Spanish Facts and Stats

If you're learning Spanish, chances are one reason you picked it to learn was because you expected you would have a good chance of using it some day. If so, you're probably right — Spanish is the most common first language in the Americas, and Spanish speakers also can be found in Spain (of course), in much of the United States, the Philippines, and even Africa.

And there are some other facts about Spanish you might be interested in knowing. In no particular order, here are some of the numbers about Spanish I discovered during a recent afternoon of Web surfing:

• Spanish and English are in a virtual dead heat to be the second most spoken language in the world. As of 1999, Spanish had 332 million speakers, while English had 322 million. They were far behind Chinese, with 885 million. Source: Ethnologue. (If people who speak English as a second language were included, however, English would come out on top.)
• Spanish, along with French, is the official language of Equatorial Guinea, making it the only country in Africa with an official Spanish presence, although Spanish also is spoken some in Morocco. The country's official name is República de Guinea Ecuatoria. Source: CIA World Fact Yearbook.
• Other countries or semi-autonomous areas with significant Spanish-speaking populations include Andorra, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Gibraltar, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, the United States and Venezuela. Source: Ethnologue.
• Nearly 30 percent of the residents of Spain have a first language other than Spanish, although most also use Spanish as a second language. Languages of Spain include Catalan (some 12 percent of the population speak it as a first language, and even more speak it as a second language), Galician (8 percent of the population) and Basque (a little more than 1 percent). Source: Ethnologue.
• As of 1998, the United States has the fifth largest Hispanic population, about 30 million people (the exact number depending on how Hispanics are counted). Of them, two-thirds trace their roots to Mexico, and 86 percent say Spanish is their first language. Source: Bill Stoneman, writing for American Demographics.
• During the sweeps period earlier this year, the top local TV newscast in the New York City area was Noticias 41, a Spanish-language broadcast. And Noticiero Univision, the newscast of a national Spanish-language network, beat out the big three network news shows. Source: Breaking News.
• California alone has 5.5 million people who speaks Spanish at home. Other states with high Spanish-speaking populations include Texas (3.4 million), New York (1.8 million), and Florida (1.5 million). Source: American Demographics.
• About 5.8 percent of the people who use the Internet speak Spanish, making it the No. 4 language in the Internet community, following English (51.3 percent), Japanese (8.1 percent) German (5.9 percent). Close behind is Chinese, with 5.4 percent, followed by French with 3.9 percent. Source: Global Reach.
• A recent study of 25 metro markets in the United States found that Spanish-language programming was the sixth most popular format. Source: WILC radio.

Because the birth rate in the Spanish-speaking word is higher than among people whose first language is English, Spanish can be expected to remain firmly in the No. 2 spot for years to come. And if the economies of Latin American countries improve, Spanish could gain importance in worldwide trade and communications as well.

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