Spanish, America's First European Language

by Brian Alcamo

We all know that it’s useful to learn a second language, and many residents in the United States are keen on learning Spanish. Such a goal makes sense, considering it is by far the most commonly spoken second language in the country. But why is that the case? 

The US is the country with the second largest number of Spanish speakers in the world, behind only Mexico (and ahead of Spain itself!). You may think that Spanish is simply common in the United States because of our neighbors to the south in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and other Latin American countries. Or perhaps you believe that Spanish became prominent in the United States during waves of immigration in the twentieth century. However, it turns out that the history of Spanish in the United States goes way deeper than hispanophone neighbors and newcomers. 

In fact, the Spanish language arrived on modern day US soil before English.

Spanish’s history in the present day United States dates back to the 16th Century, when Spanish colonizers first arrived in what is now the US back in 1513 with a voyage led by Ponce de Léon. Landing in Florida, they brought their language with them. Spanish colonization efforts didn’t pan out as productively in the Southeast US as they did in the Southwest, though, with Spanish colonies in Southeast mainland North America only reaching up towards northern Florida. Spain eventually held control of Louisiana (not the state, the entire territory, remember the Louisiana purchase?) for a short period of time, but it was regions closer to the Pacific in the Southwest and West Coast that maintained a wider-reaching Spanish language presence. 

A map of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires (Spain’s empire is in blue). Look at the West Coast!

According to Rosina Lozano, author of ‘An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States,’ “In the 19th century, Spanish was the only language that the federal government supported financially by paying for translations of official territorial documents.’ By World War II, Spanish had become the most popular second language of choice for students to learn in both secondary and higher education. 

Spanish in the US is not a cookie-cutter, singular entity, either. It has just as rich a patchwork of dialects, varieties, and accents as English in the US. For example, the Spanish of Colorado features more monophthongal, “pure” vowels evident of older Castilian Spanish whereas most Spanish elsewhere features diphthongs. Besides just difference in accents, though, some regions of the United States have entire proper varieties named after them.

Take New Mexico, for example. In New Mexico, parts of the government and courts even conducted themselves in Spanish for a time. Some local governments in the state still do today. New Mexican Spanish is its own variety of Spanish that has developed and grown in the state over the course of centuries, dating back to the 1500s. Because New Mexico was isolated from both Spain and other Spanish colonies, New Mexican Spanish has held onto properties found in Castilian Spanish that were historically common centuries ago. New Mexican Spanish has vocabulary influenced by the Nahuatl indigenous people as well as indigenous Pueblos indigenous to the upper Rio Grande Valley. It also includes plenty of mexicanismos from their neighbors to the south. Here’s an example of what New Mexican Spanish sounds like:

Unfortunately, New Mexican Spanish is slowly disappearing, being replaced by a combination of English and Mexican Spanish alike. However, the fact that a variety of Spanish exists that has been around long enough to be named after a US state is proof positive that the language is just as entrenched in US culture as English. 

Make no mistake, the Spanish language is not “invading” the United States. It’s been here the whole time. Spanish is a useful language to learn because of its applicability in the future. Of course, more US Spanish speakers are being born every day. Yes, learning Spanish will make you more competitive on the job market. Sure, it will help you interact with immigrant communities across the country. But perhaps it’s time to consider the notion that perhaps learning Spanish is useful to learn because it also puts us in touch with a rich part of history that is inherently and undeniably American. 

Thanks For Reading!

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