SPANISH IN FIGURES

I acknowledge that counting noses is difficult, but it is even more difficult to count tongues. Wherever you turn, you are confronted with conflicting reckonings about the amounts of people who speak Spanish as their mother tongue, home use, social interaction, and family. Some say 450 million speakers use Spanish as native speakers. Some others elevate the figure to 550 million. Recently, the highest bidder was, so far, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, from Madrid, who elevated the count to 600. According to ChatGPT, the total number is 460 million. Whatever the figure may be, I am not worried: I will never have the chance, or the time, to talk to so many people; besides we talk less and less, in any language so, go figure! Also, the worth of a language does not lie in the amount of speakers it has.