By: Daniel Nardini
I have heard the talk frequently about the question, “will English survive in the United States?” Everyone has an opinion on it, including myself. In my view it will definitely survive and remain the franca lingua of this land. But few people are asking the other encompassing question, “will Spanish survive in the United States?” This question begs for a clear simple response. From what I see there is no clear and concise response, but a theory that it might. We should look at the known facts.
Spanish has been used in the Americas long before English—at least 100 years before. Spanish colonies were established in what is now the United States southwest 450 years ago, and there are still communities there which have used Spanish for centuries and are continuing to use Spanish. For the past century, the use of Spanish has continued to grow well beyond the U.S. southwest. According to the U.S. Census, the number of Spanish speakers in the U.S. increased from 17.5 million in 1990 to 28.1 million in 2000. The majority of this increase was due to immigration.
Even so, the number of Spanish speakers in this country has grown enormously—both due to immigration and to natural birth. Contrary to what many extremists may say that these Latino immigrants are not learning English, they are in fact learning English. According to the U.S. 2010 Census, most immigrants in this country either use English equally with their native language or some English with their native language. Only a few households use their native language alone. Because of this, the percentage of the use of English in this country is 92 percent. This means that less than 10 percent of the entire population within the U.S. does not use or speak English at all.
What must be kept in mind is that the first native born usually learns the language of their parents while at the same time learning English—either from their parents or in school. This has been the pattern through all of American history and continues to this day. Because of this Spanish language periodicals and computer Internet websites are growing. Many young Latinos born here are using both Spanish and English, and this has for the past 20 years generated a large Spanish language market that represents so many aspects from advertising and Spanish language news stations to political debates in Spanish. At this point there is no shortage of demand for Spanish language information.
However, as more Mexican Americans and Latinos in general become native born, the question is being asked whether Spanish will be passed on to the second or third generations? Will Spanish go the same way as have the languages of previous immigrant generations have gone? Will Spanish be as important a minority language 50 or even 100 years as it is today?
