The number of Spanish speakers increased by 5% in the past year, to 635 million speakersIt is the third majority language in the world after Mandarin Chinese and Hindi, but it faces risks such as becoming… “Suspicious language” in the United Statesthe Cervantes Institute noted this Sunday at its annual book presentation “Spanish in the World 2025”.
This came during a press conference by Cervantes Director Luis García Montero, and Francisco Moreno, Director of the World Spanish Observatory, within the framework of the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), the largest in the world in the Spanish language.
Garcia Montero said: “Spanish is the majority language. There are more than 600 million registered Spanish speakers in the world, and more than 530 million people speak Spanish as their mother tongue, meaning Spanish is the majority language, and it is the third in the world, after Mandarin Chinese, which is the first, and Hindi, which is the second.”
especially, Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the worldabout 125 million.
Likewise, Moreno added, the number of Spanish students has increased by 20% in the last 10 years, which means that the “future” of the speaking community is in that group of children of immigrants, students and foreigners who have gone to live in Spanish-speaking countries.
In this sense, the report highlighted that one in ten Spanish speakers reside in non-Spanish-speaking countries, a fact that indicates its importance as a foreign language. Migrant language.
“Suspicious Use” in the United States
However, the Spanish language also faces notable challenges, as is the case in the United States, where these challenges exist 48 million people use it as their first language It has been directly criticized by President Donald Trump, amid his aggressive anti-immigration policies, which may have had an impact on its use.
“No one is going to stop speaking Spanish at home because the prime minister arrives and says it is wrong to speak it. What happens is that it affects the prestige of the language, by making it suspect, and turning speakers into suspects of being candidates for deportation affects the prestige of the language, and in the medium and long term it affects it.” It can affect language continuityMoreno said.
Among other activities at FIL, García Montero will participate in the tribute that the fair will present, as a book lover, to the Mexican essayist Gonzalo Celorio, who recently received the Cervantes Prize, on December 2.