U.S. Spanish, a language lacking prestige

The U.S. Spanish suffers from a fundamental problem of lack of prestigeThis was made clear today at the first round table of the “Language and Identity” congress, held for the second year in a row by the Instituto Cervantes of New York.

This was the main idea repeated with different nuances by the speakers at the “Contact Languages and Bilingualism” forum, who expressed that Spanish and “Spanglish“Spanish truffled with English words and expressions – is alive and well but reserved for use in informal settingswhether with family or friends.

English remains the language of choice in the professional environment, and although bilingualism is objectively valued, the fact is that Spanish is undervalued from the very beginning of school, in a country where only 20% of students in primary education study a second language. (and this despite the fact that Spanish is the most popular language but with few hours of instruction).