DOCSLIB.ORG

LANGUAGE ATTITUDES and LINGUISTIC PROFILING AMONG MICRO-ENTERPRISERS in MEXICO a Dissertation by REBECCA ANN BREWER Submitted

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
LANGUAGE ATTITUDES and LINGUISTIC PROFILING AMONG MICRO-ENTERPRISERS in MEXICO a Dissertation by REBECCA ANN BREWER Submitted View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Texas A&M Repository LANGUAGE ATTITUDES AND LINGUISTIC PROFILING AMONG MICRO-ENTERPRISERS IN MEXICO A Dissertation by REBECCA ANN BREWER Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Hilaire Kallendorf Co-Chair of Committee, Shari Kendall Committee Members, Irene Moyna Stephen Miller Jamis Perrett Head of Department, Steven Oberhelman August 2013 Major Subject: Hispanic Studies Copyright 2013 Rebecca Ann Brewer ABSTRACT This study examines the language attitudes of entrepreneurial students enrolled in the Academy for Creating Enterprise (ACE) in Mexico City toward six rural and urban varieties of Mexican Spanish to consider whether their attitudes towards these varieties influence their decisions about hiring. A verbal guise test and focus groups were used to determine the current attitudes held by 98 ACE students towards the popular and upper-class dialects of Mexico City; the urban dialect of Mérida, Yucatan; the urban dialect of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; the urban dialect of Monterrey, Nuevo León; and the rural dialect of San Jeronimito, Guerrero. It was determined that the ACE students, who are current and future entrepreneurs and employers, do engage in “linguistic profiling” (Purnell et al., 1999), preferring the northern varieties of Spanish and the variety spoken by the upper class of Mexico City in all three dimensions of attractiveness, status, and hireability. These results indicate that speakers of the popular variety of Mexico City and the southern varieties of Yucatán and Guerrero are less likely to be hired. In addition, the students’ ratings of hireability were also influenced by the students’ age, gender, business owner status, and exposure to the dialect in question. The students’ level of income was found to be the most likely to influence the ratings of speaker attractiveness and status. This case study of current and future employers enrolled at ACE responds to a call for the application of language attitudes research (Edwards, 1982; Garrett, 2010) and provides a model for working with an organization. Based on these findings, it was ii determined that ACE should modify its curriculum to include explicit training regarding linguistic attitudes and hiring practices. iii DEDICATION To my children. May you never, ever give up. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very grateful to my mentor and guide, Shari Kendall. She has provided me with the help and support I so desperately needed, time after time. I appreciate her willingness to take the time to help me see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am also very grateful to Hilaire Kallendorf, who also provided me with great strength and support through her uplifting conversations, advice, and her own example. I couldn’t have done this without the support of my best friend and husband, Jeremi Brewer. He believed in me even in my darkest hours. He pushed me to succeed through his tireless example and many efforts. I enjoy every moment of our adventures together. T.I.P. I am eternally grateful to my daughters, who, without even knowing it, inspired me to complete this process. The support of my parents, Jeff and Janice Richardson, and my siblings, must also be acknowledged since much of the time spent during holiday visits was filled with many hours of writing and research. I couldn’t have done this without their help and support as well. My committee members have also been of great help to me as they spent many hours reviewing and commenting and helping me see the value of my work. Tony Love also greatly assisted me in conducting the data analysis. I thank him for his efforts and for helping when he had no obligation to do so. v A special thank you to the Academy for Creating Enterprise founders Stephen and Bette Gibson for allowing me the opportunity to conduct research on their campus in Mexico City and for giving me so many other marvelous opportunities. I also thank Gandhi Blas and the other staff members at the Academy in Mexico for assisting me with the data collection. The students of Brigham Young University who completed an internship with the Academy also deserve recognition for their assistance in entering the data. I also thank the students of the Academy for participating so willingly and for giving me their honest opinion. Finally, I would like to thank Lynne Hansen for introducing me to the wonderful world of linguistics. Her enthusiasm and love of learning inspired me to further my education. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 Language Attitudes ........................................................................................................ 3 Regional Dialects of Mexico .......................................................................................... 6 The Academy for Creating Enterprise (ACE): Contextualization of Subjects for this Study ...................................................................................................................... 20 Contributions of the Study ........................................................................................... 25 Previous Work on Language Attitudes ........................................................................ 27 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 29 Limitations of Research ............................................................................................... 30 Structure of the Study ................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ........................................................... 36 Section I: Language Attitudes—A Historical Background .......................................... 37 Section II: Theoretical Framework—The Mentalist Perspective ................................. 40 Section III: Methodologies of Language Attitude Studies ........................................... 42 Section IV: Language Attitude Studies and Hireability ............................................... 51 Section V: Themes and Findings of Language Attitude Studies ................................. 56 Chapter Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 78 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ................................................................................... 80 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 81 Research Design ........................................................................................................... 81 Procedures .................................................................................................................... 86 Pilot Study .................................................................................................................... 86 vii Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 92 Coding and Organizing the Data ................................................................................ 102 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 108 CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION ................................................... 110 Reliability of the Instrument ...................................................................................... 111 Findings ...................................................................................................................... 112 Qualitative Results ..................................................................................................... 141 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 150 CHAPTER V DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ..................................................... 153 Summary .................................................................................................................... 155 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 158 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 168 Possible Practical Applications .................................................................................. 169 Suggestions for Future Research ................................................................................ 170 REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Dialects, Standards, and Vernaculars
    1 Dialects, Standards, and Vernaculars Most of us have had the experience of sitting in a public place and eavesdropping on conversations taking place around the United States. We pretend to be preoccupied, but we can’t seem to help listening. And we form impressions of speakers based not only on the topic of conversation, but on how people are discussing it. In fact, there’s a good chance that the most critical part of our impression comes from how people talk rather than what they are talking about. We judge people’s regional background, social stat us, ethnicity, and a host of other social and personal traits based simply on the kind of language they are using. We may have similar kinds of reactions in telephone conversations, as we try to associate a set of characteristics with an unidentified speaker in order to make claims such as, “It sounds like a salesperson of some type” or “It sounds like the auto mechanic.” In fact, it is surprising how little conversation it takes to draw conclusions about a speaker’s background – a sentence, a phrase, or even a word is often enough to trigger a regional, social, or ethnic classification. Video: What an accent does Assessments of a complex set of social characteristics and personality traits based on language differences are as inevitable as the kinds of judgments we make when we find out where people live, what their occupations are, where they went to school, and who their friends are. Language differences, in fact, may serve as the single most reliable indicator of social position in our society.
    [Show full text]
  • Corpora and (The Need For) Other Methods in a Study of Lancashire Dialect
    ZAA 54.1 (2006): s1-sn © WILLEM HOLLMANN AND ANNA SIEWIERSKA Corpora and (the need for) other methods in a study of Lancashire dialect Abstract: This paper is based on a nascent project on Lancashire dialect grammar, which aims to describe the relevant features of this dialect and to engage with related theoretical and methodological debates. We show how corpora allow one to arrive at more precise descriptions of the data than was previously possible. But we also draw attention to the need for other methods, in particular modern elicitation tasks and attitude questionnaires developed in perceptual dialectology. Combining these methods promises to provide more insight into both more general theoretical issues and the exact nature of the object of study, namely Lancashire dialect. 1. Introduction This paper describes a nascent project on the grammar of Lancashire dialect. In line with the theme of this issue we focus on methodological issues, in particular matters concerning the use of corpora, both advantages and challenges. Section 2 presents some background information about the aims of the project, situating it within the recent surge in interest in dialect grammar. Section 3 offers an illustration of the in- sights that may be obtained from using corpora as well as the limitations of corpus studies, with reference to three ditransitive constructions. Section 4 shifts the stage to two other variables we have started to analyse, namely agreement in past tense BE and the presence, reduction or omission of the definite article. We will argue for the use of an additional data collection method, viz. modern elicitation tasks (cf.
    [Show full text]
  • Perceptual Dialectology and GIS in Kurdish 1
    Perceptual Dialectology and GIS in Kurdish 1 Full title: A perceptual dialectological approach to linguistic variation and spatial analysis of Kurdish varieties Main Author: Eva Eppler, PhD, RCSLT, Mag. Phil Reader/Associate Professor in Linguistics Department of Media, Culture and Language University of Roehampton | London | SW15 5SL [email protected] | www.roehampton.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 20 8392 3791 Co-author: Josef Benedikt, PhD, Mag.rer.nat. Independent Scholar, Senior GIS Researcher GeoLogic Dr. Benedikt Roegergasse 11/18 1090 Vienna, Austria [email protected] | www.geologic.at Short Title: Perceptual Dialectology and GIS in Kurdish Perceptual Dialectology and GIS in Kurdish 2 Abstract: This paper presents results of a first investigation into Kurdish linguistic varieties and their spatial distribution. Kurdish dialects are used across five nation states in the Middle East and only one, Sorani, has official status in one of them. The study employs the ‘draw-a-map task’ established in Perceptual Dialectology; the analysis is supported by Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The results show that, despite the geolinguistic and geopolitical situation, Kurdish respondents have good knowledge of the main varieties of their language (Kurmanji, Sorani and the related variety Zazaki) and where to localize them. Awareness of the more diverse Southern Kurdish varieties is less definitive. This indicates that the Kurdish language plays a role in identity formation, but also that smaller isolated varieties are not only endangered in terms of speakers, but also in terms of their representations in Kurds’ mental maps of the linguistic landscape they live in. Acknowledgments: This work was supported by a Santander and by Ede & Ravenscroft Research grant 2016.
    [Show full text]
  • Encouraging Linguistic Diversity in the Campus Community
    ENCOURAGING LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY AMY SMITH, HOUSING & FOOD SERVICES GOALS • Understand how & why linguistic diversity exists • Provide examples of linguistic variation based on traits such as sex, gender, race, region, etc. • Understand that – linguistically – all ways of speaking are and should be considered “equal” • Understand challenges faced by language minority students • Public attitudes about non-English languages and different ways of speaking • Linguistic discrimination • Think about ways to encourage linguistic diversity on campus • Thinking about language differences not as a deficit but an addition to the campus community “LANGUAGE MINORITY” • “Language Minority” • Regional/ethnic dialects – e.g. Southern American English, African American English • English as a Second/Foreign Language – e.g. International students • Bilinguals – e.g. students who speak English fluently, but a different language with their parents • Also includes – to some extent – young women’s speech Abstract concept/ thought HOW SPEECH “WORKS” • We each have a set of linguistic rules partially Rule 1 dictated by non-linguistic characteristics, such as: Rule 2 • Native language . • Sex/gender Rule n • Race • Region • Socioeconomic status • Age • All of these rules are learned and can also change over time • What is “Standard” English? Speech NATIVE LANGUAGE Most obvious demonstration of differing language rules between populations. Differences at all levels of language: • Word selection • Morphology • Sentence structure • Pronunciation
    [Show full text]
  • Dialect Perception and Attitudes to Variation Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics, German, Slavic, Asian, and African La
    Dialect Perception and Attitudes to Variation Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics, German, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages Gregory C. Robinson Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824, USA [email protected] [email protected] I. Language and People It is perhaps the least surprising thing imaginable to find that attitudes towards languages and their varieties seem to be tied to attitudes towards groups of people. Some groups are believed to be decent, hard-working, and intelligent (and so is their language or variety); some groups are believed to be laid-back, romantic, and devil-may-care (and so is their language or variety); some groups are believed to be lazy, insolent, and procrastinating (and so is their language or variety); some groups are believed to be hard-nosed, aloof, and unsympathetic (and so is their language or variety), and so on. For the folk mind, such correlations are obvious, reaching down even into the linguistic details of the language or variety itself. Germans are harsh; just listen to their harsh, gutteral consonants. US Southerners are laid-back and lazy; just listen to their lazy, drawled vowels. Lower-status speakers are unintelligent; they don’t even understand that two negatives make a positive, and so on. Edwards summarizes this correlation for many social psychologists when he notes that ‘ … people’s reactions to language varieties reveal much of their perception of the speakers of these varieties’ (1982:20). In the clinical fields of speech-language pathology and audiology, these perceptions can have major implications. Negative attitudes about the individuals who use certain linguistic features can pervade service delivery causing testing bias, overrepresentation of minorities and nonmainstream dialect speakers in special education, and lack of linguistic confidence in children.
    [Show full text]
  • Linguistic Profiles: a Quantitative Approach to Theoretical Questions
    Laura A. Janda USA – Norway, Th e University of Tromsø – Th e Arctic University of Norway Linguistic profi les: A quantitative approach to theoretical questions Key words: cognitive linguistics, linguistic profi les, statistical analysis, theoretical linguistics Ключевые слова: когнитивная лингвистика, лингвистические профили, статисти- ческий анализ, теоретическая лингвистика Abstract A major challenge in linguistics today is to take advantage of the data and sophisticated analytical tools available to us in the service of questions that are both theoretically inter- esting and practically useful. I offer linguistic profi les as one way to join theoretical insight to empirical research. Linguistic profi les are a more narrowly targeted type of behavioral profi ling, focusing on a specifi c factor and how it is distributed across language forms. I present case studies using Russian data and illustrating three types of linguistic profi ling analyses: grammatical profi les, semantic profi les, and constructional profi les. In connection with each case study I identify theoretical issues and show how they can be operationalized by means of profi les. The fi ndings represent real gains in our understanding of Russian grammar that can also be utilized in both pedagogical and computational applications. 1. Th e quantitative turn in linguistics and the theoretical challenge I recently conducted a study of articles published since the inauguration of the journal Cognitive Linguistics in 1990. At the year 2008, Cognitive Linguistics took a quanti- tative turn; since that point over 50% of the scholarly articles that journal publishes have involved quantitative analysis of linguistic data [Janda 2013: 4–6]. Though my sample was limited to only one journal, this trend is endemic in linguistics, and it is motivated by a confl uence of historic factors.
    [Show full text]
  • LNGT0101 Introduction to Linguistics • HW4 Is Posted on the Class Website
    11/12/2012 Announcements LNGT0101 Introduction to Linguistics • HW4 is posted on the class website. It is due a week from today (Nov 19th, in class, or by 5pm via e‐mail). • Reminders: On Wednesday we have Gusatvo Freire as a guest lecturer to talk about his work on first language acquisition. Please make sure you do the readings as given on the syllabus as background for his lecture. Lecture #17 • Also, on Wed we have screening of The Linguists. Nov 12th, 2012 2 Announcements • On Monday Nov 19, we’re back in presentation mode. We’ll decide on Myths and presenters on Wednesday. (Remember, Hopefully, good news! you have to do at least one presentation). • I’m still grading your midterm, and you should get it back later this week via e‐mail or in my mailbox. 3 4 Transition from last class Transition from last class • Speakers vary in their use of language. • Language attitudes towards a particular • One factor that leads to variation is region. dialect are subjective, and typically reflect • Regional varieties of a language are what is people’s judgment of the speakers of that typically referred to as dialects. dialect, and not of the dialect itself. • • Dialectal variation can be phonological, Linguistically, all dialects are legitimate rule‐ morphological, syntactic, or lexical. governed speech varieties. Socio‐politically, however, some dialects may be perceived as ‘less correct’ or ‘substandard.’ 5 6 1 11/12/2012 Today’s agenda ‘Ethnic’ dialects and linguistic profiling • Today we talk about another factor that • Certain ethnic groups can have an identifiable relates to dialectal variation and engenders dialect which serves as a solidarity/ language attitudes: Ethnicity.
    [Show full text]
  • Perceptual Dialectology of Egypt. a View from the Berber-Speaking Periphery
    Catherine Miller, Alexandrine Barontini, Marie-Aimée Germanos, Jairo Guerrero and Christophe Pereira (dir.) Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA held in Marseille from May 30th to June 2nd 2017 Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans Perceptual Dialectology of Egypt. A View from the Berber-Speaking Periphery Valentina Serreli DOI: 10.4000/books.iremam.5026 Publisher: Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans Place of publication: Aix-en-Provence Year of publication: 2019 Published on OpenEdition Books: 24 January 2019 Serie: Livres de l’IREMAM Electronic ISBN: 9791036533891 http://books.openedition.org Electronic reference SERRELI, Valentina. Perceptual Dialectology of Egypt. A View from the Berber-Speaking Periphery In: Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA held in Marseille from May 30th to June 2nd 2017 [online]. Aix-en-Provence: Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans, 2019 (generated 12 janvier 2021). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/iremam/5026>. ISBN: 9791036533891. DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.4000/books.iremam.5026. This text was automatically generated on 12 January 2021. Perceptual Dialectology of Egypt. A View from the Berber-Speaking Periphery 1 Perceptual Dialectology of Egypt. A View from the Berber-Speaking Periphery Valentina Serreli 1. Introduction 1 Drawing on an attitudinal and perceptual dialectological survey, the paper presents the dialectology of Egypt, according to the perception of high school students from Siwa Oasis, a peripheral and non-native Arabic-speaking region of Egypt.
    [Show full text]
  • WHAT MA LACH's BONES TELL US: Performances of Relational
    Transmotion Vol 4, No 2 (2018) WHAT MA LACH’S BONES TELL US: Performances of Relational Materiality in Response to Genocide MARÍA REGINA FIRMINO-CASTILLO Acknowledgements: Ta’ntiixh to the many persons whose knowledge and ways of being in the world lent life to the ideas in this article: Nan Xhiv Tzunun (Juana Brito Bernal), Pap Xhas Ma- tom (Jacinto Brito Bernal), Pap Xhasinib’ (Jacinto Santiago Brito), Maxho’l (Lalo Velasco Ceto), Petrona Tzunux Chivalan, Mariano Brito Santiago, Tohil Fidel Valey Brito, Violeta Luna, Daniel Guarcax, Gloria Chacón, Melissa Michal Slocum, and Amauta O.M. Firmino. Any errors and omissions in the following are my own. Dedicated to Ma Lach (María Santiago Cedillo) and Nan Xhiv Tzunun (Juana Brito Bernal). Introduction I was invited to a funeral in 2014, but the bodily remains inside the casket had been stripped of its itiixhil tiichajil—in Ixil Maya, its animating force—almost thirty years before, at the height of the Guatemalan army’s genocide against the Ixil Maya.1 In the casket was a skull with perfora- tions where bullets had entered it; there was also a femur and smaller bones I do not know the names of. But I do know the name of the person these bones once belonged to: Ma Lach (María Santiago Cedillo); she was the mother of Mariano, my husband’s cousin. At the funeral, Ma Lach’s bones were carefully arranged in the casket by a forensic anthropologist, who, with great sensitivity, told the story of what had happened to this body—the body that is/was/and had been Ma Lach.
    [Show full text]
  • Lectures: “Sociolinguistics of Race, Style, and Attitudes”!
    Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and the Humanities Public Lectures: “Sociolinguistics of Race, Style, and Attitudes”! Kate T. Anderson! Assistant Professor! Iyabo F. Osiapem! University of Houston Visiting Assistant Professor, College of William & Mary! "Linking Race and Speech Style through a Sociocultural Theoretical Lens” "I'm Bermudian Like": Using language to perform ”In this presentation I discuss major sociolinguistic approaches to Bermudian identity” Linguistic Profiling based on race--the supposed identification of Bermudians live in the in-between, neither American, British, or someone's race based only on hearing their voice. Summarizing Caribbean. In this talk I will explore how Bermudians, both the methods and findings of my prior work on this subject, I then black and white, use grammatical structure and lexical choice to outline a sociocultural approach to Linguistic Profiling and argue index their Bermudian identity. for a complementary way forward in the field on this timely subject. ” Dr. Osiapem work focuses on language and identity, and the Dr. Anderson's research focuses on discourse and social many ways that they are entwined, among speakers of construction of macro-social categories (e.g, race, ability) through Bermudian English. Recently she has been working on the micro-social interactions (e.g., talk and interaction). Her most history of Black Bermudian English trying to determine how it recent projects explore epistemological underpinnings of research fits into the Atlantic Anglophone Creole Continuum and on approaches to Linguistic Profiling and Multimodal Authoring, perfectivity in the verb phrase of Bermudian English. reflecting her joint interests in social constructions of race and classroom interactions.
    [Show full text]
  • 87 LANGUAGE, PEOPLE, SALIENCE, SPACE: PERCEPTUAL DIALECTOLOGY and LANGUAGE REGARD Dennis R. Preston Oklahoma State University, U
    Dialectologia 5 (2010), 87-131. LANGUAGE, PEOPLE, SALIENCE, SPACE: PERCEPTUAL DIALECTOLOGY AND LANGUAGE REGARD Dennis R. Preston Oklahoma State University, USA [email protected] Abstract This paper explores the not novel idea that popular notions of the geographical distribution and status of linguistic facts are related to beliefs about the speakers of regional varieties but goes on to develop an approach to the underlying cognitive mechanisms that are employed when such connections are made. A detailed procedural account of the awakening of a response, called one of language regard , is given, as well as a structural account of an underlying attitudinal cognitorium with regard to popular beliefs about United States’ Southerners. A number of studies illustrating a variety of research tools in determining the connections, the response mechanisms, and the underlying structures of belief are provided. Keywords language regard, language attitudes, attitudinal cognitorium, perceptual dialectology, implicit and explicit attitudes 1. Introduction It is important to people whose major interest is in language variation to know where the land lies and how it is shaped and filled up — the facts of physical geography — because such matters have an influence on language. Sarah Thomason notes, for example, that Swahili will probably borrow no linguistic features from Pirahã (2001: 78) because speakers of the two languages are widely separated geographically and unlikely to run into one another. Introductory linguistics commonplaces about blocking (mountains, rivers, etc.) and facilitating (passes, rivers, etc.) geographical elements with regard to language and variety contact are also well known. There has even been suspicion that physical facts about geography are directly, even causally, related to 87 ©Universitat de Barcelona Dennis R.
    [Show full text]
  • Localizing Games for the Spanish Speaking World Martina Santoro Okam Game Studio, Argentina Alejandro Gonzalez Brainz, Colombia
    Localizing games for the Spanish Speaking World ! Martina Santoro Okam Game Studio, Argentina Alejandro Gonzalez Brainz, Colombia What you will hear in the next 22 mins. ●Introduction to Latin America ●How this world is diverse ●Difficulties you will find ●Overview of the Spanish speaking World ●How we approach localizing games for the region ●Case study: Vampire Season ●Some key considerations ●Wrap up Despite the difference, we have many of commonalities In contrast, western games work great in the region And how about payments • Credit card penetration is less than 15% • Mayor app store do not support carrier billing, and carriers in LATAM tend to want 60% - 70% of revenues and an integrator on top! This is the spanish speaking world Source: Wikipedia It’s the second natively spoken language spoken natively second the It’s 225,000,000 450,000,000 675,000,000 900,000,000 0 Mandarin (12%) Spanish (6%) English (5%) Hindi (4%) Arabic (3%) Portuguese (3%) Bengali (3%) Russian (2%) Japanese (2%) Source: Wikipedia And the third most used most third the And 1,200,000,000 300,000,000 600,000,000 900,000,000 0 Mandarin (15%) English (11%) Spanish (7%) Arabic (6%) Hindi (5%) Russian(4%) Bengali (4%) Portuguese (3%) Japanese (2%) Source: Wikipedia These are the biggest native spanish speaking countries speaking spanish native biggest the are These 120,000,000 30,000,000 60,000,000 90,000,000 Mexico Colombia Spain Argentina Peru Venezuela Chile Ecuador Guatemala Cuba Bolivia Dominican Republic Honduras Paraguay El Salvador Nicaragua Costa Rica Panama
    [Show full text]