Spanish Language in the U.S.

Vocabulary:
-Continental (adj.) Of the mainland (of Europe, North America, etc.).
-Coexist (v.) To be present at the same time, usually separately but peacefully.
-Surge (v.) To move forward suddenly and with force.
-Unrest (n.) A disturbance or agitation.
-Distinguishable (adj.) Clearly different from something else.

Not many people know that the Spanish language actually arrived in the continental U.S. before English! Ponce de León, the Spanish explorer, brought the first Spanish-speakers to the Florida Peninsula in 1513. Therefore, in continuity and longevity, the Spanish language is second only to Native American languages in the U.S.! Spanish and English have coexisted in America for a long time.

During the 20th and 21st centuries, immigration was and is responsible for the large presence of Spanish speakers in the U.S. today, with an immigration surge in the early 1990s. Particularly Spanish-speaking inhabitants of countries with political unrest immigrated in large numbers to the U.S. For example, there are 1 million Cuban immigrants in the U.S., mostly due to Fidel Castro’s ascension to government in the 1970s.

Today, Spanish is the second most common language, after English, in the U.S. There are 35,468,501 Spanish speakers total! Over half of these Spanish speakers live in California, Texas or Florida.

Spanglish is a phenomenon occurring in Spanish and English bilingual communities. It refers to the mixing of English and Spanish words and sentence structures into a new way of speaking. Old words are given new definitions and entirely new words are created. For example, “actualmente” is used to mean “actually” in Spanglish instead of “at present.” Parquear (to park), lonche (lunch) and emailear (to e-mail) are examples of new words utilized in Spanglish. Spanglish has no fixed rules, and is sometimes not distinguishable from simply poor Spanish or English.

Questions:
1. Did Spanish or English arrive first to the continental U.S.?
2. What is a major reason for large numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the U.S.?
3. In which states do over half of the Spanish speakers in the U.S. live?
4. What is Spanglish?

For more information…
1. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United_States)
2. PBS TV (http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/spanglish/usa/)