Hispanophone

Hispanophone refers to anything related to the Spanish language. The term is derived from the Latin word Hispanicus which refers to anything pertaining to the historic Roman province of Hispania, and the word "phone". Hispanophone is linked to Hispanic culture which is the legacy of the vast and prolonged Spanish Empire, and the sense of identity of these people is sometimes referred by the term Hispanidad.
The Spanish-speaking world, also called the Hispanosphere, encompasses the following geographical areas: Spain, Hispanic America, Equatorial Guinea, and portions of the United States. When used in the broader sense to include areas where the local culture has been heavily impacted by Hispanic influences, the former Spanish East Indies colonies of Philippines and Guam are also included.
In addition to the general definition of Hispanophone, some groups in the Hispanic world make a distinction between Castilian-speaking and Spanish-speaking, with the former term denoting the speakers of the Spanish language—also known as Castilian—and the latter the speakers of the Spanish or Hispanic languages.

The Hispanosphere

There are an estimated 474.7 million native Spanish speakers and about 100 million second and foreign language speakers around the world as of 2022, totaling 574 million Hispanophones in total. This makes Spanish the second most natively spoken language and fourth most spoken language overall globally. The vast majority of Hispanophones are concentrated in the Hispanosphere, the countries and territories where Spanish is a native or significant language.

Countries

During the Spanish period between 1492 and 1898, many people from Spain migrated to the new lands they had conquered. The Spaniards took with them their language and culture, and integrated within the society they had settled, creating a large empire that stretched all over the world and producing several multiracial populations. Their influences are found in the following continents and countries that were originally colonized by the Spaniards.

Rank

Country/territory

Spanish-speaking
population

Area

Mexico

Judeo-Spanish (Ladino)

Main Article: Judaeo-Spanish, See also: Sephardic Jews
Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain brought their language to their new lands. This language is now known as Judeo Spanish or Ladino, and retains many unique grammatical structures from Old Castilian, in addition to other older Iberian languages such as Old Catalan, Galician, Asturleonese, Old Aragonese, and Mozarabic. The language is traditionally written in Hebrew script, however has in modern times often been written with the Latin script. The vast majority of speakers lived in the Ottoman Empire, Morocco, and the Balkans, with a minority in Italy, Greece, Brazil, and other locations along the Mediterranean Sea. In 2017, the language was officially recognised as a dialect of Spanish by the Royal Spanish Academy. As of 2018, Ethnologue estimated around 51,000 people to speak the language natively. Ethnologue has categorised the language as endangered.

Geographic distribution of Spanish speakers

Europe

Spain

The modern-day nationalities that live in the region of ancient Hispania are the Portuguese, Spanish, Andorran and Gibraltarian people. Historically, the modern country of Spain was formed by the accretion of several independent Iberian kingdoms through dynastic inheritance, conquest and the will of the local elites. These kingdoms had their own nationalistic loyalties and political borders.
Today, there is no single Castilian–Spanish identity for the whole country. Spain is a de facto plurinational state. Many Spanish citizens feel no conflict in recognising their multiple ethnic identities at the same time. Spain is a culturally heterogeneous country, home to a wide range of cultures, each one with its own customs and traditions. Some such cultures have their own language. Since the beginning of the transition to democracy in Spain and the creation of the Spanish autonomous communities, after Francoist Spain, there have been many movements towards more autonomy in certain territories of the country, some with the aim of achieving full independence and others with the goal of improving the system of devolution and the state of the autonomies.
The existence of multiple distinct cultures in Spain allows an analogy to be drawn to the United Kingdom. Using the term Spanish for someone of Spanish descent would then be expected to be equivalent to using Briton to describe someone descending from some part of the United Kingdom. Cultures within the United Kingdom, such as English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, would then correspond in this analogy to cultures within Spain such as Castilian, Catalan, Galician and Basque among others. In contrast with Spain, because of centuries of gradual and mutual consolidation across the Iberian Peninsula, such distinctions tend to be blurred. It is a subtle, yet important, distinction.
In Spain, as in the United Kingdom, the economically dominant territories—Castile and England—spread their language for mutual communication. However, the political dominance in the United Kingdom tends to be sharper compared to Spain, where most of medieval realms do not correspond with the actual boundaries of the autonomous communities, and the crown was unified into a sole monarch.

Americas

Hispanic America

Spanish is the most widely-spoken language of the Americas, as well as the official language in a great part of the Americas.

United States

Origins and demography

U.S. Hispanics are citizens of the United States whose ancestry or national origin is of any of the nations composing the Hispanosphere. A Hispanic person's status is independent from whether or not he or she speaks the Spanish language, for not all Hispanic Americans speak Spanish. A Hispanic person may be of any race. Hispanics accounted for 17.1% of the population, around 53.2 million people. This was an increase of 29% since 2004, when Hispanics were 14.1% of the population. The Hispanic growth rate over the July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004, period was 3.6% — higher than any other ancestral group in the United States — and more than three times the rate of the nation's total population. The projected Hispanic population of the United States for July 1, 2050, is 105.6 million people. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 25% of the nation's total population by the year 2050.
Historically, a continuous Hispanic presence in the territory of the United States has existed since the 16th century, earlier than any other group after the Amerindians. Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States. The first confirmed European landing on the continent was that of Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 on the shore he christened La Florida. Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Maine, and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon.
In 1540 Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of the present United States. In the same year Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today's Arizona–Mexico border and traveled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States. Other Spanish explorers of the United States make up a long list that includes, among others, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Gaspar de Portolà, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Tristán de Luna y Arellano, and Juan de Oñate. In all, Spaniards probed half of today's lower 48 states before the first English colonization attempt at Roanoke Island in 1585.
The Spanish created the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States, at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. Santa Fe, New Mexico also predates Jamestown, Virginia and Plymouth Colony. Later came Spanish settlements in San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, to name just a few. The Spanish even established a Jesuit mission in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay 37 years before the founding of Jamestown.
Two iconic American stories have Spanish antecedents, too. Almost 80 years before John Smith's alleged rescue by Pocahontas, a man by the name of Juan Ortiz told of his remarkably similar rescue from execution by an Indian girl. Spaniards also held a thanksgiving—56 years before the famous Pilgrims festival—when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans. As late as 1783, at the end of the American Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States ; in 1775, Spanish ships even reached Alaska. From 1819 to 1848, the United States increased the nation's area by roughly a third of former Spanish and Mexican territory, including today's three most populous states: California, Texas, and Florida. Hispanics became the first American citizens in the newly acquired Southwest territory and remained the ancestral majority in several states until the 20th century, and a large minority in the 21st century.
Hispanic Americans have fought in all the wars of the United States and have earned some of the highest distinctions awarded to U.S. soldiers. Historic figures in the United States have been Hispanic from early times.

National Hispanic Heritage Month

The National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated in the United States from September 15 to October 15.