Talk:Hispanophone

In the US

How true is it that "hispanophone" is used as a synonym for "Hispanic" in the U.S.? It seems to me (an American from the Northeast) that they mean subtly, but clearly, different things. "Hispanic" as used in the United States refers to someone whose recent ancestors are from the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, and is used more or less interchangeably with "Latino" (although the former term is often taken to be somewhat patronizing). One does not have to actually speak Spanish to be considered Hispanic, just as a person whose ancestors are from Italy does not have to actually speak Italian in order to be considered "Italian" in an American context. In my view, "hispanophone" seems clearly to mean "speaker of Spanish", not just someone with family roots in Spanish-speaking culture. I rarely hear "hispanophone" used all that much, so perhaps it is used (in the Southwest, perhaps?) in the same sense as "Hispanic". I welcome any input on this point. --Skoosh 05:12, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're correct that they are different. A "Hispanophone" is a Spanish-speaking person, just as a "Francophone" is French-speaking and "Anglophone" English-speaking. "Hispanic origin" is an ethnic category. In the 2000 census, 12.5% of the population was of Hispanic origin, while 10.7% of the population spoke Spanish. Thus there are some people who are Hispanic but not Hispanophones (and there may well be Hispanophones who aren't Hispanic). Funnyhat 04:26, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Although it is true that the term Hispanic and Hispanophone are two different thing there is another factor in determining someone who is Hispanophone because if you continue living in the Hispanic tradition and culture but do not speak spanish such as the Filipinos they are still Hispanic in culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.58.177.208 (talk) 01:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

New Mexico

Should New Mexico be added to the map? Spanish is an official language there. BobbyAFC 20:51, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Not if it is inside of the United States... But what kind of credibility do I have? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.129.85.4 (talk • contribs) 18:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't have an official name (not even English), no matter how commons is Spanish. See the New Mexico article. Mariano(t/c) 08:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a widespread misunderstanding. New Mexico actually has no official language. Certain governments documents appear--but are not, except for ballots, required to appear--in multiple languages, but that happens in most states to varying degrees. 98.14.179.69 (talk) 14:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Overall, I find this section of the article to be misleading. Few Americans, if asked, would describe the US as part of a Hispanosphere in any meaningful sense. Rather, the US is the locus of the Anglosphere, the larget English-speaking country in the world. The overwhelming majority of Americans are monolingual in English--sometimes proudly, defiantly so--and Americans are notorious the world over for their reluctance to learn foreign languages. The fact that the US receives large numbers of Latin American immigrants does not make it Hispanophone in any deep way. The largest ancestral group in the US would actually be German, but this demographic bent does not make the US part of the German Sprachraum. Even in areas like Miami where Spanish has an important role, English is the lingua franca and the language of upward mobility. There's a kind of Spanish imperialism built into this article, as one user noted about the section on Brazil. The presence of pockets of Spanish speakers does not necessarily subvert the dominant language and culture of any society. I think this article calls for radical revision.98.14.179.69 (talk) 14:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The Hispanophone country map is confusing. (One shade of blue can have two different meanings across one map - one meaning for the United States section and another for other countries.) Is there anyone who could create a separate map of the United States, with the information on the amount of Spanish spoken in the American states? The original Hispanophone country map could ask the reader to refer to the special case of the United States. 70.138.217.107 (talk) 23:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Western Sahara are 'not' Hispanics nor a Spanish speaking nation

There is a problem with the Hispanophone map. The problem is that the Western Sahara region is shaded green. The green shade needs to be erazed because the Majority of the people of Western Sahara are 'not' Hispanics nor a Spanish speaking population. The Majority of it's people are of Arabic and African descent. Arabic is the official language of Western Sahara and it remains the sole language of the country. The map needs to be change because it is giving out mis-leading information. thanks!--Cajamarca express 2:48 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Well to be truthfull the really only Hispanics are Spaniards. Western Saharans have the same right to be "Hispanics" as Mexicans and Cubans. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Casey14 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Spanish is talked by the free saharauis (those who don't live in occupied territories) this is only thanks to Cuba and it's usually taught by Cuban teachers. http://www.lavozdegalicia.com/santiago/2008/03/04/0003_6622703.htm http://www.diagonalperiodico.net/spip.php?article6301 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.103.137.161 (talk) 10:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Morocco and Western Sahara

In the map Morocco and Western Sahara appear as Hispanophone (albeit stating that they are "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."). I believe that Spanish speaking populations outside Ceuta and Melila are neglectable. I'm raising this issue at the Commons. Thank you! The Ogre 13:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The text even states that Northern Morocco was a Spanish colony! if you read the article on Morocco, the situation was much more complex, it states "Successful Portuguese efforts to invade and control the Atlantic coast in the fifteenth century did not profoundly affect the Mediterranean heart of Morocco. After the Napoleonic Wars, Egypt and the North African maghreb became increasingly ungovernable from Istanbul, the resort of pirates under local beys, and as Europe industrialized, an increasingly prized potential for colonization. The Maghreb had far greater proven wealth than the unknown rest of Africa and a location of strategic importance affecting the exit from the Mediterranean. For the first time, Morocco became a state of some interest in itself to the European Powers. France showed a strong interest in Morocco as early as 1830. Recognition by the United Kingdom in 1904 of France's sphere of influence in Morocco provoked a German reaction; the crisis of June 1905 was resolved at the Algeciras Conference, Spain in 1906, which formalized France's "special position" and entrusted policing of Morocco to France and Spain jointly. A second Moroccan crisis provoked by Berlin, increased tensions between European powers. The Treaty of Fez (signed on March 30, 1912) made Morocco a protectorate of France. By the same treaty, Spain assumed the role of protecting power over the northern and southern Saharan zones on November 27 that year."!!! The Ogre 13:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Brazil

Hispanophone imperialism is just hilarious. There's no such thing as people speaking Spanish or Spanish based languages as first language in Brazil! That's completely erroneous and should be changed!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.155.244.18 (talk) 08:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually there are at least 20 million hispanics in Brazil many still use Spanish as a first language. Your statement is based on the fact the Brazil only has one official language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.197.205 (talk) 03:40, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

People forget that although Portuguese is the official language of Brazil there are many Spanish and Hispanic migrants in Brazil that speak Spanish as a first language but also speak Portuguese. This is never acknowledged anywhere they seem to think that spanish speakers simply disappear when they move to Brazil, ignorant thinking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.58.177.208 (talk) 01:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Just go to the border areas and also into the big cities. Millions of Brazilians speak Spanish as either a first or second language. Hardly surprising given the geography of the country and its rapidly growing economic links with the rest of South America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Provocateur (talk • contribs) 02:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Hispanics in the United States - requested move

Hello everyone. There is at present a discussion going on at Hispanics in the United States, due to the request that the page be moved to Hispanic Americans. Would you like to comment please? Thank you. The Ogre 18:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Hispanic Culture

Dbachmann proposed this article should be merged with Hispanic culture. I desagree - the reason being Hispanic Culture is a redirect to just Hispanic (but not Talk:Hispanic culture though!). Is this what Dbachmann had in mind - for Hispanophone to be merged with Hispanic? Please clarify. Thanks! The Ogre (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I decided to merge Hispanic culture into Hispanic instead (which is why it is now a redirect). I don't suggest any further mergers. dab (𒁳) 19:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

on second thoughts, there is nothing here that isn't also covered at Hispanic. So we should perhaps merge this stub there after all. But I don't insist. dab (𒁳) 19:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The article is now bloated with stuff that duplicates and belongs in the Hispanic articles. This article is now arguably a WP:POV fork. --JWB (talk) 04:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Neologism?

I've never actually seen this term used in English (as opposed to French), and [1] identifies it as a neologism. --JWB (talk) 20:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It gets 74k Google hits, which surprised me. (I filtered out Wikipedia and its mirrors, as Wikipedia itself recommends).

But this article desperately needs better sourcing. SamEV (talk) 07:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Blah blah blah about nations/subcultures in Spain

I see that the fringe regionalists from Spain have hijacked this page to try to "educate" with their propaganda the "true" reality of Spain. I don't understand why there is such a long section filled with such blatantly non-neutral points of views even most people from those opressed nations without states within the artificial Spanish state.

Enough wikipedia pages have been hijacked by this fringe. Does this page need to be as well?

This is an articule about the "Hispanophone world." To my knowledge, even without taking into account regionalist whining, Spain as a state is a Hispanophone country. I see it being very appropriate to note that there are other languages within the nation that are used by significant minorities of the population. But I don't understand this need to trash the article with this "nation/subculture" nonsense.

Eboracum (talk) 16:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I am taking out all the aforementioned nonsense. It does not belong in this page to begin with and is hardly a NPOV Eboracum (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

The article refers to Castile as THE economic territory of Spain. Politically, most definitely. Economic? The ports of Bilbao and Barcelona are critical and were historically a major reason for Spain's interest in them. Further, the Basque regions contain extremely important financial and industrial centers. This has historically made control of Basque areas critical to Spain. Further, in addition to cultural and political identity, economic independence has historically been an important tenent of Basque and Catalan seperatist movements. Perhaps a more neutral point of view would refer to Castile as the politically and culturally dominant territory. Dispite my comments about economic importance, modern Basque and Catalan areas are culturally dominated by Spain's central regions, dispite the efforts of many to maintain seperate identities. Just sayin'. Ingcupes (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong method for calculating Spanish-speaking population

I think it is very important to make a clear distinction between people who actually speak Spanish every day (active speakers), and people who are able to speak Spanish but actually don't speak it for several reasons (passive speakers).

The former are those who live countries, regions or cities where Spanish language is widely spoken everywhere, eg Madrid, Argentina, Mexico DF and so on. The latter are those people who know Spanish because they attend to Spanish accademies in non Spanish-speaking countries or regions, those who just attend to Spanish lessons at school since Spanish is a mandatory foreign language in their countries, those who have Spanish-speaking parents and so on.

To make things easier, in this group the following cases should be taken into account:

1) A Swede who is attending to a Spanish language accademy (eg Cervantes Institute).

2) A Mexican Indian who knows Spanish because it's official in the whole country but actually doesn't use it since his context is non Spanish-speaking.

3) A Spanish citizen who was born in the central Catalonia, where the 90% of total population speaks only Catalan in daily situations (Catalan-speaking context).

4) A Spanish citizen who was born in a Spanish-speaking context (eg Madrid) but who moved to a non Spanish-speaking country (eg China, where nobody speaks Spanish).

Note that it has nothing to do with Spanish being or not the official language. Indeed, in the 2nd and 3rd cases Spanish is an official language, but the context is non Spanish-speaking. It has neither anything to do with Spanish being mother tongue. Indeed, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd cases consist of people who don't have Spanish as mother tongue.

I think just in the way I explained before we'll be able to develop an accurate article. --Mreq (talk) 19:34, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong Hispanosphere map

The world map of the section "Hispanosphere" has to be corrected. In the Spanish regions of Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands, Basque Country and Galicia Spanish is not the sole official language, and thus these territories should be coloured in dark blue. --Mreq (talk) 19:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

As the spanish is official language there i think it must appear as dark blue. Other way it would be a complete nonsense. i.e. Go to Barcelona, Valencia, Vigo, Mallorca and Bilbao and hear the voice of the street. iT is spanish — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.0.43.167 (talk) 14:31, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with social use, I'm talking about shared officiality. In the regions I mentioned Spanish is not the sole official language, so it should be coloured in dark blue. The only nonsensical position is yours.

--Mreq (talk) 22:14, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Cities, regions or towns where spanish creoles are spoken such as Chavacano in The Philippines or Papiamentu in the Netherlands Antilles should be included in the hispanophone map being part of the speaking world as creoles are intelligible to native speakers. FiLoCo (talk) 12:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I would question the assertion that creoles are intelligible to native speakers...I can understand more than the average native hispanoparlante only because I don't speak only Spanish...so much so that I can understand Papiamentu better than I can understand Mexicans (especially from western Mexico!)... If regions where Spanish creoles are spoken are to be included, they should definitely be indicated as areas where Spanish creoles are spoken, rather than as areas where Spanish is spoken... I still say, for the record, that the map at present reeks of politicking, rather than doing true justice to the regions where Spanish is spoken...Tomer^talk 10:22, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Andorra is not a Spanish speaking country

Andorra is not a Spanish speaking country, so I have eliminated it from the list of countries that "speak Spanish". Andorra official language is Catalan but neither French no Spanish are official. There is people speaking French, Portuguese or Spanish, but his does not make Andorra part of the Francophonie or the Lusofonia or the Spanish Sprachraum.

Enric (talk) 14:32, 26 August 2009 (UTC)Enric

The United States is on that list too. I'm pretty sure it's just supposed to be a list of countries where some people speak Spanish. --Alynna (talk) 00:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually the reason why a majority of Andorans speak Spanish is because they are Spanish residents living in Andorra and since they are Hispanic they are considered a Spanish speaking majority there. Plus Andorra is technically part of Spain which it shares soviergnty with France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosadobigd (talk • contribs) 01:38, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Hispanics in USA

There are 46,943,613 hispanics in USA according to the Census Bureau. 34,559,894 is a figure about the spanish speakers as a first language older than 5 years old (because they speak it at home and it is their mother tongue), but in any country all the population speaks spanish as a first language even in Spain (only 89% speak spanish as a first language). The figures of the table are all about the hispanic population. The other figure (34,559,894) would be correct if the table were about spanish speakers as a first language older than 5 y.o. --Migang2g (talk) 00:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Spanish in Brazil

I want to make it clear to everyone that many Spanish and Hispanic people in the past and recently have moved to Brazil and their first language has and still is Spanish, but they simply learned Portuguese as a second language. First of all this native Spanish speakers did not disappear so to pretend to not show them on the map or even speak about the Hispanophone population and growth within in Brazil is ignorant and incorrect. Feel free to give me your thoughts thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosadobigd (talk • contribs) 01:32, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

There are millions that speak Spanish in Brazil as a first or second language. It is only a small percentage of Brazil's population, but significant. They are near Brazils borders with Spanish speaking countries and in the big cities, as the economic integration of South America increases quickly. It is also easy for a Brazilian to learn Spanish, which is useful if he has business in other Latin American countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Provocateur (talk • contribs) 03:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Official and co-official

There are several issues with the map of Spanish as official or co-official language. What is the criteria used to determine if a country has Spanish as a co-official rather than the sole official language?

• Spain is shown as a country where Spanish is the sole official language. Yet, there are another 3 co-official languages Catalan (Valencian), Basque and Galician. Granted, these are co-official only in specific autonomous communities and not in the entire Spanish territory;
• Then, following the same logic as above, Argentina is shown as a country where Spanish is the sole official language, even if in the province of Corrientes, Guaraní is co-official with Spanish;
• Yet, Mexico is shown as a country where Spanish is co-official with other languages, even though there is not even a single legal document that has established Spanish as the official language in the country. There is a "General Law of Linguistic Right of the Indigenous Peoples" that declares that "indigenous languages [without specifying which] are also national languages equally valid in the territories in which they are spoken". In other words, the indigenous languages, declared "national" are "valid" [official?] only in the territories in which they are spoken, but not at a federal level. In other words, Nahuatl is equally valid to Spanish in the indigenous communities of the mountains of Puebla, but not in Yucatán, where it is not spoken.

Following the same logic as in Spain or Argentina, Mexico, if at all, should be shown as a country with a sole official language. Or, on the other hand, following the same logic as in Mexico, Argentina and Spain should be shown as countries where Spanish is co-official with other languages. --the Dúnadan 19:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

BELIZE In Belize (Central America) according to their own Census, Spanish is the most spoken language by natives (46%), spoken as a second language by 65% of the population. So, Belize should be included in the list.--88.9.234.5 (talk) 13:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Please remove Brazil from this article

there is no such thing as a brazilian speaking portuñol as a primary language or secondary language, it's not even a recognized language, i live in Brazil and i never heard of such thing,no such thing as 20 million hispanics in brazil, that is complete BullS***, Spanish is tought in brazilian schools but that doesn't mean that it's considered a hispanophone country, Australia also teaches spanish in schools, Lol, this article is completely messed up, saying that brazil is part of the hispanophone is like saying that Brazil is also considered part of the german speaking world because there are some german brazilians that speak a variety of german

Prove that there isn't "20 million hispanics in brazil"

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Brazil — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jan Gabriel Viljoen (talk • contribs) 23:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Jan gabriel, you should prove that there is 20 milion hispanics in Brazil.Where they came from? From Mars? Even you show a wikipedia article, it's not fully academic. Anyone can change datas e informations. So you can lie that there are 100 milions of icelanders living in Brazil, for exemple.

BRAZILIANS ARE NOT HISPANICS!!!! WE SPEAK PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE AND JUST A BRAZILIAN WITH ANY TRAINING CAN UNDERSTAND SPANISH LANGUAGE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.204.175.222 (talk) 03:58, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

'...migrated to the new lands they had conquered.'

The warriors that conquered the indigenous empires initially comprised mostly of other native nations. In the subsequent decades and centuries Old World diseases wiped out a large percentage of the native population, including indigenous allies, which allowed biracials/mestizos, who were less susceptible to these diseases thus were able to thrive at their expense and have also outnumbered those of pure European ancestry early on in the colonization process, to gain the ascendancy and gradually absorb, forcefully or voluntarily, the remaining indigenous populations spread across the region. So labelling these events as a solely Spanish effort isn’t entirely accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.48.183 (talk) 23:51, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Sahara

It is not clear how many speak Spanish in the Sahara. The 430,000 seem to be the total population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.11.202 (talk) 15:11, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Primary vs. secondary language

How can the number of people who speak Spanish as either primary or secondary language be smaller than the number of people who speak it as primary language? Surely the number of people who have it as secondary language cannot possibly be negative...? --Oddeivind (talk) 06:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The article needs to clarify what is meant by "Secondary Also" to avoid this confusion. --Once in a Blue Moon (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 04:06, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

True, but none of the links under "Source" now work so we can't easily track back. To avoid having to maintain different tables in this difficult topic I'd favour removing this table and linking to the more complete one in Spanish language#Spanish speakers by country, which doesn't suffer from this problem at least: Noyster (talk), 11:04, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Mexico

In Mexico, Spanish is the only "national" language even if there are many minority languages like Nauahtl spoken by just 5% of the population but which the rest of Mexicans don´t know. In Spain, cooficial languages like Catalan have much more recognition.--213.60.237.52 (talk) 19:43, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Map of Languages in Spain

The map is slightly misleading. It's somewhat useful for historical language ranges, but these have long since passed. In Bilbao the capital of El Pais Vasco basque is incredibly rare to hear, but it's marked on the map as being a basque speaking region. Same is true for the Valencian Community, a dialect of Catalan was spoken there, however it's quite rare to hear Catalan now a days, as its been almost completely supplanted by Spanish. Even in Catalonia the majority language is Spanish and not Catalan. Given the current political situation in Spain, this map could be taken as being propagandistic.

Language of Cataluña by population and percentage there of: https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=3163&lang=es Valencian Community: http://www.cis.es/cis/export/sites/default/-Archivos/Marginales/2660_2679/2667/e266702.html El Pais Vasco: http://www.euskara.euskadi.eus/contenidos/informacion/argitalpenak/es_6092/adjuntos/EEH/GAZTELAN/EEH2_CAS.PDF

I'm not saying that it has to be removed entirely, but it ought to be qualified because as is it's disingenuous. 181.137.201.190 (talk) 00:26, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Brazilian fragility

What' is All the fuss over a tiny portion of Brazil on this map? it's not even the whole country. It's not even half. It's a small part that's listed and everyone is having a heart attack over it. chill out. what I find disturbing enough is why is Israel The United States of America & France colour coded? Regardless of the immigrants it has nothing to do with Hispanics. (If you don't count Florida & most of the Western USA & even that it's fringe) If Brazil "doesn't belong there" then sure enough the USA France and Israel doesn't belong there. What are they doing there? it's like placing Bulgaria as a Chinese speaking country because of some inhabitants. And by the way like it or not Brazil has ALOT more in common culturally with their Spanish speaking neighbor countries from Mexico to Peru to Colombia to Chile than Israel, USA or France. 76.167.193.57 (talk) 20:52, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Phillippines in the map "Geographic distribution of the Spanish language"

Why does the Phillippines have a light blue dot over the island of Luzon? The dot doesn't have a dark outline like the dots used to symbolize smaller territories and no administrative divisions of Luzon are colored in. I think it should be removed or should be changed to match the style of the rest of the map. 69.75.36.225 (talk) 21:59, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi there. The existing consensus is that while there is a Spanish-speaking community in the Philippines and the language is spoken, it is not spoken widely enough that it merits the entire country being colored in, which is why you see the blue dot over the area which is supposedly Manila. Although I do not personally agree with the outcome of this consensus, as I personally believe the country should be shaded in entirely, that is where the consensus currently stands, and better that Spanish-speaking Filipinos are at least represented in the map rather than, as some would want it to be, not represented at all. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 00:51, 4 March 2024 (UTC)