DOES SPANISH HAVE A FUTURE IN THE UNITED STATES?

Does Spanish Have a Future in the United States?

Spanish intellectuals often congratulate one another on the supposedly bright future of Spanish in the United States: forty-five million Latinos, no less, and even an Academy of the Spanish Language to seal the deal. In cities like New York, they say, English is no longer indispensable. Fancy that.

I keep mum. Experience has taught me that there is no disputing about language, just as there is no disputing about taste. Pirandello said it best in Così è (se vi pare!): everyone is right.

And yet one cannot help asking: whatever happened to Italian in the United States? Once the second most widely spoken language, it survived for barely a generation. The same fate befell Yiddish and German. The pattern is familiar: immigrant languages may flourish briefly, but without sustained transmission, they gradually yield to English.

Spanish will be no exception. It will remain visible, useful, even influential in certain contexts, but not as a competing national language. Full participation in American life still requires a complete command of English, and this reality has not changed.

My answer, then, is no. Spanish may endure as a presence, but it has no real future as a rival to English. This is neither tragic nor ideological; it is simply how languages behave in the long run.

Of course, two languages are better than one—but that is not today’s question.