Spanish in the United States

• Published in: Romance philology 2006-01, Vol.60, p.235-241
• Main Author: Craddock, Jerry R
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0035-8002; 2295-9017; 2295-9017
• DOI: 10.1484/J.RPH.2.305748

(An expanded version of Craddock's "Spanish Language," originally published as part of the Dictionary of American History, third edition [New York: Thomson Learning, 2003, 7, 490-492]). From the 16th century to the early 19th century, Spain created & maintained Spanish-speaking settlements throughout a portion of the present-day US that 20th-century historians have called the "Spanish borderlands," a collective term for the northernmost Spanish settlements in the New World & known at the time as the three regions of (1) La Florida, extending from present-day South Carolina to Mississippi; (2) New Mexico, extending from Texas to Arizona; & (3) the west coast, called "California" after a fictitious island in a chivalrous romance. American English absorbed a significant number of loanwords & placenames from the Spanish borderlands, where Spanish-speaking communities have survived without interruption to the present in Louisiana & New Mexico/Colorado & have been augmented in the 20th century by refugees & a steady stream of immigrants from Latin American countries until the US may now have one of the world's largest Spanish-speaking populations, after Mexico & Spain. References. J. Hitchcock