How many people in the world speak spanish: How Many People Speak Spanish, And Where Is It Spoken?
How Many People Speak Spanish, And Where Is It Spoken?
As one of the most spoken languages in the world, Spanish is a popular tongue to learn, as well as to learn about. How many people speak Spanish, exactly? How many Spanish-speaking countries are there, and where is it an official language? We answer these questions and more.
A Brief History Of Spanish
Spanish, like French, Italian, Romanian and Portuguese, is a Romance language that evolved from Vulgar (Common) Latin. It originated on the Iberian Peninsula — the southwest corner of Europe which includes present-day Spain and Portugal. The Castilian continuation of Vulgar Latin (from Spain’s Castile region) mixed with the Arabic dialect spoken by the Moors, who conquered parts of the region. After centuries of intermingling, the language formed what became the standardized Spanish language by the 1200s.
Castilian isn’t the only dialect of Spanish in the world, though. The Andalusian dialect of Spanish popped up around the same time, and is still spoken in parts of southern Spain.
And later, in the 16th century, Spain built its empire in the Americas and brought their language with them. Today, Spain is home to less than 10 percent of the world’s Spanish speakers.
Where In The World Is Spanish Spoken?
There are many Spanish speaking countries in the world, as Spanish is the official language of the following 20 countries, as well as Puerto Rico: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Although it’s not an official language, Spanish is also commonly spoken in the United States, Belize, Andorra and Gibraltar.
How Many People Speak Spanish In The World?
There are more than 450 million native speakers of Spanish, making it second only to Chinese in terms of the most spoken languages in the world. English is just behind Spanish, with approximately 360 million native speakers.
Spanish is the third most studied language in the world, after English and French. In addition to the 450 million native speakers, just shy of 75 million people around the world speak Spanish as a second language.
How Many People Speak Spanish In The U.S.?
In the United States, more than 43 million people speak Spanish as a first language (about 13 percent of the population), and that number continues to grow. Additionally, the United States is home to nearly 12 million bilingual Spanish speakers. This makes it the second-largest Spanish speaking country in the world (after Mexico), but one study predicts the United States will be the largest by 2050.
Americans who don’t already speak Spanish are trying to learn it. Spanish is the most studied language in the U.S. In fact, 50 percent of American college students and more than 70 percent of K-12 students choose to learn Spanish. This is significantly more than the 12 percent of college students and 15 percent of K-12 students who choose French, the second most studied language.
How Many People Speak Spanish In Latin America?
With 121 million native speakers, Mexico has the largest population of Spanish speakers in the world. Spanish is the official language of Mexico, in addition to many countries in Central and South America. Two of the largest Spanish speaking countries in South America are Colombia (about 46 million Spanish speakers) and Argentina (about 41 million Spanish speakers). Roughly 60 percent of the Latin American population speaks Spanish. Most of the rest of the residents speak Portuguese (around 34 percent), and a small percentage speak other languages, such as French, English and various Mayan languages.
How Many People Speak Spanish In Europe?
Spain is where the Spanish language originated, so naturally it’s the hub of Spanish speakers in Europe. But with 46 million Spanish speakers, Spain has fallen behind the United States, becoming the country with the third largest Spanish speaking population.
In Europe, Spanish is also widely spoken in Andorra and Gibraltar, but their official languages are Catalan and English, respectively.
In Switzerland, about 150,000 people, or 2.2 percent of the population, speak Spanish as well. It’s one of 24 official languages in the European Union, and is also spoken by small pockets of people in other European countries, such as Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
How Many People Speak Spanish In The Rest Of The World?
Although the vast majority of Spanish speakers reside in the Americas and Europe, there are people who speak Spanish in other parts of the world as well. One country that stands out is the Philippines, where Spanish was an official language from the late 16th century until relatively recently. The Philippines were under Spanish rule from 1565-1898, but even after the end of the Spanish-American War, it remained a co-official language with English until 1987, when it was designated as an optional language. Today, approximately 3 million Filipinos speak Spanish or Chavacano — a Spanish-based Creole language.
In Africa, Spanish is one of three official languages in Equatorial Guinea, where nearly 68 percent of the population speaks it.
Spanish is also spoken in territories in northern Africa controlled by Spain, and in Morocco, which is geographically close to Spain. Finally, there are small communities of Spanish speakers in Angola and South Sudan.
Why Learn Spanish?
Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, meaning potential opportunities for Spanish learners are abundant. You can learn Spanish for travel, for work or to connect with your neighbors. Plus, it’s one of the easiest languages for English speakers to pick up.
Note: All language data is sourced from Ethnologue.
Spanish – Worldwide distribution
Spanish and Castilian
The designations Spanish and Castilian both apply to the same language. The geographical origin is in the region in and around Castile. Internationally, the names “Spanish” and “Español” are in common use. Within the Spanish-speaking countries, both terms are used simultaneously. In many South American countries, the name “Castellano” is predominantly used and is even anchored in the national constitutions.
Origin and spread of the Spanish language
As the name “Castilian” already indicates, the language comes from Castile — a region in what is now central Spain. It is based on, among other things, Westernaragonese and other languages of the then Iberian Peninsula. The first Castilian or Spanish documents date back to the year 964 C.E. But the Spanish language (Old Spanish) did not really develop until the 13th century, when Latin, which was predominant in Europe, was separated. Over the course of the centuries, the language changed through many influences from Basque, Celtic and Germanic. The Portuguese language is also closely related to the Spanish language. Both languages are based on the same origins.
Until the late 15th century, Spanish was only spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, i.e., mainly in today’s Spain. There was a significant expansion of the language with the voyages of discovery and conquest in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Christopher Columbus was certainly the most famous — he is today credited with the discovery of America when he sailed on behalf of the Spanish crown. By the way, he himself was not Spanish, but came from Genoa. Other sailors commissioned by the Spanish Crown with important conquests included Hernán Córtez (Mexico), Franzisco Pizarro (Inca Empire) and Ferdinand Magellan (South America, Philippines). Through the partly violent conquests, Christianity and the Spanish language were imposed on the new territories. Many of those areas are still predominantly Christian today and have retained the Spanish language.
| Country | Region | Official language | Distribution | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico | Central America | yes | 92.1 % | 116,695,000 |
| Colombia | South America | yes | 99.0 % | 51,001,000 |
| Argentina | South America | yes | 96.8 % | 44,343,000 |
| United States of America | North America | no | 10. 7 % | 35,513,000 |
| Spain | Southern Europe | yes | 74.0 % | 35,088,000 |
| Peru | South America | yes | 84.1 % | 28,355,000 |
| Venezuela | South America | yes | 96.9 % | 27,326,000 |
| Chile | South America | yes | 89.7 % | 17,485,000 |
| Ecuador | South America | yes | 93.0 % | 16,552,000 |
| Cuba | Caribbean | yes | 100.0 % | 11,256,000 |
| Guatemala | Central America | yes | 64.7 % | 11,070,000 |
| Dominican Republic | Caribbean | yes | 98.0 % | 10,896,000 |
| Honduras | Central America | yes | 97.2 % | 9,991,000 |
| Bolivia | South America | yes | 60.7 % | 7,332,000 |
| Nicaragua | Central America | yes | 95. 3 % | 6,529,000 |
| El Salvador | Central America | yes | 99.0 % | 6,251,000 |
| Costa Rica | Central America | yes | 97.5 % | 5,025,000 |
| Paraguay | South America | yes | 55.1 % | 3,694,000 |
| Uruguay | South America | yes | 95.7 % | 3,279,000 |
| Panama | Central America | yes | 69.2 % | 3,011,000 |
| Puerto Rico | Caribbean | yes | 51.3 % | 1,674,000 |
| Equatorial Guinea | Central Africa | yes | 61.6 % | 1,007,000 |
| Canada | North America | no | 1.3 % | 497,000 |
| France | Western Europe | no | 0.4 % | 271,000 |
| Belize | Central America | no | 46.0 % | 184,000 |
| Switzerland | Western Europe | no | 1. 1 % | 96,000 |
| Sweden | Northern Europe | no | 0.6 % | 62,000 |
| Andorra | Southern Europe | no | 44.6 % | 35,000 |
| Virgin Islands | Caribbean | no | 16.8 % | 18,000 |
| Aruba | Caribbean | no | 13.7 % | 15,000 |
| Curacao | Caribbean | no | 4.0 % | 6,000 |
| Caribbean Netherlands | Caribbean | no | 11.8 % | 3,000 |
| Cayman Islands | Caribbean | no | 4.0 % | 3,000 |
| Falkland Islands | South America | no | 7.7 % | 300 |
Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Spanish as a subsequently learned language is not the subject of this page.
Countries where native speakers make up only a few thousand, or even a few hundred people, or countries with a percentage well below 1% are unlikely to be listed here.
In 2012, Spanish ranked second in the world in terms of prevalence
InoSMI materials contain estimates exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI
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Spanish, which is spoken by more than 495 million people, became the second in the world in prevalence after Chinese. He also ranks second on Twitter. The number of people who speak Spanish continued to grow in 2012, while the number of people who speak English and Chinese declined. nine0003
editorial
Madrid . With over 495 million speakers, Spanish has become the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese. The number of people who speak Spanish continued to grow in 2012, while the number of people who speak English and Chinese declined.
These data are contained in the annual report “Spanish in the World” (El español en el mundo), published since 1998 by the Instituto Cervantes. This edition was presented by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Interaction, José Manuel García-Margallo, and the Director of the Instituto Cervantes, Víctor García de la Concha. nine0003
Spanish is also the second language of international communication after English. According to some estimates, by 2030, 7.5% of the world’s population will speak Spanish (535 million people). Only Chinese surpasses it in popularity, Garcia de la Concha said at a presentation held in the main building of the Instituto Cervantes. In three or four generations, 10% of the world’s population will communicate in Spanish, and the largest number of Spanish speakers will live in the United States. In the United States, there will be even more of them than in Mexico, the authors of the report believe. nine0015
Read also: Thank you America for keeping our language alive
Spanish is already in second place on Twitter
On the World Wide Web, Spanish is already the third most used language after English and Chinese.
In the last 10 years, his online presence has grown by 800%, with the difference between using Spanish on the one hand and Japanese, Portuguese and German ever increasing. On the social network Twitter, Spanish is already the second most spoken language, far behind Arabic, Russian, Italian, French and German. On Facebook, Spanish is also one of the most used languages. More than 80 million people communicate on it. nine0003
The report indicates that approximately 18 million students are learning Spanish as a foreign language. Last year, the Instituto Cervantes received 8% more applicants to learn Spanish. Branches of the Institute are located in 77 cities in 44 countries, mainly in America and Asia.
García de la Concha praised the agreement signed in 2012 with Mexico, which will allow Spain to use Mexican offices in the US, and reported on progress in negotiations to establish a Spanish Language Observatory in the US. At the same time, he drew attention to the lack of qualified Spanish teachers in countries such as Brazil and China, whose universities in 2010 were able to satisfy only 30% of applications submitted to study Spanish (about 25,000 Chinese students).
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Foreign Minister García-Margallo described the Instituto Cervantes as the jewel in the crown of Spain’s foreign policy and warned of the danger that globalization poses to a world culture dominated by Anglo-American approaches.
Related: Christian Villages Try to Restore Ancient Biblical Language
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Using Spanish doesn’t seem to improve our quality of life much. Nor is he capable of protecting us from the financial and political mafia. Being Spanish is an endless source of shame. It means being a slave to worthless people, thieves and criminals. This is topsy-turvy pride.
Quenculim
How tired of these stories about the Spanish language in the US. I have lived in this country for several years. In terms of social status, Hispanic speakers are even lower than Negroes there, so they are even ashamed to speak it. In the second generation, they stop using it, and in the third, they completely lose it.
It is ridiculous to continue to hide these facts in order to flatter hardened Spanish nationalism. nine0003
Stratos
Reports like this only pour balm on the soul of Spanish nationalism (and only in Spain, not in South America), while the Spaniards themselves remain uneducated and worse than others in English, the only language of international communication. Traveling outside of Spain knowing only Spanish will do little more than knowing Galician, Basque or Catalan.
5 reasons to learn Spanish
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1. Spanish is an incredibly beautiful language!
The Spanish language instantly captivates with its rich intonations, dynamism and vibrant personality. Temperament and sensuality – in every word and gesture. Exceptional and unique, it seems to breathe the energy of the sun into you, instill new hope, surround and take you into the arms of a hot summer, the azure sea, to a world where emotions and feelings rule, to a world where dreams come true! nine0003
2.
Spanish – Language #1
Spanish is the most widely spoken of all Romance languages and the second most studied language in the world. One of the reasons is its ease of learning for beginners: there are no difficulties with pronunciation and grammar! Many researchers believe that soon he may completely push aside the English language and take an honorable first place.
3. The Spanish language unites 500 million people and 22 countries, and this is not the limit!
Today Spanish is spoken by 500 million people in the world or 22 countries in 4 continents, which is about a fifth of the world. And the scope of its distribution is constantly expanding, and in terms of the annual increase in the number of people for whom Spanish is their native language, it has already come out on top in the world compared to other languages. nine0003
4. Spanish + business = success!
Spanish is the second most used language in international business communication. The number of agreements between Russian companies and firms in Spanish-speaking countries is constantly growing.
Contacts are actively expanding not only with Spain, but also with Latin American countries. Therefore, today in Russia, knowledge of only English is not enough at all, and large companies prefer to hire specialists with knowledge of at least two foreign languages, and Spanish is in second place. nine0003
5. Spanish – the language of discovery and communication!
Spanish is the only language that will help you discover all the secrets of 22 Spanish-speaking countries, and they are rightfully famous for their rich traditions and customs, amazing diversity and beauty of landscapes, as well as exceptional climatic conditions. In a hospitable and friendly Spanish-speaking world, you can not only relax and have fun, but also get to know all the shades of the multi-colored cultures of Spain and Latin America, as well as make many friends in all corners of the four Spanish-speaking continents! nine0003
It only takes one step towards learning Spanish and you will discover a world full of alluring prospects, interesting acquaintances and exciting discoveries! Just one step into a new world.