The U.S. Is Now the World’s Second Largest Spanish-Speaking Country (don't tell trump)

[kpete]

The U.S. Is Now the World’s Second Largest Spanish-Speaking Country

The Guardian reports:

This puts the US ahead of Colombia (48 million) and Spain (46 million) and second only to Mexico (121 million).

Among the sources cited in the report is the US Census Office which estimates that the US will have 138 million Spanish speakers by 2050, making it the biggest Spanish-speaking nation on Earth, with Spanish the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens.

By state the highest concentration is in the former Spanish colonies of the south and south-west, with New Mexico top at 47%, followed by California and Texas (both 38%) and Arizona (30%). Some 18% of New Yorkers speak Spanish while only 1.3% of West Virginians do. Perhaps surprisingly, more than 6% of Alaskans are Spanish speakers.

The Index of Human Development ranks Spanish as the second most important language on earth, behind English but ahead of Mandarin. It is also the third most widely used language on the internet, although less than 8% of internet traffic is in Spanish. The report says that Spanish is the second most used language on Twitter in London and New York. It also comes second on Facebook, a long way behind English though well ahead of Portuguese, Facebook’s third language.

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http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/the_us_is_now_the_worlds_second_largest_spanish-speaking_country_20150629
http://www.cervantes.es/default.htm

[liberal N proud]

1. I really should learn that language