Blog Post #50 - Why Should I press 2 for Spanish ?

Ever wonder why you need to press 2 for Spanish and 1 for English in US when you call any US company's call center ?

Your answer  - it is because we have Latinos and Hispanics - as though it is obvious that both are similar and same and all belong to Mexico.

Ok. Even if you think both Latinos and Hispanics have anything to do with Mexico why are they speaking an European language in the new found land which is not Anglo Saxon.

Yes . I am not sure who named Europe,Asia,Africa,Australia and Antarctica or what they even mean. (Do you know?). But when it comes to 2 continents I know the story and here it is (in my own word,twisting history and fudging facts to come up with an interesting story! - go google and check wikipedia if you don't trust me!) - Amerigo Vespucci who came after Columbus was allowed to name his name for 2 continents while Columbus now just some cities in his name.

Columbus was Italian.
Amerigo Vespucci was Spaniard.

The Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand didn't want an Italian to name 2 Continents where majority of folks will be speaking Spanish.

Think Italian Continent names with Spanish spoken in both!

ok..let me confess the name of the book is

"Don't Know Much About Geography: Everything You Need to Know About the World but Never Learned"

which is where I learnt most of the stuff that I am going to write up in the context of the 2 continents,and about Portuguese and china .

But before that look at this table from Wikipedia ( as of today 12/8/2013)

Rank	Country (or dependent territory)	Population	Date	% of world population	Source
–	World	7,129,300,000	December 8, 2013	100%	USCB's world population clock
1	China[8]	1,361,500,000	December 8, 2013	19.1%	Chinese official population clock
2	India	1,237,430,000	December 8, 2013	17.4%	Indian population clock
3	United States	317,221,000	December 8, 2013	4.45%	Official population clock
4	Indonesia	237,641,326	May 1, 2010	3.33%	2010 census result
5	Brazil	201,032,714	July 1, 2013	2.82%	Official estimate
6	Pakistan	185,009,000	December 8, 2013	2.6%	Official population clock
7	Nigeria	173,615,000	July 1, 2013	2.44%	UN estimate[7]
8	Bangladesh	152,518,015	July 16, 2012	2.14%	Official estimate
9	Russia	143,600,000	October 1, 2013	2.01%	Official estimate
10	Japan	127,290,000	November 1, 2013	1.79%	Monthly official estimate
11	Mexico	118,395,054	July 1, 2013	1.66%	CONAPO Official estimate
12	Philippines	98,783,000	December 8, 2013	1.39%	Official population clock
13	Vietnam	90,388,000	November 1, 2013	1.27%	Official estimate
14	Ethiopia	86,613,986	July 1, 2013	1.21%	Official estimate
15	Egypt	83,661,000	January 1, 2013	1.17%	Official estimate
16	Germany	80,548,000	May 31, 2013	1.13%	Official estimate
17	Iran	77,046,000	December 8, 2013	1.08%	Official population clock
18	Turkey	75,627,384	December 31, 2012	1.06%	Official estimate
19	Democratic Republic of the Congo	67,514,000	July 1, 2013	0.95%	UN estimate
20	Thailand	65,926,261	September 1, 2010	0.92%	2010 census result
21	France[9]	65,834,000	November 1, 2013	0.92%	Monthly official estimate
22	United Kingdom	63,705,000	July 1, 2012	0.89%	Official estimate
23	Italy	59,859,996	June 30, 2013	0.84%	Monthly official estimate
24	Burma	53,259,000	July 1, 2013	0.75%	UN estimate
25	South Africa	52,981,991	July 1, 2013	0.74%	Official estimate
26	South Korea	50,219,669	July 1, 2013	0.7%	Official estimate
27	Colombia	47,362,000	December 8, 2013	0.66%	Official population clock
28	Spain	46,704,314	January 1, 2013	0.66%	Annual official estimate
29	Ukraine	45,455,065	October 1, 2013	0.64%	Monthly official estimate
30	Tanzania	44,928,923	August 26, 2012	0.63%	2012 census result

Are you surprised by where Indonesia, Brazil,Pakistan,Nigeria and Bangladesh are located in the list?

Have you ever also though of religion of these areas 

Answer - India (13.4% Islam),Indonesia,Pakistan,Niger(50% Islam) and Bangladesh that should give you an idea how popular Islam is and growing.


Now let us get back to language - the topic of this blog.

A Small fishing village was able to colonize the largest nation  in South America Brazil . Brazil was under portuguese rule for 300 years . From 1500 to 1822.Let us start with Portugal which not only ruled Brazil but also had Indian States who were forced to speak portuguese - Goa, Daman and Diu . Never would a Brazilian guessed that an Indian will also speak Portuguese.

Lets turn to some other facts

According to http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/populations/ctyareal.htm

you can find the following some interesting facts.
Brazil is the 5th largest country. Larger than Australia and India. We will use Size  not population for now 

	COUNTRY	Population	Land Area (sq km)	Pop density(sq km)	Pop density (Sq Miles)	Pop density(Sq Miles)
1	Russia	143,420,300	17,075,200.00	8.00	6,592,768.87	21.75
2	Canada	32,805,000	9,976,140.00	3.00	3,851,807.61	9.00
3	United States of America	295,734,100	9,629,091.00	30.71	3,717,811.29	79.55
4	China	1,306,313,800	9,596,960.00	136.12	3,705,405.45	352.54
5	Brazil	186,112,800	8,511,965.00	21.86	3,286,486.71	56.63
6	Australia	20,090,400	7,686,850.00	3.00	2,967,908.16	7.00
7	India	1,080,264,400	3,287,590.00	328.59	1,269,345.07	851.04
8	Argentina	39,537,900	2,766,890.00	14.29	1,068,301.76	37.01
9	Kazakhstan	15,185,000	2,717,300.00	6.00	1,049,154.96	14.47
10	Sudan	40,187,500	2,505,810.00	16.04	967,498.25	41.54
11	Algeria	32,531,900	2,381,740.00	13.66	919,594.58	35.38
12	Congo (Dem. Rep. of )	60,085,800	2,345,410.00	25.62	905,567.49	66.35
13	Mexico	106,202,900	1,972,550.00	53.84	761,605.50	139.45
14	Saudi Arabia	26,417,600	1,960,582.00	13.47	756,984.63	34.90
15	Indonesia	241,973,900	1,919,440.00	126.06	741,099.62	326.51
16	Libya	5,765,600	1,759,540.00	3.00	679,361.91	8.00
17	Iran	68,017,900	1,648,000.00	41.27	636,296.10	106.90
18	Mongolia	2,791,300	1,565,000.00	2.00	604,249.63	5.00
19	Peru	27,925,600	1,285,220.00	21.73	496,226.01	56.28
20	Chad	9,826,400	1,284,000.00	8.00	495,754.97	19.82

What does this data show ? You may not have realized size matters. Size does matter if we have resources that can be extracted or used.  People and natural resource can be effectively used and can sustain if the land is usable or can be made productive using technology. Where has China invested billions in the last couple of years? Answer - Africa. Where else has China invested billions - in building ports/. Sri lanka, Greece and even Bahamas . See a theme?1 Billion People speak Chinese Empire building always require ports. We will talk about it later. Again back to language. Over 1 billion people speak Chinese.  The two most common dialects are Mandarin and Cantonese.   My Chinese friends from North of China speak Mandarin and any friend from south or from Hong Kong speaks Cantonese.  Next time when you meet a Chinese ask that person if she speaks Mandarin or Cantonese. Remember Chinese don't speak Chinese.!!! The Great Britain (aka United Kingdom aka England - who can really tell me why we are not able to  understand what this countries name is?) is 76th in the list!

76

UK

60,441,500

244,820.00

246.88

94,525.49

639.42

Yes. That's right - We were taught in India " The sun never sets in British Empire". Some of us many not know the same was true for Spanish Empire and the  French too.

French and Spanish

47 France 60,656,200 547,030.00           110.88 211,209.38            287.19 48 Yemen 20,727,100 527,970.00              39.26 203,850.27            101.68 49 Thailand 65,444,400 514,000.00           127.32 198,456.43            329.77 50 Spain 40,341,500 504,782.00              79.92 194,897.34            206.99 51 Turkmenistan 4,952,100 488,100.00              10.15 188,456.39              26.28

Some Africans Nations speak French - Ivory Coast

Some Indian states can speak French - Pondicherry

In Canada the state of Quebec speak French.

21 African countries that speak French: 1. Democratic Republic of the Congo 2. Madagascar 3. Cameroon 4. Côte d'Ivoire 5. Burkina Faso 6. Niger 7. Senegal 8. Mali 9. Rwanda 10.Guinea 11. Chad 12. Burundi 13. Benin 14. Togo 15. Central African Republic 16. Republic of the Congo 17. Gabon 18. Comoros 19. Equatorial Guinea 20. Djibouti 21. Seychelles Furthermore,there are 6 African countries were French is not official, but widely used: 1. Morocco 2. Algeria 3. Tunisia 5. Mauritania 6. Mauritius (according to answers.com)

In USA New orleans has its french quarters and french culture.

While my wife and I can speak great french ( I included great because her french is great and while  is bad .. and we travelled in France they said this couple can speak great French as Great + bad = Great!) folks in Pondicherry might not know that canadians,some africans and Americans will speak french!.



Spanish is not just spoken in USA but also... (I have heard more spanish than in USA than any other country I have been - So far i have been in 13 and that list doesn't include Spain  -the world is what I witness and learn and not what are mere facts) 

It is a complex world when you look at where and how many people speak English.

Raised in South of India as a tamilian Language has always been sensitive issue for me. 
The issue of Tamil Elam and LTTE has always been part of growing up where every day news paper was about state of Tamil Nadu and its support for Tamilians while India as a country took a different stand based on political climate.

Liberation Tamil Tigers for fought for Tamil Eelam . As far as the fight was concerned it was officially put to an sri lankan government with help from Chinese (now read the beginning of the post about the port and why Sri Lanka allowed Chinese to become a Blue water Navy!!)  . Again this is a conspiracy theory - not sure how true.

The other issue is that of Hindi. Tamil nadu never accepted Hindi as official language of India while Tamilians from then to today love to watch hindi movies and songs.. from Sholay to Chennai Express while still the perception is that Hindi is not to be accepted as Indian official language. 

Here is something I learnt

Check any countries currency and you will know the officially recognized language.

Example  - Singapore currency has all its 4 official languages 

Malay,Mandarin (note not chinese not Cantonese) ,Tamil and English.

Now look at the indian currency and what do you see?

I could count 15 languages (13 in the list + Hindi + English)

Ask an Indian What is the official language of India?

Hindi - Yes? English - Yes?
What about Telugu? - The language most spoken in India other than Hindi is Telegu if you didn't know that fact.

Now let us take a look a US. While majority of Indians in US can Speak hindi or Telugu or Tamil most of us wait for our children to become proficient in Spanish.

Is Spanish an official language in US? All of Corporate America believes so. 


During World War 2 there were posters like the following

There is a myth 
 “In 1776, German came within one vote of becoming America's official language instead of English.”

So When I hear comments like he got a southern accent I think I have a Victorian accent. The British ruled us , taught all colonies English .

Americans were smart to make it American.

Other Colonies remained with Victorian English and the British changed theirs to British (whatever that means but I can tell you when I spoke in London they spoke differently.. colonial Victorian -mine vs. British - theirs).

Living in Texas and going to Fredericksburg and celebrating oktoberfest I think Texas can should German and Spanish as its official language.

Final Thought --

Whenever I go to a restaurant I look for appetites and remember my grandfather.  

Born in 1908 Under the colonial rule he was a teacher and a famer. Being well versed in English and Tamil he used to tell me that the British could never say Milagu Rasam.
Milagu = Pepper
Rasam = Soup (with lentils , tomato/tamarind.. primarily made as a dish to mix with rice)

Also the British in Tamil Nadu loved this dish but didn't like to mix with Rice .
They preferred this to be served in a soup bowl and christened a new name
Miladuthanisoup

Thani - here is Thanni the word for water in Tamil as Rasam was usually a dish with most water.

So Rasam became Thani Soup which is now finally called 
Mulligatawny.

Next time when you see Mulligatawny soup remember it is simply pepper water in Tamil and enjoy the tasty pepper preparation which is aptly in the appetizer category

Happy Learning
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran