(QCOSTARICA) Spanish is one of the fastest growing languages in the world. This was revealed by the Instituto Cervantes in its latest report.
Defining how many languages are spoken around the world is almost impossible, because there are dialects and languages not classified. However, Spanish is one of the most spoken language by far, says the Cervantes report.
According to the report, 24 countries have Spanish as an official language. In addition, 12 other states recognize the language with the status of co-official and the language is spoken in large communities in 30 other countries, including Japan, Brazil, Switzerland and Israel.
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- In 2015, almost 470 million people spoke Spanish as their mother tongue
- Spanish is the second native language of the world by number of speakers
- In 2015, 6.7% of the world’s population speaks Spanish
- More than 21 million students study Spanish as a foreign language
- Spanish is the third most used language on the Web.
- Spanish is the second most used language on Twitter at mostly Anglohone cities such as London or New York
- The Hispanic population of the United States now round the 53 million (52,988,755)
- In 2050 the United States will be the first Spanish-speaking country in the world.
- More than half the population growth of the United States between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increased Hispanic community [/su_box]
Spanish is so popular, according to the report, that it is the second most spoken language in the world.
The study indicates that the United States is the fifth country with more Spanish speakers. Within three or our generations, 10% of the inhabitants on the Earth will speak Spanish and the United States will be the country with the largest Spanish-speaking popoulation, even above Mexico.
Currently, topping the list is Mexico with 121 million, followed by Colombia, Spain and Argentina, each with over 40 million people.
Making matters worse, Spanish is now the second language of Wikipedia by the number of visits. Only English precedes Spanish visits of the virtual encyclopedia that is available in over 280 langauges.
Click here for the Instituto Cervantes report.
(In Spanish of course)
Around the social media, popular sites led by the likes of Buzzfeed is also in Spanish, a trend occurring in the past year.
In conclusion, the report says, that writing in Spanish is trendy and increasing the power of the language.
Source: Instituto Cervantes, with notes from Semana.com
