"Native to"[edit]

Since there's a small disagreement about whether or not the US should be included in the "native to" section of the infobox, I thought I'd give my thoughts. First, I think it's inappropriate to place "United States" as a whole alongside "Hispanic America" and Spain. Secondly, there are varieties of Spanish native to the US, albeit they're all endangered at best and are in regions which were once part of Spain's American colonies (ie, Hispanic America). It would be inaccurate not to mention Spanish being native to parts of the US. Maybe the infobox could say "parts of the US" (and maybe also "much of Belize"?), but I think it would be better for this article to just not have a "native to" tag in its infobox (like English language), or for the "native to" tag to include a link to Hispanophone, like what French language and Chinese language do. Erinius (talk) 00:46, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Kwamikagami @Jotamar: thoughts? Erinius (talk) 00:47, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Something like 'see Hispanophones' would be fine by me. I only added the US because it is excluded from Hispanic America according to our article. — kwami (talk) 00:50, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Fine by me too. It is somewhat circular since Hispanophone means Spanish-speaking (so we'd be saying Spanish is native to Spain, to Hispanic America, and to the other places it's native to), but it's an accepted convention and it works for the reader. Erinius (talk) 10:12, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Erinius@ you might also want to comment on the next thread. — kwami (talk) 04:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Instead of Hispanic America, it would be more exact former Spanish colonies in the Americas, which includes the SW US and (I think) Belize. --Jotamar (talk) 23:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I don't know much about Belizean history. Like half of its population are native Spanish speakers, but I'm not sure if Belize used to be a Spanish colony and they're descended from colonial settlers, or if part of Belize was colonized by Spain, or if they're mainly descended from immigrants from neighboring countries. I think determining where exactly Spanish (or other world languages) is natively spoken can be a tricky question in some edge cases, so I think it's best to either not have that tag or to have some kind of cop-out like "see Hispanophone" or "see geographical distribution section" after "Spain, Hispanic America/former Spanish colonies in the Americas". Erinius (talk) 19:16, 13 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ok, I'll accept whatever gets consensus, I just think that the current list (Spain, Hispanic America, United States) is quite misleading. --Jotamar (talk) 16:48, 15 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"but I think it would be better for this article to just not have a "native to" tag in its infobox" I wholeheartedly agree with Erinius' suggestion of not filling the native parametre in the infobox.--Asqueladd (talk) 09:46, 16 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Agreed. Just drop the Native to label in the infobox. It's open to interpretation and speculation as to what it means, who it includes and who it doesn't. It's not meaningless, but unless and until a precise definition is presented (which may be overkill for this article) the meaning is so elastic that it can turn out to be either not informative or, at the very least, misleading. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So, I take it we do have consensus to at least replace "United States" with "see Hispanophones" or "see geographic distribution", right? Do we have consensus to go further and remove the "native to" tag entirely? Erinius (talk) 02:24, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ok, myself, Barefoot, and Asqueladd have said they'd prefer to remove the "native to" tag (although I'd also be fine with "see Hispanophone" or "see Geographical distribution"), and Jotamar has said he'll go along with whatever reaches consensus, @Kwamikagami, what do you think? Erinius (talk) 11:40, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have no problem with either of those suggestions. "Native to" is really intended for small languages spoken in a limited area, that people may not have heard of and can't identify. It's not meant to be a list of countries, and IMO (and in the opinions of others who have discussed this for e.g. English and French) it is not necessary or even beneficial for major languages. On the other hand, if it's not there, people may try putting it back in, so s.t. "see Hisponophonie" would be reasonable to head that off. Really, though, I think leaving it out is the easiest option. We still have the map, after all, to show where it's spoken. — kwami (talk) 11:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"Native to" is really intended for small languages spoken in a limited area Exactly, most languages are not world languages and the infobox parameters that work for most languages don't always make sense for world languages. This discussion reminded me of the ethnicity parameter discussion on the Infobox language talk page, which I'd read a while back - your pointing out that that param was meant for smaller languages and not very widely spoken ones really informed my thinking on this. I'll go ahead and remove the param. Erinius (talk) 12:02, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In line with other major languages such as English and French, I propose to indicate places where the language is the majority native language to be included in the 'native to' category, followed by its "sphere" to include other areas of significance without being specific (e.g., English listing out the core Anglosphere followed by "other areas of the English speaking world"). In the case of Spanish, this would be Spain and Hispanic America plus '(see Hispanosphere)'. - Moalli (talk) 06:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I do not agree, for reasons above, as well as other such as the poor Euro-centric balance itself in the wording "Spain and Hispanic America plus '(see Hispanosphere)'". Contrariwise, there is however potential to further trim the infobox elsewhere, such as the values of the nation parametre (rendered inline as "official language in"), in which places where the language is non-official are paradoxically featured.--Asqueladd (talk) 11:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Renaming "Dependent territories" to "Subnationals"[edit]

Should I rename "Dependent territories" to "Subnationals"? As it would look like in the French language JrBooyah (talk) 15:48, 30 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"Subnationals" doesn't mean anything, so no. "Subnational jurisdictions" or "National subdivisions", perhaps. Largoplazo (talk) 22:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Limits of this page[edit]

Regarding this recently deleted, and then undeleted, statement: The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as a second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system. This means that the way Spanish is spoken as a second language in one particular non-native area is relevant for this page. Apparently it is more relevant because of the presence of 2 Spanish cities in North Africa, which probably means that it is even more relevant for places like the US, Brazil or several Caribbean nations. Should we include, for instance, that students of Spanish from the US have trouble with the /ɾ/ - /r/ difference and they often get rid of the distinction in their Spanish? Or that Brazilian students of Spanish tend to pronounce both those sounds as velars? All that, I insist, in this particular page, and not for instance in Spanish as a second or foreign language, or other pages. I don't think that is a wise policy, the probability of someone reading this page to find out about that sort of details is, well, roughly zero. Jotamar (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Succintly outlining diglossic dynamics and language contact (and attrition) in the US in this page would be great, tbh. I am not sure if the context solely relates to "learners" in an academic setting. The current emphasis in this article favours speaking about the language in places in which it is not very spoken (plus counting up to the last speaker and not nuancing in any way whatsoever the "sovereign country" frame), instead of speaking about the languages in the places in which the language is spoken a lot, such as the Americas. In this sense, outlining dynamics of language contact and sociolinguistics in regard of some major indigenous languages of the Americas such as Guarani, Quechua or Aymara would be ace. The geographical area of linguistic transition between vernacular languages in North Africa, which is perhaps more relevant within those two cities than beyond those two cities, is interesting in a context of talking about the geographical distribution of a given language, and is perhaps less abrupt than most of the Portuguese-Spanish transition area in the Iberian Peninsula. Something about language contact in Uruguay-Brazil could be perhaps worth mentioning. All of this, of course, framing/focusing information in this article in terms of the language which this article deals about--Asqueladd (talk) 20:37, 16 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's not to say that at some point content may not be redirected to a more specific article, but frankly, the intimidating table entitled "Spanish speakers by country" full of original research and lopsided numbers should go first.--Asqueladd (talk) 22:26, 16 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In addition to relevance, another concern of mine is that, being the only mention of traits of Spanish as a second language in all of the page, the text in question might easily mislead readers into thinking that Spanish is a native language in Northern Morocco. --Jotamar (talk) 23:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Infobox map and Western Sahara[edit]

I seek to challenge the insistence that Western Sahara be left out of the lead infobox map, seeing as multiple sources describe Spanish as a co-official language of the territory. Evaporation123 (talk) 07:10, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Rename Dependent territories to National subdivisions[edit]

Should i rename Dependent territories to national subdivisions? JrBooyah (talk) 23:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No. The only place "Dependent territories" appears in over Puerto Rico in the infobox, and Puerto Rico isn't a national subdivision. It isn't part of the United States, it's a dependent territory of it. Largoplazo (talk) 03:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

¿what's the source of the .castilian red and .spanish blue name map?[edit]

.i found a similar map where .el .salvador, .peru, and .chile are shaded in .castilian red:

Mapa de "Castellano" frente a "Español" para referirse al español - MoverDB.com Brawlio (talk) 03:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I am from Chile and we rarely refer to the language as "Español", almost always as "Castellano," in school textbooks and casual conversation. This might be changing with immigrants from other parts of South America who prefer to use "Español". I would support changing the map to the one you linked to, or one that has Chile with dashes.
Sources:
- Chilean General Education Law from 2009, Article 30, no. 2, declaring that "Lengua Castellana" is the primary language of instruction: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1006043&idParte=
- Textbook from the Ministry of Education for "Castellano" as a school subject:https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/bitstream/handle/20.500.12365/411/MONO-341.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
- Textbook from 1967 also highlighting "Castellano", showing that this is the historically relevant term: https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/handle/20.500.12365/19723?show=full Diegojosesalva (talk) 19:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I answered this on the Spanish Wikipedia, but for the Philippines the source is page 236 of La lengua española en Filipinas by the Spanish linguists Antonio Quilis and Celia Casado-Fresnillo. 85% of their respondents referred to the language as "español"; the remainder used "castellano". This maps with contemporary (although anecdotal at this point) use of the two terms in English and the Philippine languages. --Sky Harbor (talk) 17:34, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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