The Rise of the Spanish Language

From Christina Aguilera launching her Spanish album “Mi reflejo” in the year 2000 to “Dora, La Exploradora” taking over Nickelodeon, it is evident that the presence of the Spanish language in the United States has become undeniable. The United States is the second-largest Spanish speaking country in the world, surpassed only by Mexico and Hispanics are the fastest-growing linguistic minority in the country. Furthermore, there is now a large variety of Spanish being spoken in the United States; the profile is changing and Hispanics are migrating to non-traditional states, which has contributed to publications such as the Enciclopedia del español en los Estados Unidos (Encyclopedia of Spanish in the United States).

The Race to Reach the Hispanic Market

The Spanish language is here to stay and U.S. companies are making their moves to capture this growing market. According to a study by ImpreMedia, the largest Spanish newspaper company in the U.S., 60% of all Hispanics are online, which represents an enormous potential growth to the digital publishing sector. While many Hispanics are bilingual, studies show that half of them prefer to access media in Spanish. And, since according to the 2010 Census the average Hispanic is 10 years younger than the non-Hispanic, it could represent a huge opportunity to appeal to the younger generations and establish consumers for years to come. Companies such as CNN and Yahoo saw the advantage of incorporating Spanish Language and have integrated into their websites a localized version with CNN en Español and Yahoo en Español. The interest of connecting with the different Spanish communities is even more apparent in the marketing strategy of companies like McDonald’s, who have a localized Facebook page for the Hispanic population with themes and topics germane to different Spanish-speaking countries.

A Big Part of Our Heritage

For our Translation company, the Hispanic market and the Spanish Language are very important in our work. It is the heritage of many of the members of our team; we know the market and we enjoy working in multiple Spanish translation and localization projects for that section of the American community. Eging recognizes the importance of the Hispanic population: our Spanish blog and Spanish website are testaments to our efforts to improve communications with the Spanish community all over the world, and particularly amid the “cultural revolution” occurring in the United States.