Spanish in the United States

Spanish is the most spoken non-English language in the United States. Some 37.6 million Americans speak Spanish. Among these Spanish speakers, there are 34.8 million Hispanics while 2.8 million are non-Hispanics who still speak Spanish at home every day. The next most spoken non-English languages in the U.S. are Chinese, Hindi and French.

History

The Spaniards set foot in what is today the U.S. long before the English did. In 1565, they founded a colony in Florida which is nowadays considered as the first permament Spanish colony in North America.

Between 1803 and 1804, when Louisiana was sold to the U.S. (the Louisiana Purchase), its Spanish (and French) inhabitants became citizens of the States, but continued to speak their mother tongue.

In the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), Mexico lost almost half of their territory to the United States, including today's Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, California, Nevada and Utah. The Mexicans, who were Spanish-speakers, became U.S. citizens. The constitutional convention of 1872 wanted the very little remaining Spanish-speakers to learn English and therefore published all official documents only in English.

In 1898, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam became American territories (Spanish-American War). A few years later, Cuba became independent again, while Puerto Rico remained a territory of the United States. Today, the most-spoken language of Puerto Rico is Spanish, although its inhabitants are U.S. citizens.

The number of Spanish immigrants to the United States has skyrocketed within the recent years. The Spanish-speakers have especially settled in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and the southern part of Florida. During the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1917, a number of Mexicans flee to the U.S. Also Cubans immigrated to the U.S. due to Cuba's political instability around 1959. In the 1970s and 80s, lots of Spanish-speaking Nicaraguans moved to the U.S. because of the political instability of Nicaragua. Due to economic and political problems in El Salvador, a great number of Salvadorans relocated to the U.S. Also Venezuelans settled in the U.S. as they were hoping for a better education.

American words derived from Spanish

• Cafeteria (cafetería; in Spanish there's an accent on the "i")
• Chocolate (from Nahuatl xocoatl [Nahuatl = the most-spoken indigenous language of Mexico])
• Guitar (guitarra)
• Peninsula (same word in Spanish)
• Bodega (a New Yorker would use this word to describe a corner store)
• Canibal (Christopher Columbus came across an indigenous group called the Caribs (who gave the Caribbean its name). He pronounced their name wrongly by calling them caniba. Caniba became caníbal in Spanish and cannibal in English.)
• Cargo (derived fom the Spanish verb cargar which means to carry)
• Cilantro (Americans might also call it coriander)
• Ranch (derived from the Spanish word rancho)
• Rodeo (same word in Spanish; derived from the verb rodear, meaning to encircle)
  

• Florida (means land full of flowers in Spanish)
• California (the word was first used to describe the North American territory in the 16th century)
• Montana (a mispronunciation of montaña which means mountain in Spanish)
• Nevada (means snow-capped peak in Spanish)
• Alcatraz (is the Spanish name for a bird; in English known as the Northern Gannet)
• Colorado (means colorful in Spanish)
• And so on and so forth...

Spanglish

Spanglish is a mixture of Spanish and English and very common among Hispanics, especially in North- and Central America. Still, Spanglish is not considered an official language as it is used in spoken and informal conversations. There is a number of dialects which differ from one another.

A bilingual speaker can either switch between English and Spanish within a sentence (code switching) or create new words and idioms by adopting words into another language. wikipedia gives the following two examples:

1. code switching: "I'm sorry I cannot attend next week's meeting porque tengo una obligación de negocios en Boston, pero espero que I'll be back for the meeting the week after" (I'm sorry I cannot attend next week's meeting because I have a business obligation in Boston, but I hope to be back for the meeting the week after).
2. adaptation of words: the Spanish verb llamar (to call) becomes telefonear (telephone+ar) or almorzar (to eat lunch) becomes lunchear (lunch+ar). wikipedia gives other examples like: watchear, parquear, emailear, twittear, etc.

image source (1): http://www.pewresearch.org/files/2013/08/FT_Non_English1.png 
image source (2): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Spanish_in_the_United_States_by_countr.gif/800px-Spanish_in_the_United_States_by_countr.gif 
image source (3): http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/322446/slide_322446_3046050_free.jpg
image source (4): http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/322446/slide_322446_3043041_free.jpg