Colleen Funderburk
ILR 260 Professor Wolfe
July 27, 2013
Final Research Paper
Could Spanish overtake English in the United States
Lately, the economy in the U.S. has been so rigid over the past decade that, speaking Spanish is becoming more of a necessity than a choice. California is one state that shows a fine example of an increase in hispanic population. Which means that there is a necessity to have translations done in Spanish to English or visa verse. There are other states as well, that draw the conclusion that the English language could become the minority. Practically everywhere you go, you can see the Spanish language translated on a sign or written on a document.
Spanish dominates all other foreign languages in the USA’s public schools. Enrollment has nearly doubled over the past two decades and according to USA TODAY, Spanish is the top international language spoken world-wide across four continents. Spanish is set to overtake English but could it become the most widely-spoken language in the united States?
Figure 1. Compares the regions by percentages that speak the most Spanish worldwide.
Around thirty percent of the population in the US say that Spanish is the language of one of the world’s fastest growing economic language. There is an increasing demand for it in business and Spanish is considered to be the official language of two of Australia’s APEC partners (Chile and Mexico). Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and it is an official language of the European Union.
Thousands of U.S. companies have integrated advertising and marketing campaigns that
specifically target the Spanish speaking market. Social networks and media have expanded their
customer relations in order to provide a better service to the Spanish-speaking communities as
well as to their customers. Smaller businesses have found out that the Spanish-speaking market
is reducing cost and that they have a lower-risk way to increase sales.
Spanish is a language that has been spoken in the United States for a long time. Spanish in the
United States is highly diverse and exhibits a wide variation regionally, ethnically and socially.
The use of Spanish poses no threat to the dominance of English in the United States. Spanish
Has always coexisted in the U.S.
The latest data from the Pew Research Center shows that:
Seven out of ten or seventy percent of Hispanic students speak a language other than English at
home. Forty four percent are from the first-generation and they speak English with difficulty.
Twenty percent are from the second-generation students, and five percent are from the third-and-
higher generations.
Figure 2. The image above provides an example of states like California that are able to communicate in medical Spanish will find residency programs and hospitals rushing to hire.
A large portion of the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. are children. Nearly five
hundred million people across the world speak Spanish. It is the second most used language in
international communication. Over the past decade, the demand for Spanish Language courses
worldwide has almost doubled. In the US, Spanish is the most popular foreign language to
Learn because of our brother country in Mexico.
Students studying a foreign language generally score higher on their verbal scores on the
ACT/SAT. Spanish is also the key for the comprehension of the creations in the world of visual
arts. It has been spoken in the United States since 1513, when Ponce De Leon coming from
Puerto Rico landed in Florida. Florida was sold to the U.S. in 1821 but Spanish speaking persons
continued in the U.S. as a result of the Louisiana Purchase, which had Spanish speaking in that
territory. There was the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo after Mexico lost the
