

AND MORE PEOPLE SPEAK GUARANI IN PARAGUAY THAN SPANISH!

Delete the map/No map is better than a bias one

Let's get rid of the map.

The information in the infobox does not match the map

Either list Brazil in the infobox as a Spanish speaking country or remove the map!.

No. --Chris S. 15:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Saying Brazil has any remarkable number of spanish-speaking population is foolish. I believe English itself deserves better recognition, since it's taught more oftenly at schools (though still nobody seems to speak too much of it).
About the portuñol references, I don't actually consider it a language, it's more like two different but similar languages being spoken, and both sides can understand each other.
Where is the source of that information? I don't think it is truthful at all. Actually there is no source on the description page. I just wonder when that map will be changed accordingly. Kromoh 20:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. However, I also think that the article should be consistent. You can't colour in Brazil when it isn't mentioned in the infobox. So as I said before either list Brazil in the infobox or remove or change the map. Someone removed the map for a couple of days and the article was fine without it. As I also believe that different wikipedia articles should also be consistent I will try and get the Brazilian page to renounce their claim that Brazil is a Portuguese speaking country and will try to make them admit that it is in fact Spanish speaking as the creator of the Spanish language map and his/her supporters firmly believe after extensive research. In case you can't tell I'm being sarcastic. Change the map!

According with the legend, that color in large areas of Brazil denotes "Countries and regions where the Spanish language is spoken without official recognition, or where Spanish-based créole languages (Chamorro, Chavacano, Papiamento, Portuñol, etc) are spoken with or without official recognition, and areas with a strong Hispanic influence." So, your claims in another articles ("The map says large areas of Brazil speak spanish") has no base.

But, even so, the map is still wrong. The areas are so large. And, [[10]] give us NO source at all, not even one single page, about spanish or purtuñol or whatever in Brazil. All the others claims have sources, except for that. I see no problem in leaving Brazil all grey. It would be more realistic.

And even the colored area is by far larger than the claim from where it is based ("Spanish and Portuñol speakers in the border regions between Brazil and its neighbour Hispanic American countries"). The map shows areas far, far away from the borders - four states full colored, and two or three partially covered. The light-blue areas MUST be a lot thinner. wildie·wild dice·will die 11:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

For me, it would be something like that: [11]

Or less! What you think? wildie·wild dice·will die 11:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the map is that even if there were thin regions that speak Spanish I'm sure their must be small areas of Spanish speaking countries that are Portuguese speaking. It's just too messy to include these. Brazil should be grey as Portuguese is the official language and Spanish is only spoken by a tiny minority.

Creole languages that are derived from Spanish should not be included. They are not mutually intelligible. THEY ARE NOT SPANISH. I would like to see a Spanish speaker try to communicate with people in the Philippines that only speak creole.

As I said before, the legend of the map uses that color for both Countries and regions where the Spanish language is spoken without official recognition, or where Spanish-based créole languages (Chamorro, Chavacano, Papiamento, Portuñol, etc) are spoken with or without official recognition, and areas with a strong Hispanic influence.

If in that areas there are some portion of the population speaking portuñol, that's enough, as that color must indicate that areas.

But, what I think that is the greater problem is the complete lack of references for any claim about spanish/portuñol in Brazil. Without that, I think we simply can't colour Brazil at all. If I am missing any referece, please show me. Thanks. wildie·wilđ di¢e.wilł die 11:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Guarani in Paraguay

According to the encyclopedia Britannica

more Paraguayans speak and understand Guaraní than Spanish

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9038310/Guarani

Paraguay should be a different colour on the map.

Yes, but 75% of Paraguayans speak Spanish. And plus it's widely spoken there. It's been long understood as a Spanish-speaking country. --Chris S. 05:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it's not a Spanish speaking country. I'm saying that the majority of people speak Guarani. Guarani is so important in Paraguay that it has become an official language of Mercosur. Spanish is not widely spoken in Paraguay except for in the capital.

According to ethnologue there are 186,880 Spanish speakers in Paraguay (2000 WCD). Mainly in the urban areas of Asunción. Compare this number with 4,648,000 Guarani speakers in Paraguay (1995). You tell me whether you think Paraguay is a Spanish or a Guarani speaking country or whether it is bilingual.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=py

I believe Ethnologue only counts native speakers. Again, I'll cite to Puerto Rico [12]. According to Ethnologue, 82k speak English, as opposed to 3.4 million speaking Spanish. From my own experiences, I would guess this is an underestimate. Regardless, either we should accept that Guarani and Spanish are co-official and spoken in Paraguay, or we should change Puerto Rico and all similar situated countries on the English map, and all other language maps for that matter. SpiderMMB 03:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Native speakers are what this page is about. Do you know how many second language speakers of English there are? You'd have to colour in nearly the entire planet! JUST BECAUSE OTHER PAGES ARE BIAS DOES NOT MEAN THIS PAGE SHOULD BE. Your arguement goes like this, if Mr X gets to murder someone then that makes it O.K. for me to murder someone too. IT DOESN'T so stop using the English page bias to justify your bias.

I take issue with your continued accusation of bias. The only "bias" I routinely see is yours. Did you not notice the enormous change that just happened to the map? Yet you are still not happy, or even thankful, you only complain. I'm not sure what you have against Spanish, but clearly you do -- going to far as to ask on Talk:Mexico why Mexicans speak the language of an oppressor responsible for killing Mexicans. Whatever your problem is with Spanish, stop using it to justify swamping these boards. SpiderMMB 23:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

This page isn't just about native speakers of Spanish; that Spanish is spoken by millions of people as a second language is notable, and those speakers don't just "not count" because Spanish wasn't their first language. If most people in Paraguay speak Spanish, but most of them speak it only as a second language, there's still no good reason not to call Paraguay a Spanish-speaking country. Of course, the fact that more people speak Guarani than Spanish in Paraguay is very notable, and deserves mention in the article. But it doesn't change the fact that most of the population of Paraguay can speak Spanish, and that Spanish is an official language of Paraguay. --Miskwito 23:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Completely agree. --Asterion^talk 09:14, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about. I never said that Paraguay is not a Spanish speaking country. Of course it is. However, the majority of the population speaks Guarani. Therefore, the country should be coloured differently to indicate that Spanish is not spoken by the majority of the country as a first language. I think that there is a big difference between first and second language speakers. As far as I know almost everyone in the US learns Spanish yet it would be stupid to colour in the entire US as Spanish speaking. What do you think? How can you colour in Paraguay the same colour as let's say Argentina where the majority of the population speaks Spanish as a first language. Text books in Paraguay are published in both Guarani and Spanish so I'd say the country is bilingual.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

In this week's issue of the New Statesman, the Chargé d'affaires of the Embassy of Paraguay in London describes the country as "the only truly bilingual state on the continent". --Asterion^talk 23:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the coloring of the map, as I read the caption, the map is colored to indicate (dark blue)Countries where Spanish has official status., (light blue) Countries and regions where the Spanish language is spoken without official recognition and areas with a strong Hispanic influence. (gray) Other. -- Boracay Bill 02:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea has the same colour on the map as all other Hispanophone states. It's true that Spanish is an official language of the country, but the overwhelming majority of the Equatorial Guineans does not speak Spanish as native language and the country should therefore be coloured differently. Take a look at the map on the page about the English language, where Nigeria does not have the same colour as the United Kingdom. Aaker 19:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

That's true. A lot of people speak Spanish but they speak it as a second language not as a their mother tongue. Also Spanish is only one of three official languages. The other two being French and Portguese.

I think you're right, that it may need to be changed. What do the others think, just so I know we have consensus? I am out of town this week on vacation, but I'll take care of it when I get home this weekend. --Chris S. 05:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, 67.7 percent still qualifies as a majority[13].--Asterion^talk 19:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Pidgin English is so different that its not understandable by native English speakers whereas the Spanish in EG is very clearly spoken, SqueakBox 19:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Asterion, the source you mention doesn't mention if these 67.7 % are native speakers or not, and I cannot see from where they have got that figure. According to Ethnologue 11.500 persons speak Spanish in Equatorial Guinea that's quite far from the majority and according to Aménagement linguistique dans le monde only 20 per cent of the population is able to communicate in Spanish. Aaker 22:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Considering the kind of regime ruling EG, we will always have a problem obtaining reliable data. Quoting John M. Lipski from Penn State University, probably one of the best experts on Spanish in Equatorial Guinea: "It is impossible to calculate exactly the proportion of Equatorial Guineans who are reasonably fluent in Spanish, given the lack of official data, but on Fernando Poo and the urban areas of Rio Muni this percentage is almost certainly around 90%, and even in the interior of Rio Muni a figure of around 60%-70% would probably not be unrealistic; this in effect places Equatorial Guinea at the forefront of African nations which have successfully implanted the former metropolitan language as an effective vehicle of national communication". Regards, --Asterion^talk 15:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll start by voicing my concern that the Spanish language map has received a disproportionate share of the attention the past few months. I personally have no problem making this a standard -- countries where the language is official but not predominant be colored differently -- but I'll withhold my support of it until I'm sure it's being applied to all the maps. Nigeria is a good example, but then again Spanish is predominant in Puerto Rico and it is still colored dark blue for English. The map has recently undergone a dramatic change, and I would advocate that only serious discussion and true consensus merit any further changes. SpiderMMB 02:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right, maybe it's better to wait until we have reached consensus on all concerns about the map before we change it again. The English language map has also changed a lot recently. Nigeria is now coloured dark blue (which I think is wrong). Aaker 12:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been giving it some thought. For an area to be dark blue, there should be two criteria met. The first is that the country or region must have it as an official language. The second criterion is that there should be a substantial and verifiable amount of native and people who speak it as a second language so they can function in the country. In places like Paraguay and Equatorial Guinea, to make use of higher education, you must know Spanish. Am I right? --Chris

No your not. For a country to be dark blue the language needs to be official and spoken by the majoriry of the population as a native language. JUST BECAUSE OTHER PAGES ARE BIAS DOES NOT MEAN THIS PAGE SHOULD BE. Your arguement goes like this, if Mr X gets to murder someone then that makes it O.K. for me to murder someone too. IT DOESN'T so stop using the English page bias to justify your bias.

Do you agree that if Mr. X goes to jail for murder then Mr. Y should go to jail for murder too? Why do you refuse to apply this same standard to the other language maps, especially English? SpiderMMB 16:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I agree. If you look closely at the English Language map you will see that Puerto Rico is not dark blue. You will also notice that Singapore, Gibraltar and many other English speaking areas are only visible as tiny dots when you enlarge the map and some are missing completely. Nigeria is also not dark blue. I guess it's time to acknowledge that Paraguay should also be light blue. Since you want all pages to have the same standards!

Actually, that's good. I see that it was changed on August 11, so I'm glad that someone responded to my request about standardizing the language maps. Would you also ask them to change South Africa? Also, I see that you've suggested that English language should circle barely visible places so that they are more noticeable. Do you think we should do the same for this map, for places like Andorra and Canary Islands? SpiderMMB 04:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Why not. As long as Paraguay is a different colour.

Ethnologue figures

I strongly disagree with the use of these figures. It is completely ridiculous to use numbers from 1986 and the like. Come on people, 28.5 M speakers in Spain is a joke. The ethnologue data could be given as a footnote if necessary but it makes more sense to keep the previous data and work our way through it to reference it accordingly. Regards, --Asterion^talk 10:31, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the figures are a little out of date but every other language page is using these figures. You seem to be forgeting that Spain has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and that the population is only growing thanks to immigration from countries where Spanish is not an official language so who knows how many people speak Spanish.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.35.34 (talk)

That is highly debatable. Excluding Moroccan and Romanian immigrants, the bulk of the newcomers are from Latin America. You can check out the Instituto Nacional de Estadística figures. Regards, --Asterion^talk 13:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to the old unverified numbers there are 46 000 000 Spanish-speakers in Spain. That's a quite interesting number because Spain has an estimated population of 41,061,274 [14]. And don't forget that a quite large part of the Spanish population does not speak Spanish natively (Catalan, Galician, Basque). I think Ethnologue's old estimation is better than fantasy numbers which are bigger than the actual population. Aaker 09:38, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, keep the most recent data and work our way through any reference-needed tag. A quick check on the INE's most recent statistical reports should do the trick for Spain. --Asterion^talk 21:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I too have a negative view of Ethnologue. It is terribly inaccurate in many ways: As an example (I could give numerous others, but I think this demonstrates my point), St-Lucia lists only 1,600 English speakers. Suggesting that only 1% of the population speaks English as their first language--because most speak Patwa--seems completely wrong; I would venture that most St-Lucians would actually be insulted by this assertion, despite their pride in their local Patwa.

As such, I really wish that Wikipedia would give up on using Ethnologue as the primary reference for languages. Data is available to some extent with the UN based on national censuses submitted by different countries. While the UN notes that there are many problems in comparing countries' figures because of different methodologies, extent, and scope of their census questions, the available fiugres certainly don't compare well with Ethnologue. IMHO we should put more confidence in the UN. See a partial list at [15].

Further, as noted earlier, there are many problems with establishing exact numbers of native speakers and even more trouble with secondary speakers. I appreciate the use of ranges on ranking Spanish, but maybe ranks should simply be eliminated. There is no credible evidence to prove anything betterthan a rough ballpark figure for native Spanish speaking people in the world.nly spoken than English--not because English is necessarily more spoken--simply that Ethnologue is highly contestable and no other sources are given. If someone can find complete figures from the UN, or would venture to compile language figures from official census bureaus of every nation on the planet, I will accept rankings...but otherwise i think it is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.56.160.208 (talk) 08:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Costa Rican Spanish Dictionary

I find that Central American Spanish doesn't get the love it deserves. I made a Costa Rican Spanish Dictionary, and will be putting other Costa Rican Spanish articles on the site as I write them.

Just visit here to check out the 400+ entries I already have:

Costa Rican Spanish Dictionary

Syllable-timed?

The article discusses stress, but also affirms that the language is syllable-timed. I thought 'syllable-timed' and 'stress-timed' were mutually exclusive terms, and that Spanish was (albeit lightly) stress-timed. Rothorpe 16:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it seems that in the case of Spanish they are not, which I shall point up in the article. Rothorpe 00:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not syllable-timed. You have Agudas (Oxytone), Llanas (Paroxytone) and Esdrújulas (Proparoxytone) words indeed. --Asterion^talk 19:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I wish you'd come along before. Thanks for confirming my original thesis. I shall now remove that confusion from the article. Rothorpe 19:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

No worries. Happy to help. --Asterion^talk 00:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

And you might be interested in this new one: Castilian Spanish. Rothorpe 13:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. I'm a native Spanish speaker and in no way a phonology expert, but I think there's a serious contradiction at the Lexical Stress section of this article. As I understand, either Spanish is syllable-timed, or stress-timed, but it can't be both. On the other hand, the Stress section at the Spanish phonology article says clearly it's syllable-timed. What should I believe? Please help me clear this. I put a banner to spot this out. Thank you! Cvalda (talk) 16:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

You go with the one that has more sources; in this case it is Spanish phonology which says "Spanish is a syllable-timed language so each syllable has the same duration regardless of stress." Asterion seems to have a different conception of what syllable-timed and stress-timed mean. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Spam

Under the external links it looks like "practice spanish" inserted a clever little link to their google adsense plastered site. It doesnt seem like there is any real content here - perhaps this site should be replaced with a completely free, and ad free, resource (www.123teachme.com) to learn spanish. -joseph —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph.stevens7 (talk • contribs) 19:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Vuestra Merced?

[Usted is] derived from vuestra merced, "your grace"

From what I heard, "Usted" is derived from the Arab "Ustadh" [ustað], which means "teacher". UncleMatt 10:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Everything I've ever read on Spanish has said it's from vuestra merced, and my understanding is that there are intermediate forms attested in old documents which demonstrate this origin of Usted. Do you know of a source for the proposed Arabic etymology, or anything? --Miskwito 20:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Right, the ustadh etymology isn't accurate. DRAE says usted is from vusted, which in turn comes from vuestra merced. Furthermore, other Ibero-Romance languages confirm this: Portuguese você, Catalan vostè, Aragonese busté, Galician vostede, and Asturian (v)usté. --Chris S. 23:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Antarctica

Please don't add the section about the use of Spanish in Antarctica again. This information is maybe a bit more intersting in the article about Antarctica but it doesn't fit in here. Spanish is a world-language spoken by 300 millions in many countries so why are 4000 people in Antarctica important? There are ten times more Spanish speakers here in Sweden. Aaker 15:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I put this removed about Spanish in antarctica here so it dont get lost. Dentren | ^Talk 16:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Spanish is the second largest language in Antarctica after English. During the summer of 2006-2007, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Spain and Uruguay had totaly 783 persons in Antarctica which represens about one fifth of the summer population (3,944). During the winter of 2007 Argentina, Chile and Uruguay had totaly 273 persons in the continent, about one fourth of the total winter population (1,077).[16]

So what. English was the first language to be spoken on the moon and is also the first of earth's languages to leave our solar system. Do you think the English page mentions this. Of course not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 01:15, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Equatorial Guinea and other problems

Where do you get your numbers from? It appears as though many of the other figures are bloated as well.

The figure for Equatorial Guinea was apparently vandalized in this edit. The previously-listed figure was 504,000.

The table where the figure is found cites Ethnologie.com as its source. The Ethnologie.com report on Equatorial Guinew here lists a total of 355,164 Spanish-speakers. I'll update the figure in the table to indicate that. -- Boracay Bill 01:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

| According to ethnologue only about 11,000 people speak Spanish in Equatroial Guinea so I don't know where your getting your figures from.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Equatorial+Guinea —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 02:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I've re-corrected this. I misread the info at Ethnologie. -- Boracay Bill 03:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Quoting John M. Lipski[17] again, probably one of the best experts on Spanish in Equatorial Guinea: "It is impossible to calculate exactly the proportion of Equatorial Guineans who are reasonably fluent in Spanish, given the lack of official data, but on Fernando Poo and the urban areas of Río Muni this percentage is almost certainly around 90%, and even in |the interior of Rio Muni a figure of around 60%-70% would probably not be unrealistic; this in effect places Equatorial Guinea at the forefront of African nations which have successfully implanted the former metropolitan language as an effective vehicle of national communication". Therefore, 11,000 people or half a million are not acceptable figures. I propose to change this to a range and add relevant references to back it up. Ethnologue is not the Bible. --Asterion^talk 06:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes but what you have to take into account is the fact they these people are not native speakers of Spanish. Even though a lot of people speak English in Sweden no one in their right mind would claim that Sweden is an anglophone country. The majority of people in Equatorial Guinea speak Fang as a native language just as the majority of Swedish people speak Swedish. If Equatorial Guinea was so loyal to Spanish why would they adopt French as their second official language and Portuguese as their third official language. I even read somewhere that the use of Spanish was banned for a number of years as the leader of the country hated it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 07:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article obsessed with making Spanish what it isn't. As a person that has studied both Italian and Spanish I can tell you that the grammar is not almost the same as stated in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 07:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Could we please minus the number of Spanglish speakers from the number of Spanish speakers so that we arrive at a more realistic figure for the US. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 07:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to say I'm very disappointed that after more than a month of seemingly civil calm and orderly discussion, you have reverted to spamming this discussion page with your disruptive ways. The figure for the U.S. is derived from Census data determining native speakers of the language at home aged 5 and older. As has been explained to you, many times, there is never going to be an exactly accurate number of speakers for any given language in any given country in the world. There is simply too large a margin of error for things like this, and census data is, I think most would agree, one of the most reliable sources we have to go on. If you have a source that denotes the number of "Spanglish" speakers in the United States, present it to us for a discussion and we'll take it from there.

With respect to you objections to Equatorial Guinea, please have a look at the CIA World Factbook, which lists it as spoken by 67.6% of the population. That is a substantial majority and far from insignificant. The Factbook is generally regarded as a reliable source, and you yourself have used it in past discussions. If you believe the data is inaccurate, present courter-data and let's discuss. But questioning that people of Equatorial Guinea are "so loyal" to Spanish or talking about how one leader "hated it" are irrelevant as to whether or not it is spoken in the country, and the extent to which it is.

Finally, I have to ask you again to mind your manners when posting on this page. I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing you, and the only reason I'm sensitive about it with you, in particular, is because I think you've actually made some good contributions to the page. I hope many of the editors here -- myself, SqueakBox, Chris S, to name a few -- have proven to you that our interest is not blindly promoting Spanish, but accurately portraying the extent to which it is spoken in the world. Please treat us with the respect I believe we are due. Not berating us or accusing us of skewing figures to meet an agenda ("this page is a joke" or "where do you get your figures from") would be a good start. I would also ask you to consider meeting the typical Wikipedia etiquette when posting. Don't type in all caps, don't spam by posting multiple topics at one time (often making similar or the same points), and please sign your posts so that we can identify the source as you. Again, I only make note of this because you have contributed to this article in the past. Your attitude, whether you realize it or not, may present a serious barrier to making the changes you recommend. SpiderMMB 21:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

This guy is obviously on a mission[18]. No point on wasting any more time until there is an attitude change indeed. Regards, --Asterion^talk 07:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not on a mission. If you look at the top of the article you will see that this article needs additional references or sources for verification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 22:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the tag is there, and it remains because the article does need citations. However, the way to make it better is through discussion, not insults. I will give you a very specific response to your problems with Equitorial Guinea. Let me know what you think.

There are two major sources of information for this, the CIA World Factbook and Ethnologue. The Factbook lists Spanish speakers as 67.6% of the population, and "other" as 32.4%. "Other" includes both French and Fang.

Now, Ethnologue reports 258,000 speakers of Fang as of 2000, and 11,000 Spanish speakers in 1993. Naturally we can assume the number of Spanish speakers increased from 1993-2000, but let's also assume it didn't cover the large gap to match Fang. As has been, I think, reasonably asserted, Ethnologue seems to only count native speakers of a language.

If we assume that both the Factbook and Ethnologue are correct, the conclusion we can draw, I think, is as follows: more people speak Fang as a first language in Equitorial Guinea, but Spanish is the predominant spoken language when counting all speakers. SpiderMMB 05:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes you could say that. However, Spanish is only the most spoken language if you look at second language speakers and these aren't normally counted. For example, many people speak Englsih in the Netherlands as a second language but no one would count these second language speakers and claim that 60% of the population of the Netherlands is English speaking. Therefore, I would only count first language speakers and this has got to be much lower. I've done research on this and have come to the conlusion that there are hardly any native Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea. What do you think? Should we count second language speakers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 10:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

So bilingual diglossic speakers should not be counted then? What next? Any country where Spanish is not specifically listed as Official Language such as Mexico taken off the list too? Accept the facts, I think linguists, the CIA factbook and many other sources are far more reliable than your personal opinion. You have been pursuing a personal agenda for months and I really cannot see the point of banging against the wall for someone who cares for no reasoning. --Asterion^talk 18:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, Asterion, though I thought everyone knew that in Mexico they speak Mexican, SqueakBox 18:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice one :o) --Asterion^talk 19:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Asterion, I totally understand your frustration with this user. I was at that point a few months ago myself. But he does bring up points that are relevant -- if Fang is the most spoken native language in Equatorial Guinea -- that I think deserve addressing. So even though I totally agree with you that he has an agenda, I'm going to respond to his points in the hope that he changes his ways and the issues can be addressed without all this confrontation.

To the IP address, I think Wikipedia policy on original research would preclude your own data being used, though I personally wouldn't mind seeing your research. As for the Netherlands, I've been there and seen that a great part of the population speaks English very well. That's not insignificant, just as the speakers of Spanish in the United States are not insignificant either. You would have to find a citable statistic on English speakers in the Netherlands, but then there should be no problem inserting it into the article. But I don't think the Netherlands is exactly analogous to Equatorial Guinea. English is not official or co-official in the Netherlands, and even though a large part of the population speaks English as a second language, almost the entire population speaks Dutch natively. I'm not saying the number of English speakers in the Netherlands is insignificant, but it's more like Spanish in the United States.

I think a better comparison for Equatorial Guinea is India. In India, English is official, but not spoken by a large percentage of the population as a native language. When you count secondary speakers though, English in India becomes much more important. This is reflected on English language in the "Geographic Distribution" section (a large part of which I wrote, BTW). It reads, "Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English') and linguistics professor David Crystal claims that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world.[22]"

The point of all this is that secondary speakers should count. English language should mention that a significant population of the Netherlands speaks English (though you should find a citation). It should mention that in India, English is official and the predominant language when counting native and non-native speakers (possibly the most in the world). Likewise, I think Spanish language should mention that Spanish is spoken by a significant population of the United States. It should also mentioned that Spanish is official and the predominant language in Equatorial Guinea when counting native and non-native speakers. We can't just "not count" significant speakers of a language because they don't speak it natively. SpiderMMB 00:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

And just in case your response to this is "then we should color the whole world as English-speaking!", I want to make it very clear that I'm not talking about the map. The map is a totally separate issue. I'm still brainstorming a legend that we can use on all map pages. I'm thinking about how many categories there should be. But the map is a pain to change, and that should be a totally different discussion until we have a specific legend that can be used on every page. For the articles though, there is no reason we can't mention significant secondary speakers in any given country. As long as we have a citation, and we're specific about the way in which the language is spoken in the country, there is no reason not to mention it. SpiderMMB 00:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

What if we just state that Spanish is the official language of the country and that as such it is widely used but that due to the current situation an exact estimate can not be made. I think that this would be better as wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such should not be full of guesses. If we don't know for sure then we simply don't know. The same goes for Western Sahara. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 07:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think what we should do is write articles that accurately reflect the sources. There is nothing wrong with the following: "In Equatorial Guinea, Spanish is official (co-official French and Portuguese). While Fang is the most spoken language by number of native speakers (cite Ethnologue), when counting native and non-native speakers Spanish is the predominant language (cite CIA)."

I think both sources are reasonable. The only alternative to citing reliable sources is leaving out approximations altogether. Frankly, while I would like to see some of this done away with (ranking a language as first, second, or third in the infobox for instance -- as if this is some sort of contest) I don't want to see it all gone either. It's of interest to people how widely spoken a language is both within a given country and throughout the world. These will always be estimates -- both here and on any other language page -- I think that people understand that. I don't think we need a disclaimer stating that these are estimates, so long as we are careful about reflecting accurate sources. SpiderMMB 02:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on this one. I like the way your version avoids any numbers but still provides the reader with just the right amount of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 10:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism in section Naming and Origins

I got on the Wikipedia Article of the Spanish language by accident, but when browsing it, i saw someone put the text ===Learn ENGLISH=== on it, in the section Naming and Origins. The edit has been made only a few hours ago. I normally don't take part in discussions on Wikipedia or edit articles, i only use the site to gain information about various things. So i'll let the pros do the editing. 80.126.138.5 15:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Number of Native Speakers in Spain

28 millions only? Someone took the total number of Spanish population minus the population of Catalonia Basque Country, Galicia and Valencia, where regional languages are spoken. Hence he got: 42 - 6 - 4 - 2 -2. But this is an oversimplification, since many people in Catalonia speak Spanish natively, not Catalan. According to INE (Spanish institute of Statistics), 48% of Catalonians speak Spanish natively. The same can be applied to other provinces where other languages appart from Spanish are spoken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.236.89.53 (talk) 18:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Which is all total rubbish and doubtless politically motivated. Anyone who knows Spain knows this is not true. But there is worse. The stats claim only one in 3 Guatemalans speak Spanish which is clearly nonsense and indeed I can find no accurate statistics in the section so i have removed it, SqueakBox 18:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a sensible solution. --Asterion^talk 00:38, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Organization (Vocabulary Comparison)

Just a quick organizational point. The section on vocabulary section mentions the shared % with Italian and other languages, but fails to mention Portuguese. The information on sharing with Portuguese comes earlier in the article. I think we should either repeat or move the Portuguese information altogether to the vocabulary section (as a reader looking for that information, I had to scan the whole article to find it). Ananda 20:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. Rothorpe 23:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Western Sahara

The people of Western Sahara and their state RASD (República Árabe Saharaui Democrática) have the spanish as their second language. Therefore in Africa two nations speak spanish: Guinea Ecuatorial and Western Sahara —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.46.97.192 (talk) 22:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a stranger obsession against the Spanish as an official language in Western Sahara. See the own article about Western Sahara. --Gimferrer 18:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I recovered any information:

Castellano (Castilian) is also considered to be among the fastest growing languages on the globe at the native level, largely due to higher than average birth rates in much of Latin America.
Due to many linguistic similarities and close territorial ties, Spanish is also a very popular second language in Portugal, Italy and France.

I think this phrases were good argumented and I recovered it. However, the Spanish as official language in Western Sahara is a simple fact and there isn't reason to somebody erased it from the article. Yes, I introduced new information, but about Africa and all with cites:

Today, nearly 200,000 refugee Sahrawis are able to read and write in spanish ^[1], and several thousands have received university education in foreign countries as part of aid packages (mainly Cuba and Spain).
It is spoken by some communities of Angola, because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War. In Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, the Spanish can be learned as a second foreign language in the public educative system.^[2]. In 2008, Cervantes Institutes centers will be opened in Lagos and Johannesburg, the first one in the Sub-Saharan Africa^[3]. --Gimferrer 14:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Prologue

In attention to "Africa and Europe" section of Transcontinental country, could be changed the phrase "It is the official language of Spain, most Latin American countries, and Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara , in Africa" to "It is the official language of most Latin American countries, and Equatorial Guinea, Spain and Western Sahara, in Africa and Europe." In the same, "The language is spoken most extensively in the Americas, Spain and in Africa and Asia Pacific" is not necessary, because the decadency of this language in Asia Pacific. --Gimferrer 14:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note that Spanish is no longer the official language of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as for Polisario's latest constitution. In any case, Polisario does not control most of the terrirory and Morocco does not consider Spanish official. --Asterion^talk 21:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Castilian vs Castilian Spanish

I was shocked when I saw that Castilian Spanish didn't have its own page, so I created a basic stub. I don't know how commonly "Castilian" refers to the entire Spanish language in English rather than Castilian Spanish, but in Spanish "castellano" indeed often means "idioma (language) espanol" rather than "espanol castellano" so I left Castilian redirecting here with a disambiguation note. Nualran 09:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I've given your stub a bit of a workover, hope that's OK. And in English, 'Castilian' usually just means 'of Castille'. Rothorpe 13:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't like this idea so much. The meaning of that expression is already explained in detail at Names given to the Spanish language. FilipeS 19:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

language learning tool for learning spanish

I run a free website that does language drills for learning vocabulary (http://www.youknowthedrill.com). Its a great tool for anyone seeking to learn the spanish language and I have personally used it for this purpose. I'd like to add it to the Spanish page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.13.163.36 (talk) 21:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean stuff like importante = important, posible = possible ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 08:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

External link

I like the short list of external links, but there's one missing that I personally have found invaluable. It's wordreference.com. I have no association with the site. This is the only Spanish-English dictionary I've ever been able to find on the web that is comprehensive, not only in terms of giving all the senses of individual words, but also in showing how words are used in pairs and phrases. I'm not clear on how to lobby for getting the link included without violating policy.

Cullenschaffer (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And what about the BBC's guide to the Spanish language? http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/spanish/ - Is this fine? WhisperToMe (talk) 13:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

"Jealously" vandalism on this article

It seems that there are stupid idiots (identified as "Internet losers, "loners" and "cowards") out there, who's main intentions are to disrupted, vandalised or promote "Racist" remarks on this article and other specific articles. Make no mistake about it, I am going to investigate this issue and I will report any possible "Racial abuse" mis-conduct to the head administration. Wikipedia is starting to become a bad influence on people. (Note: Wikipedia is a place for learning. It is not a forum or a place for exhibiting discrimination.) Thank you! -- Ramírez 19:05 December 13, 2007 (UTC)

Spanish language in the Philippines

Following on the recent changes in this article involving this (for some of which changes I have been responsible), I googled around a bit and found this page on the website of the RP Presidential Press Secretary, containing what appears to be a Spanish-language transcription and an English-language translation of President Arroyo's remarks during the Opening Ceremony of the 3rd Tribuna España-Filipinas Casa Asia, Palacio del Patio de Miraflores, Madrid on December 4, 2007. She apparently said, speaking in Spanish:

“

HE MANDADO AHORA UN ORDEN MEMORANDO DIRIGIENDO NUESTRO DEPARTAMENTO DE EDUCACION, NUESTRA COMMISION DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR Y NUESTRA AUTORIDAD DE EDUCACIÓN TÉCNICA Y DESAROLLO DE HABILIDADES A PROMOVER LA ENSEÑANZA DEL ESPAÑOL EN NUESTRAS ESCUELAS E INSTITUCIONES DE EDUCACIÓN EN EL PAÍS. ESPERAMOS TRABAJAR ESTRECHAMENTE CON EL GOBIERNO ESPAÑOL EN ESTE ESFUERZO DE PROMOVER LA ENSEÑANZA DEL IDIOMA ESPAÑOL EN FILIPINAS.

”

Which was apparently (AFAICT -- I don't understand Spanish) was translated into English as:

“

I HAVE ORDERED A MEMORANDOM DIRECTING OUR DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, OUR COMMISSION OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND OUR TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY TO PROMOTE THE TEACHING OF SPANISH IN OUR SCHOOLS AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE COUNTRY. WE HOPE TO WORK HARD WITH THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT IN THIS EFFORT TO PROMOTE THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN THE PHILIPPINES.

”

Google roughly translates that as:

“

HE NOW AN ORDER MANDADO MEMORANDUM DIRIGIENDO OUR DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, OUR COMMISION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN OUR AUTHORITY FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND SKILLS TO PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH IN OUR SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTIONS OF EDUCATION IN THE COUNTRY. WAITING FOR WORK WITH THE GOVERNMENT ESTRECHAMENTE SPANISH IN THIS EFFORT TO PROMOTE THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN PHILIPPINES.

”

Not being a Spanish-speaker myself, I may have misconstrued this. See http://www.ops.gov.ph/spain-uk2007/news4.htm for the full Spanish and English texts -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

College students are required to learn other languages instead of local languages and English so this is not surprising. Also, this has been discussed before (see Idolmonkey's post). --Howard the Duck 16:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Do not include the Philippines in the infobox, part 2

I see that the Philippines had been added again to the infobox, this time with matching references. I have problems with this:

There were 2 citations used:
- One came from the Instituto Cervantes, and I quote:
  Spanish is spoken as a first language by around 360 million speakers in the world in 43 countries other than Spain, and is spoken in the United States of America (35 million), in Western Sahara and Philippines.
- At first glance it will appear that Spanish is spoken predominantly in the Philippines (RP) but if you know English grammar, the "spoken as a first language" part doesn't refer to RP since its appearance came before the comma (,). Plus the fact that there are no figures given to the Spanish speakers in the Philippines.
- The other came from Wikipedia's very own article -- Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language, and we can't use that here.
If you guys still insist with the Instituto's numbers, as was noted by Chris S. in part 1 of this section above, the 2.9 million number came from "a British linguist who used it in a paper about Chavacano. And I contacted this British linguist, who got this figure from an Italian almanac, which didn't state its source" And even if take that 2.9 million number, it is composed mostly of third- and fourth-language speakers. I dunno how pathetic this article will be if we start tabulating by basis of third- and fourth-language speakers; heck, even English language's infobox will be full if we use that standard over there.
If you guys still want to know, the 1990 census listed about 3,000 Spanish speakers, out of then 68 million people, a mere 0.01%. Censuses after 1990 didn't even bother to tabulate the number of Spanish speakers.

--Howard the Duck 16:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

^ [http://www.aprendemas.com/Noticias/html/N1960_F17012007.HTML El refuerzo del español llega a los saharauis con una escuela en los campos de Tinduf
^ [19], El idioma español en África subsahariana
^ [20], El Cervantes espera duplicar las matrículas para el 2012 dentro de la 'gran operación de comunicación' del español

[1] [http://www.aprendemas.com/Noticias/html/N1960_F17012007.HTML El refuerzo del español llega a los saharauis con una escuela en los campos de Tinduf

[2] [19], El idioma español en África subsahariana

[3] [20], El Cervantes espera duplicar las matrículas para el 2012 dentro de la 'gran operación de comunicación' del español

[1]

[2]

[3]