Spanish became the second most spoken language in the world
Spanish, with more than 495 million speakers, is the second language in the world after Chinese with the most speakers, whose number continued to grow in 2012 compared to the decline recorded by English and Chinese. This is reflected in the 2012 yearbook of the Cervantes Institute, Spanish in the World, which has been published since 1998 and which was presented today by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, José Manuel García-Margallo, and the director of Cervantes, Víctor García de the Conch.
Spanish is also the second language of international communication after English. It is estimated that in 2030, 7.5% of the world's population will be Spanish-speaking (535 million people), a percentage only surpassed by Chinese, García de la Concha highlighted at the event held at the Cervantes headquarters. Within three or four generations, 10% of the world's population will understand Spanish and the US will be the country with the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, ahead of Mexico, the report predicts.
On the Internet, also second
On the Internet, Spanish is now the third most used language, after English and Chinese. Its presence on the Internet registers a sustained growth of more than 800% in the last 10 years, with a growing distance compared to Japanese, Portuguese or German. On the microblogging social network Twitter, Spanish is the second most used language after English, far behind Arabic, Russian, Italian, French and German. Also on Facebook, Spanish is one of the most used languages with more than 80 million people.
The report reflects that some 18 million students study Spanish as a foreign language in the world. Last year, Cervantes recorded an 8% growth in the number of Spanish student enrollments. Cervantes, present in 77 cities in 44 countries, focuses its activity mainly on America and Asia.
García de la Concha has highlighted the agreement signed in 2012 with Mexico that will allow Spain to use Mexican offices in the US and has referred to the progress of negotiations to create a Spanish Observatory in the US. But It has also warned of the lack of competent Spanish teachers in countries such as Brazil or China, whose universities in 2010 could only accept 30 percent of the applications (about 25,000 Chinese students) received to study Spanish.
Minister García-Margallo has referred to Cervantes as the «jewel in the crown» of Spanish foreign action and has warned of the danger that globalization entails in terms of the advancement of a uniform universal culture where Anglo-Saxon patterns prevail.
El español ya es la segunda lengua materna del planeta con 500 millones de personas