It appeared during our introduction to this semester that you do not know much history outside of Mexican history, or maybe you were simply reluctant to share. This week I want to know what you know of World history...
- What European groups came to settle in Mexico, Central and Latin America? Are there bilingual English/ Spanish, English/ Porteguese, Porteguese/Spanish, etc speaking countries in Central of Latin America? Do these countries declare any official language/s?
- Where are the English speaking countries located? Are there countries which declare themselves to be English speakers? (Hint there are 88 countries where English is a main language and in 3 of these English is the de facto or only language spoken) Where are they?
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_official_language (Check this site out! List something which surprises you.)
Do not forget that you need to post and reply to two classmates before Sunday night. Blogging is 10% of your participation grade in my class...
I remember that the main countries that came to
ReplyDeleteAmericas and colonized were Spain, Ingland, France and Portugal.
In South America are the Guyanas, one of them is the french Guyana and I'm not sure if there they speak spanish and french.
A couple of countries that speak English are in Oceania, well England and U.S.A too.
And... well that's all I know.
Hi, how are you?? I think you have to write England instead of Ingland, =D
DeleteHi, I know that In the French guyana their official language is French but also speak some other languages like spanish and English.
DeleteFor example, in Puerto Rico, they have spoken English. Brazil speak Portuguese. But they have not official
ReplyDeleteIn South America, in countries like La Martinica, they have speak french.
France dominated Haiti in 16 th Century to 1804, in Haiti they have spoken French. Portugal with Brazil, United Kingdom. I know that two countries of all american that speak English, like United States, maybe Jamaica and Barbados Country Puerto Rico,Guam, Guantanamo. Australia and New Zeland, in Canada they have spoken French. I know that Pakistan is a country when people adopt English as a official. language.
ReplyDeleteAccording to my research, Portugal colonized the coastline of what now is Brazil. France established colonies in the coastal strip from the current atlantic Canada to northern Brazil. The united Kingdom was established in the eastern coast of North America and in some parts of the Caribbean coast. Netherlands and Denmark established colonies on small islands in the Caribbean.
ReplyDeleteAbout the language I know that the English is spoken for about 325 million people in the world and is official in Canada, Belize, Guyana, etc. In Puerto Rico is present as a second official language.
If you speak English fluently and Spanish as an "expert" or native speaker you can travel or live and live well in...the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa, Germany, Bangladesh, Egypt, Israel, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, Greece, Chad, Thailand, Netherlands, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Kenya, Brazil, all of the continents of North and South Americas, Europe, 50% of Africa... That's a lot of power! REMEMBER YOU ARE ALREADY MORE POWERFUL THAN ENRIQUE PENA NIETO AND BARAK OBAMA! That being said what do you intend to do?
ReplyDeleteHow I can more powerful than Pena Nieto and Obama? They are politician. I have not idea that Canada is a country where citizen spoak english, if I know that Canada speak French.
DeleteHi teacher Cindy, I am not very sure that if you are an expert in English, you can live well in Norway, Spain, Italy, Greece, Iran or Brazil, because I do not think that there English is a preference language; perhaps just not much people speak it. In the another countries on your the list, yes maybe.
DeleteIs a great advantage to have knowledge of English and talk very well Spanish but in our days is not enough because Chinese is the most spoken language in the world and the reason is that are many Chinese(people), but because they are a source of much economy, to move into the business world is essential
DeleteI could´t agree more Cindy. If we speak English we can do a lot of things. Actually because English is the official language in business. And also we can be more powerful than any person if we want to.
DeleteThis is a very interesting information! Now I know that speaking English is a very powerful tool for interacting with people from different countries. English is an universal language. The next semester, I would like to study another language...Cindy, What language do you recommend me
DeleteI believe that before learning a language, we must answer this question: What do I want to do with my life? And then, we should choose the most convenient option.
DeleteHi Teacher!. I totally agree with you. Like you wrote about these countries which spoke English, beside, like here Mexico, many cultures learn English in the school. This is a great tools to comunicate around the whole world.
DeleteI partially agree with you
DeleteBut I think that German is a country where (his population) only speak German. Greece That´s interesting! But I have a question
In the world how many people speak Chinese? I´ve known that Chinese is the popular language around the world? But I don´t know. Could you give a suggestion, please?
Thank you so much
It came from Europe since seventeen century gruops of people froms different countries, like England, Spain, France, Portugal, even Holland. With the time in nineteenth and twenty century arrived a lot of people from many other countries. But the more common languages in this continent are Spanish, English and French. In some countries there are more than one common language like Canada, Belize, Paraguay (Sapanish and Guarani, a local language) and Puerto Rico. Currently English language may speak in nearly all the world, but I don't know exactly where is a "de facto" speaker of this language, because even in United Kingdom you can find different languages in Man Islands, Chanel Islands, Wales and North Ireland, or in United States many people speaks Spanish in some Sates in the South of this country, maybe not oficially but they do.
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ReplyDelete***The European colonization began later Cristóbal Colón arrived to America, this in 1492. Spain, Portugal, France and England were the main. Spain took possession of México, Central America and South America between those countries were Chile, Perú, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida. Portugal were in the now Brazil. England in North America and some caribbean islands. France occupied French Guiana and Quebec (Canadá).
ReplyDelete***I guess that there are bilingual in this countries.
***The official language of the majority of the countries of Latin America is the Spanish.
I discovered that:
***English speaking countries are located at: North America, some African countries, India, Hong Kong, some islands of the Caribbean and Oceanía.
***Australia, United Kingdom and United States are countries that speak English but it isn´t an official lenguage.
In my research. The Vikings were the first Europeans to reach America, which they called Vinland, establishing at least one village on the island of Newfoundland Canada. There are other theories about discoveries before and after the East Coast, or the West by the Chinese, but none of these has been proven with evidence.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 15th and 16th century a diversity of countries from Europe started to colonize and take control of the lands in North, Central and South America. It all started with the Spanish and Christopher Columbus who arrived at the Dominican Republic.
ReplyDeleteAfter this first contact, nations such as the English, French, Dutch and Portuguese started to come attracted by the natural richness that the new continent had to offer. Since then a variety of languages are spoken in the American continent, being Spanish the predominant, English is spoken in several countries being most of them located in the Caribbean. In Brazil Portuguese is the official language. The former Netherlands Antilles still have Dutch as their official language.
The are a couple of countries that have particularities like Belize that have English has a official language but Spanish has a fact language, and Puerto Rico which is the other way around.
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DeleteHey! Miryam I liked what you wrote about the natural richness that the new continent had to offer and I want to share with you a little poem that Pablo Neruda wrote.
Delete"What good language mine, what good language of the conquerors inherited ... they roamed the rough Americas... with that voracious appetite that has never been seen in the world ... They swallowed everything ... But the barbarians left like stones, words that stayed here bright shining ... language.
We lose ... We won ... They took the gold and left us the gold ... They took everything and left us all ... They left us the words".
In Mexico, one of the main groups are the menonitas, in the north of the country, from Europe. They are a close group in the ranchs in states like Chihuahua and they have been like this for many years, but they speak in spanish with some of english.
ReplyDeleteOther case could be when the civil war of Spain finished, too many Spaniards came to America, in special, to Mexico.
Excuse me, I find the theme of the Mennonites very interesting, I have not heard much from them and I thing is a good reason to reply. Where they come from?? in Mexico they have a lot of colonies? I heard they don´t use tecnology (no eletricity) and only live together
DeleteYes, I also think that this way of life is interesting and weird. How could they live without electricity? It is crazy. However we have to get more information about it. It will be nice if we could share what each one find.
DeleteI hadn´t heard about the Mennonites! Where did you find that information? I would like to know more about it!
Deletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17136245
DeleteI was also intrigued about this group called "mennonites" and I found important information that I want to share.
Delete>There are 80,000 to 90,000 Mennonites living in Mexico.
>They live in the states of Campeche, Sonora, Chihuahua, Zacatecas and Durango.
>Nowadays Mennonites continue their lifestyle.
>During 2007, the colony of Salamanca (a Mennonite settlement with a population of 800) was completely destroyed due to the landfall of Hurricane Dean.
Spain, France, England, Portugal and Netherlands were the first countries to came to America. Most of Latin America was colonized by spanish groups seeking gold and silver deposits. These groups took the spanish as official language.
ReplyDeleteDuring the conquest some countries had to give up some of the conquered territories. Such is the case of the island known as " The Spanish" in the Atlantic ocean. The island was the first discovered by Colon (Now Hati and the Dominican Republic). The last country speaks spanish, english and at the haitian border: french.
Most english-speaking countries are located in North America, Central and Southern Africa. And south of Asia.
I´m not an expert in this topic, a long time ago that I review this kind of history but reviewing in the internet are a lot of information about this. The European groups came to settle in Mexico, and Latin Americas were Spain, French, Portugal and England mainly. In Latin America are a lot of countries bilingual, a few countries have the English as official language in Latin America, the English is more “popular” in Africa, North America and Oceania, but there are more than 51 countries talk the English like official language moreover the Spanish is spoken in more less 22 countries and Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world. For these reasons I think it is very important and helps to speak English, in our days is important because many books and articles are in English, for business purposes is also required, perhaps at some point can change to another language but is better to know a little more
ReplyDeleteI am agree in everything you wrote, is just the English spoken that I am not very agree with you, for example countries who talk or that talk and the other is like their or like his official language, bye bye.
DeleteI did not know that information that you wrote. Like you said, right know there's a lot of countries that spoke English.
DeleteActually, I don´t know a lot of this kind of issues. I have to read more about it; what I remember is that America was colonized by Spanish, British, French and also Portuguese people. So that´s why America has countries that speak this languages. Also many countries were colonized by two or more; so in that case they speak 2 languages in its territory. One example is Canada, which is divided in French Canada and British Canada. Here in Mexico we speak Spanish and as we now comes from Castilian; so we can say that we speak our language in our own way. What does that mean?? Simply, over time we have modified our mother languages, making new words or just giving special meanings to other ones.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am agree with you, we were colonized by those. and the other that you say that we have modified our mother language is O.K. also, bye bye.
DeleteI strongly agree with you, because in Canada, French it is not officialy language to speak, they have people we have born in the United States. and he talked English. it is important to dont forget your mother language, but you can learn other language.
DeleteThe European groups who came to settle in Mexico were Spaniards and Frenchs and in Central & Latin America were Portugal,Austria, Grat Britain, La France. In the Caribean there are English/Portugués & and English and Spanish, Portugués/Spanich. Canada declared English & French as their official language. In the United States of America English is declared as their official language. In México Spanish is declared as his official language.
ReplyDeleteYes, I found the same information, but you remember what we are a country which contains all kinds of speakers, because people come to Mexico for our traditions, resourses and culture.
DeleteI found that 38 countries officially speak english for example: Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Fiji, Belize, Botswana, U.S. agencies, agencies of the United Kingdom, Dominica, Ghana, Gambia, Guyana, Solomon Islands, Jamaica, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius, Nauru, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, American Samoa, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
ReplyDeleteOur conquerors on 1492 speak a kind of spanish cause we have to remember that Spain was divided at several provinces and was the most powerful nation of that period.
hello, I think that the information of this page is very interesting because i dind´t know that Spanish is the Official languaje in 17 of 35 coutries of america. thank´s ;)
ReplyDeleteThe English language is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread to the north in what would become the south-east Scotland under the influence of the Kingdom of Northumbria.
ReplyDeleteDue to the influence of economic, military, political, scientific, cultural and colonial Britain and the UK since the eighteenth century English became a very important language. English has been widely spread around the world, becoming the main language of international discourse.
The English language is widely studied as a second language is the official language of many countries and is one of the official languages of the European Union and many organizations worldwide. It is the third most widely spoken native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.
It is very important to speak English because every day the English language is used more in almost all areas of knowledge, technology and human development. Practically it can be said that this is the language of today's world and the world of tomorrow, for social needs thus causing the evolution of new forms of communication.
DeleteToday it is considered that persons not proficient in English language is a disadvantage, as it would be in a communicative stage of illiteracy... this is one reason why much of the world speaks this language, whether officially or not. I think so. :)
I agree with you. People who dont speak English are in disadvantage with people that does. Not only professionally.
Delete(Last year an American woman approached to my cousin, but he didnt know English so she got bored and left). xD
That's right, and it is hoped in the future the Chinese will be the primary language spoken in the world by the number of people who speak it.
DeleteHello Nubia:
ReplyDeleteI also saw the page. And I found it interesting that in our continent, a country speaks neerlandés (Suriname).
See you.
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ReplyDeleteI dont know too much about History. I had to read some about it, and I found that in the XV and the XVI century the european people were finding territories and population that increase exchange products between other European countries, America, Asia and Africa. The exploration travels and discoveries promoted science and navigation techniques, and the war to subjugated the conquered.
ReplyDeleteIn the XVI and XVII centuries Portugal, Spain, Holland, England and France tried to dominate the new american territories.
They needed manpower to make capital out of all that raw material, so they bring slaves to America , most of them from Africa.
There was two kind of colonies: The ones of settlement, founded by emigrants that abandon their origins, and The comercial ones were there only established factories.
Too much people from all around the world came to America, the promised land, and established here in some little immigrant groups, where they continued with their manners and speaking their own language.
Nowadays the ethnic components of America in most are: Amerindians, eskimos, caucasians, Afroamericans, Mestizos.
Some of American nations still use indigenous languages, but most of them use the languages of the nation, or nations, that conquered them.
In North America, there are a lot af languages that are spoken but English, French and Spanish are the most used.
In Canadá the oficial languages are English and French, but some communities speak Ukrainian, German, italian, polish, Spanish, Norwegian, Greek, Hungarian, Chinese, Swedish and Portuguese.
This kind of mixture of ethnics and all that stuff makes that even when they suppose to speak the same language they have notable differences, like accent. So it is not enought to know english, you have to familiarize with everything of it.
I didn´t know much about this topic, so I started to read about it on the internet and I was surprised when I found that India and Pakistan are places when English is an official language used in business, government and law. Also I saw a map and my thought on English-speaking places change again, especially regarding South Africa and some islands near Australia.
ReplyDeleteSince many years some European groups came to reside in Mexico, for our resources. Nowadays we can find a lot of groups coming to México and they porpoises are business. Our country is always inhabited for foreign people especially those from developed countries, because they want cheap labor and free taxes.
I also do not know much about it, so I did a brief research and I found interesting information about this topic that I actually ignored.
ReplyDeleteThe archipelago of the Bahamas, in the years of the Discovery and Conquest used to be called “Lucayas”. Over there began the great epic of discovery. However, it cannot even be said for sure which of them landed on that memorable day (12th October).
The Bahamas were not considered at any time as part of the Caribbean, and were not, therefore, the imperial frontier territory. Forgotten by its discoverers, began to be colonized by England a century and a half after it was discovered, and no one came there to dispute the British possessions.
That’s the reason why, English is spoken and also is the official language of Bahamas.
Hello Nubia:
ReplyDeleteWhat countries do we speak French? And English?