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161-594: Mexicans ( Spanish : Mexicanos ) are the citizens and nationals of the United Mexican States . The Mexican people have varied origins with the most spoken language being Spanish , but many also speak languages from 68 different Indigenous linguistic groups and other languages brought to Mexico by expatriates or recent immigration. In 2020, 19.4% of Mexico's population identified as Indigenous . There are currently about 12 million Mexican nationals residing outside Mexico, with about 11.7 million living in
322-654: A Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. The local languages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived from Mexican Spanish , owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898. Jos%C3%A9 Vasconcelos José Vasconcelos Calderón (28 February 1882 – 30 June 1959), called
483-602: A biological one and to society's eyes a Mestizo with a high percentage of European ancestry is considered "white" and a Mestizo with a high percentage of Indigenous ancestry is considered "Indian," a person who identifies with a given ethnic group should be allowed to, even if biologically doesn't completely belong to that group. Genetic ancestry of Mexicans according to various sources Genetic studies in Mexico can be divided on three groups: studies made on self-identified Mestizos, studies made on Indigenous peoples and studies made on
644-511: A clear dividing line between white and mixed race Mexicans has made the concept of race relatively fluid, with descent being more of a determining factor than biological traits. Generally speaking ethnic relations can be arranged on an axis between the two extremes of European and Amerindian cultural heritage, this is a remnant of the Spanish caste system which categorized individuals according to their perceived level of biological mixture between
805-523: A condor and a background of the volcanic mountains in central Mexico . Vasconcelos is said to have declared, "I have not come to govern the University but to ask the University to work for the people." When Obregón became President in 1920, he created the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) in 1921 and named Vasconcelos as its head. Under Obregón, the national budget had two key expenditures;
966-603: A considerable number of words from Arabic , as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin , the form of Latin in use at that time. According to
1127-563: A decisive influence in Octavio Paz 's El laberinto de la soledad ('The Labyrinth of Solitude'), with anthropological and aesthetic implications. Paz wrote that Vasconcelos was "the teacher" who had educated hundreds of young Latin American intellectuals during his many trips to Central and South America . Vasconcelos was a guest lecturer at Columbia University and Princeton University , but his influence on new generations in
1288-528: A direct influence on the young writers, poets, anthropologists, and philosophers who wrote on this subject. He also influenced the point of view of Carlos Pellicer with respect to several aesthetic assumptions reflected in his books. Together, Pellicer and Vasconcelos made a trip through the Middle East (1928–1929) and were looking for the "spiritual basis" of Byzantine architecture . Other works, particularly La raza cósmica and Metafísica , had
1449-467: A dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants , known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes , which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ ). See History of Spanish (Modern development of
1610-482: A first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos ( Ilustrados ). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing. Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration after
1771-425: A frame of aesthetic monism . As he argued that only by the means of rhythm can humans able to know the world without any intermediation, he proposed that the minimal aspects of cognition are conditioned by a degree of sympathy with the natural "vibration" of things. In that manner, he thought that the auditive categories of knowledge were much higher than the visual ones. Later, Vasconcelos developed an argument for
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#17327652284951932-501: A given country has its origin in the investigations produced by Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities, which found it to be more accurate than self-identification particularly in Latin America, where the different discourses that exist in regards to national identity have rendered previous attempts to estimate ethnic groups unreliable. Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest percentages of European population, with
2093-597: A great deal of power, but he accrued even more by ignoring the standard structures, such as the University Council, to govern the institution. Rather, he exercised personal power and began implementing his vision of the function of the university. He redesigned the logo of the university to show a map of Latin America , with the phrase "Por mi raza hablará el espíritu" (The spirit will speak for my race), an influence of Rodó's arielismo . It also had an eagle and
2254-499: A greater European admixture. Admixture varies by region, wealth, and even study. However, it can be generally assessed that Mexicans (on average) are an even mixture of Native American and European with minor African contribution, with neither European or Native being more dominant in the genetic admixture. According to these studies, Native admixture is more dominant in the Central and Southern regions of Mexico whereas European admixture
2415-478: A long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century. In the wake of the 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty , hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States. The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce. According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of
2576-465: A mean European ancestry of 42% and an African ancestry of 22%. The Mestizaje ideology, which has blurred the lines of race at an institutional level has also had a significant influence in genetic studies done in Mexico: As the criterion used in studies to determine if a Mexican is Mestizo or indigenous often lies in cultural traits such as the language spoken instead of racial self-identification or
2737-456: A modest zoological theory, then as social biology that confers definitive preponderance to the English above all races. Every imperialism needs a justifying philosophy". ( La raza cósmica , 1948) "Hitler, although he disposes of absolute power, finds himself a thousand leagues from Caesarism. Power does not come to Hitler from the military base, but from the book that inspires the troops from
2898-453: A more significant role on determining the genetic makeup of the average Indigenous person than cultural traits do, an example of this is the indigenous population of Tlapa in the state of Guerrero that despite for the most part speaking Spanish and having the same cultural customs non-indigenous Mexicans have, shows an indigenous ancestry of 95%. In contrast, one study shows Nahua-speaking Indigenous peoples from Coyolillo, Veracruz , having
3059-663: A multicultural country opposed to a monolithic Mestizo country would bring benefits to the Mexican society as a whole. White Mexicans are Mexican citizens who trace all or most of their ancestry to Europe. Europeans begun arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire ; while during the colonial period most European immigration was Spanish, in the 19th and 20th centuries European and European-derived populations from North and South America did immigrate to
3220-427: A phenotype-based selection there are studies on which populations who are considered to be Indigenous per virtue of the language spoken show a higher degree of European genetic admixture than the one populations considered to be Mestizo report in other studies. The opposite also happens, as there instances on which populations considered to be Mestizo show genetic frequencies very similar to continental European peoples in
3381-508: A primarily Hassaniya Arabic -speaking territory, Spanish was officially spoken as the language of the colonial administration during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Today, Spanish is present in the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as its secondary official language, and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf ( Algeria ), where the Spanish language is still taught as
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#17327652284953542-563: A second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system. While far from its heyday during the Spanish protectorate in Morocco , the Spanish language has some presence in northern Morocco , stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media. According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches 4.6% of
3703-531: A second language, largely by Cuban educators. The number of Spanish speakers is unknown. Spanish is also an official language of the African Union . Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization , it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as
3864-529: A small powerful elite, as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin. Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both methodology and percentages given. Extra-official sources such as the CIA World Factbook which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations calculate Mexico's white population as only 9%,
4025-507: A very low percentage of indigenous genetic heritage would be considered fully indigenous either by speaking an indigenous language or by identifying with a particular indigenous cultural heritage. In certain areas of Mexico the word Mestizo has a different meaning: in the Yucatán peninsula it has been used to refer to the Maya -speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during
4186-520: A whole is product of the admixture of all races) which shaped Mexican identity and culture through the 20th century and remain prominent nowadays, with extraofficial international publications such as The World Factbook using them as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition up to this day. Nonetheless in recent times the census' results have been subjected to scrutiny by historians, academics and social activists alike, who assert that such drastic alterations on demographic trends with respect to
4347-752: A whole whilst retaining some cultural traits and in turn exerted cultural and industrial influences on Mexican society. Especially after the First World War intense processes of transculturation can be observed, particularly in Mexico City, Jalisco , Nuevo León , Puebla and, notably, with the Maya in Chiapas . These include social, cultural and identity aspects. An Arab Mexican is a Mexican citizen of Arab origin who can be of various ancestral origins. The vast majority of 450,000 Mexicans who have at least partial Arab descent trace their ancestry to what
4508-416: Is cognate to the root word of satisfacer ("to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho ("satisfied"). Compare the examples in the following table: Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table: In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent
4669-436: Is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. Alongside English and French , it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world. Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences . Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese and the second most used language by number of websites after English. Spanish
4830-487: Is a large variation in phenotypes among Mexicans, European looks are still strongly preferred in Mexican society, with lighter skin receiving more positive attention, as it is associated with higher social class, power, money, and modernity. In contrast, Indigenous ancestry is often associated with having an inferior social class, as well as lower levels of education. These distinctions are strongest in Mexico City , where
4991-402: Is also controversy as to whether to count those crypto-Jews who have converted (back) to Judaism. Sixty-two percent of the population over fifteen is married, three percent divorced and four percent widowed. However, younger Jewish women are more likely to be employed outside the home (only 18% of women are housewives) and fertility rates are dropping from 3.5 children of women over 65 to 2.7 for
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5152-536: Is derived from the word Mexico itself. In the principal model to create demonyms in Spanish, the suffix -ano is added to the name of the place of origin. However, in Nahuatl language, the original demonym becomes Mexica . The area that is now modern-day Mexico has cradled many predecessor civilizations, going back as far as the Olmec which influenced the latter civilizations of Teotihuacan (200 BC to 700 AD) and
5313-454: Is estimated that about 486 million people speak Spanish as a native language , making it the second most spoken language by number of native speakers . An additional 75 million speak Spanish as a second or foreign language , making it the fourth most spoken language in the world overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi with a total number of 538 million speakers. Spanish is also
5474-526: Is growing, but at a slower rate than the rest of the population so that the percentage of indigenous peoples is nonetheless falling. The majority of the indigenous population is concentrated in the central-southern and south-eastern states, with the majority of the indigenous population living in rural areas. Some indigenous communities have a degree of autonomy under the legislation of "usos y costumbres" (usages and customs), which allows them to regulate some internal issues under customary law . According to
5635-761: Is heavily influenced by Venezuelan Spanish. In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation of Mercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching in Brazil . In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President , making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In September 2016 this law
5796-479: Is more dominant in the Western and Northern regions of Mexico. Mestizos and Amerindians tend to have slightly more dominant Amerindian admixture whereas Mexicans considered White tend to have dominant European admixture. Those DNA studies on Mexicans show a significant genetic variation depending on the region analyzed, with the central region of Mexico showing a balance between indigenous and European components, and
5957-436: Is not strange to see street vendors calling a potential costumer Güero or güerito , sometimes even when the person is not light-skinned. In this instance it is used to initiate a kind of familiarity, but in cases where social/racial tensions are relatively high, it can have the opposite effect. However contemporary sociologists and historians agree that, given that the concept of "race" has a psychological foundation rather than
6118-620: Is now Lebanon and Syria . Immigration of Arabs in Mexico has influenced Mexican culture, in particular food, where they have introduced kibbeh , tabbouleh , and even created recipes such as tacos árabes . By 1765, dates , which originated from the Middle East, were introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards. The fusion between Arab and Mexican food has highly influenced the Yucatecan cuisine. Arab immigration to Mexico started in
6279-526: Is reported to have said, "When the coffin was lowered into the ground, Vasconcelos sobbed bitterly. At that moment he must have known and felt who he really had as a wife; perhaps they were tears of belated repentance." He remarried the pianist Esperanza Cruz and they had a child, Héctor. Although Vasconcelos was interested in studying philosophy, the Porfiriato's universities focused on the sciences, influenced by French positivism . Vasconcelos attended
6440-844: Is spoken by very small communities in Angola due to Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence. Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands , located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off
6601-545: Is the Comité Central Israelita in Mexico City but its contact is limited to Orthodox and Conservative congregations with no contact with Jews that may be affiliated with the Reform movement or those who consider themselves secular. The Mexican government census lists religion but its categories are confusing, confusing those of some Protestant sects which practice Judaic rituals with Jewish groups. There
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6762-813: Is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico . The language has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles , Miami , San Antonio , New York , San Francisco , Dallas , Tucson and Phoenix of the Arizona Sun Corridor , as well as more recently, Chicago , Las Vegas , Boston , Denver , Houston , Indianapolis , Philadelphia , Cleveland , Salt Lake City , Atlanta , Nashville , Orlando , Tampa , Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration. Although Spanish has no official recognition in
6923-488: Is the official Spanish language of the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on the other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the language castellano . The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by
7084-731: Is the story of Catarina de San Juan (Mirra), an Indian girl captured by the Portuguese and sold into slavery in Manila. She arrived in New Spain and eventually she gave rise to the China Poblana . The reverse was also true, thousands of Mexicans of varying races also ended up as immigrants to the Philippines back when there was a Philippine population of only 1.5 Million Filipinos. Later groups of Asians, predominantly Chinese, became Mexico's fastest-growing immigrant group from
7245-549: Is used as an official language by many international organizations , including the United Nations , European Union , Organization of American States , Union of South American Nations , Community of Latin American and Caribbean States , African Union , among others. In Spain and some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but also castellano (Castilian),
7406-578: Is usually assumed to be derived from castillo ('castle'). In the Middle Ages , the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as Romance and later also as Lengua vulgar . Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as Romance castellano ( romanz castellano , romanz de Castiella ), lenguaje de Castiella , and ultimately simply as castellano (noun). Different etymologies have been suggested for
7567-483: The Americas and Spain , and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese ; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English , Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani ( Hindi - Urdu ); and
7728-584: The National Preparatory School , an elite high school in Mexico City , and he went on to Escuela de Jurisprudencia in Mexico City (1905). In law school, he became involved with a group of radical students organized as the Ateneo de la Juventud (Youth Atheneum). The Ateneo de Juventud was led by a Dominican citizen, Pedro Henríquez Ureña , who had read Uruguayan essayist José Enrique Rodó 's Ariel , an influential work published in 1900 that
7889-568: The Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. Spanish has historically had a significant presence on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba , Bonaire and Curaçao ( ABC Islands ) throughout the centuries and in present times. The majority of the populations of each island (especially Aruba) speaking Spanish at varying although often high degrees of fluency. The local language Papiamentu (Papiamento on Aruba)
8050-508: The Spanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s. Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English and Filipino , a standardized version of Tagalog . Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under
8211-572: The caste war of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as Mestizos whereas in the state of Chiapas the word "Ladino" is used instead of "mestizo". Since the word Mestizo has had different definitions through Mexico's history, estimates of the Mexican Mestizo population vary widely. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , which uses a biology-based approach, about three-fifths of
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#17327652284958372-533: The "cultural caudillo " of the Mexican Revolution , was an important Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of the " cosmic race " affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic policies. Vasconcelos was born in Oaxaca, Oaxaca , on February 28, 1882,
8533-534: The 1793 census are not possible and cite, among other statistics, the relatively low frequency of marriages between people of different continental ancestries in colonial and early independent Mexico. It is claimed that the "mestizaje" process sponsored by the state was more "cultural than biological" which resulted on the numbers of the Mestizo Mexican group being inflated at the expense of the identity of other races. Controversies aside, this census constituted
8694-489: The 1880s to the 1920s, exploding from about 1,500 in 1895 to more than 20,000 in 1910, but also met with strong anti-Chinese sentiment , especially in Sonora and Sinaloa, which led to deportations and illegal expulsions of many of them and their descendants. Historically, population studies and censuses have never been up to the standards that a population as diverse and numerous such as Mexico's require. The first racial census
8855-544: The 1890s, when they came to the Americas from Hungary , Poland and Russia and mainly settled in the United States and Brazil, but also in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. There are Romani communities in the cities of Mexico City, Veracruz, Puebla, Guadalajara and Monterrey. There is also a large Romani community in San Luís Potosí. Although Asian Mexicans make up less than 1% of
9016-455: The 1921 census, with the most extreme case being that of the state of Durango, where the aforementioned census asserts that only 0.01% of the state's population (33 persons) self-identified as "white" while modern scientific research shows that the population of Durango has similar genetic frequencies to those found on European peoples (with the state's Indigenous population showing almost no foreign admixture either). Various authors theorize that
9177-516: The 19th and early 20th centuries. Roughly 100,000 Arabs settled in Mexico during this time period. They came mostly from Lebanon , Syria, Palestine , and Iraq and settled in significant numbers in Nayarit , Puebla , Mexico City , and the Northern part of the country, mainly in the states of Baja California , Tamaulipas , Nuevo Leon , Sinaloa , Chihuahua, Coahuila , and Durango , as well as
9338-404: The 2021–2022 school year alone. The local business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects. Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population, a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely. Aside from standard Spanish,
9499-595: The 20th century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara , and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City . For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language . Spanish is the primary language in 20 countries worldwide. As of 2023, it
9660-508: The 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary
9821-490: The Anti-Re-election Party. Vasconcelos returned to Mexico City to participate more directly in the anti-re-election movement, became one of the party's secretaries, and edited its newspaper, El Antireelectionista . After Díaz was ousted by revolutionary violence that was followed by the election of Madero to the presidency, Vasconcelos led a structural change at the National Preparatory School . He changed
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#17327652284959982-506: The CDI, the states with the greatest percentage of indigenous population are Yucatán , with 62.7%, Quintana Roo with 33.8% and Campeche with 32% of the population being indigenous, most of them Maya ; Oaxaca with 58% of the population, the most numerous groups being the Mixtec and Zapotec peoples ; Chiapas has 32.7%, the majority being Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya; Hidalgo with 30.1%,
10143-520: The Caribbean and elsewhere in the Americas. The majority of Mexico's Afro-descendants are Afromestizos , i.e. "mixed-race". According to the intercensal survey carried out in 2015, 1.2% of the population self-identified as Afro-Mexican with 64.9% (896,829) of them also identifying as indigenous and 9.3% being speakers of indigenous languages . In the 2020 census survey carried out by the Mexican government, Afro-Mexicans were reported to make up 2.04% of
10304-527: The Díaz regime, continued to be used. Although Vasconcelos was no advocate of Mexican indigenous culture, as Secretary of Education he sent a statue of the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtemoc , to Brazil for its centennial celebrations of independence in 1923, to the amazement of the South American recipients. He resigned in 1924 because of his opposition to President Plutarco Elías Calles . He worked for
10465-654: The Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business. Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish. The Instituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish. The proportion of proficient Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the proportion of proficient speakers in other West and Central African nations of their respective colonial languages. Spanish
10626-694: The First and Second World Wars. The Plautdietsch language is also spoken by the Mexican Mennonites , descendants of German and Dutch immigrants in the states of Chihuahua , Durango , Zacatecas and Aguascalientes . Other German towns lie in the states of Nuevo León , Jalisco , Sinaloa , Yucatán , Chiapas , Quintana Roo , and other parts of Puebla, where the German culture and language have been preserved to different extents. The German Mexican community has largely integrated into Mexican society as
10787-515: The Globe: the mission of fusing the peoples ethnically and spiritually." ( La raza cósmica , 1948) "Each of the great nations of History has believed itself to be the final and chosen one. ... The Hebrews founded the belief in their superiority on oracles and divine promises. The English found theirs on observations relative to domestic animals. From the observation of cross-breeding and hereditary varieties in such animals, Darwinism emerged. First, as
10948-577: The Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Proto-Basque , Iberian , Lusitanian , Celtiberian and Gallaecian . The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era , the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages — Mozarabic ( Andalusi Romance ), Navarro-Aragonese , Leonese , Catalan/Valencian , Portuguese , Galician , Occitan , and later, French and Italian . Spanish also borrowed
11109-591: The Mexican government do count as Indigenous all persons who speak an indigenous language and persons who neither speak indigenous languages nor live in indigenous communities but self-identify as Indigenous. According to this criterion, the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples ( Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas , or CDI in Spanish) and the INEGI (Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography), stated that there are 15.7 million indigenous people in Mexico of many different ethnic groups, which constitute 14.9% of
11270-610: The Mexican population is Mestizo. A culture-based criteria estimates the percentage of Mestizos as high as 90%. Paradoxically, the word "Mestizo" has long been dropped from popular Mexican vocabulary with the word even having pejorative connotations, further complicating attempts to quantify Mestizos via self-identification, recent research based on self-identification indeed has observed that many Mexicans do not actually identify as mestizos and would not agree to be labeled as such with "static" racial labels such as White, Indian, Black etc. being more commonly used. While for most of its history
11431-421: The Nahuatl words for "Moon" ( Mētztli ) and navel ( xīctli ). This meaning ("Place at the Center of the Moon") might then refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco . The system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the Moon . Still another hypothesis suggests that it is derived from Mēctli,
11592-540: The Old Spanish sibilants) for details. The Gramática de la lengua castellana , written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija , was the first grammar written for a modern European language. According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I , she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire. In his introduction to
11753-589: The Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms— español and castellano —are regarded as synonymous and equally valid. The term castellano is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn,
11914-530: The Secretariat gave him a powerful position to implement his vision of Mexico's history, especially the Mexican Revolution. Vasconcelos printed huge numbers of texts for the expanded public school system, but in the 1920s, there was no agreement about how the Mexican Revolution should be portrayed and so earlier history texts by Justo Sierra , the head of the ministry of public education during
12075-482: The Spanish colonists or being at war with them. It is also for these reasons that the number of Indigenous Mexicans presents the greater variation range between publications, as in cases their numbers in a given location were estimated rather than counted, leading to possible overestimations in some provinces and possible underestimations in others. ~ Europeans are included within the Mestizo category. Regardless of
12236-654: The Tacubaya neighborhood of Mexico City. His body was found reclining on the desk, in which he was working on one of his last literary works: Letanías del atardecer (‘Litanies of the evening’), published posthumously unfinished. Because of his qualities as a pedagogue and his strong support for Latin American culture, he was named “Teacher of the Youth of America” a title that is often abbreviated as "Teacher of America". With significant post-war activity Vasconcelos' first writings on philosophy are passionate reactions against
12397-633: The Texas border likely contributed to fostering his idea of the Mexican "cosmic race" and rejection of Anglo culture. At 24, he married Serafina Miranda of Tlaxiaco , Oaxaca , in 1906. Their children were José Ignacio and Carmen. He also had a long-term relationship with Elena Arizmendi Mejia and throughout his life many other shorter liaisons, including one with Berta Singerman . His troubled relationship with Antonieta Rivas Mercado led to her suicide inside Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral in 1931. When his wife of forty years died in 1942, their daughter Carmen
12558-502: The U.S. population were of Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin. In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population. Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico , where it is also an official language along with English. Spanish is by far the most common second language in the country, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included. While English
12719-777: The United States gradually decreased. Nevertheless, his work La raza cósmica has been used by Chicano and Mexican-American movements since the 1970s, which assert the reconquista ('retaking' or literally 'reconquest') of the American Southwest , based on their Mexican ancestry. Vasconcelos caused the National Symphonic Orchestra (1920) and the Symphonic Orchestra of Mexico (1928) to be officially endorsed. Under his secretaryship, artists Diego Rivera , José Clemente Orozco , and David Alfaro Siqueiros were permitted to paint
12880-510: The United States. The larger Mexican diaspora can also include individuals that trace ancestry to Mexico and self-identify as Mexican but are not necessarily Mexican by citizenship . The United States has the largest Mexican population in the world after Mexico at 37,186,361 in 2019. The modern nation of Mexico achieved independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, after a decade-long war for independence starting in 1810; this began
13041-652: The academic programs and broke with the past positivistic influence. After Madero's assassination in February 1913, Vasconcelos joined the broad movement to defeat the military regime of Victoriano Huerta . Soon, Vasconcelos was forced into exile in Paris, where he met Julio Torri , Doctor Atl , Gabriele D'Annunzio , and other contemporary intellectuals and artists. After Huerta was ousted in July 1914, Vasconcelos returned to Mexico. The Convention of Aguascalientes in 1914,
13202-457: The administration of Ferdinand Marcos two months later. It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language. Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of
13363-791: The arrival of Filipinos to Mexico during the colonial period. For two and a half centuries, between 1565 and 1815, many Filipinos and Mexicans sailed back and forth between Mexico and the Philippines as crews, prisoners, adventurers and soldiers in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon assisting Spain in its trade between Asia and the Americas. Also, on these voyages, thousands of Asian individuals (mostly males) were brought to Mexico as slaves and were called "Chino", which means Chinese, although in reality they were of diverse origins, including Koreans, Japanese, Malays, Filipinos, Javanese, Cambodians, Timorese, and people from Bengal, India, Ceylon, Makassar, Tidore, Terenate, and China. A notable example
13524-538: The case of Mestizos from the state of Durango or to European derived Americans in the case of Mestizos from the state of Jalisco . In 1991, an autosomal study was performed in Mexicans from the states of Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí, with a sample pool of 207. It found the average admixture to be 78.46% Spanish and 21.54% "Mexican Indian" (Indigenous). The data also shows younger generations having higher Native American admixture compared to older ones. In
13685-426: The census data and used it as reference for their works such as Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt . Each author gives different estimations for each racial group in the country although they do not vary much, with Europeans ranging from 18% to 22% of New Spain's population, Mestizos ranging from 21% to 25%, Amerindians ranging from 51% to 61% and Africans being between 6,000 and 10,000, The estimations given for
13846-416: The census of 1895 included a comprehensive racial classification, however according to the historic archives of Mexico's National Institute of Statistics that was not the case). While the 1921 census was the last time the Mexican government conducted a census that included a comprehensive racial classification, in recent time it has conducted nationwide surveys to quantify most of the ethnic groups who inhabit
14007-786: The city of Tampico and Guadalajara . During the Israel–Lebanon war in 1948 and during the Six-Day War, thousands of Lebanese left Lebanon and went to Mexico. They first arrived in Veracruz. The majority of Arab-Mexicans are Christians who belong to the Maronite , Roman Catholic , Eastern Orthodox , and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches . A scant number are Muslims as well as indigenous Muslims which are most common in southern states like Chiapas or Oaxaca. And Jews of Middle Eastern origins. The first wave of Roma arrived in Mexico in
14168-751: The classic hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin , as happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon). Like the other Romance languages , the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin , which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War , beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages )—some distantly related to Latin as Indo-European languages , and some that are not related at all—were previously spoken in
14329-470: The concept of Mestizo and mestizaje has been lauded by Mexico's intellectual circles, in recent times it has been target of criticism, with its detractors claiming that it delegitimizes the importance of race in Mexico under the idea of racism "not existing here [in Mexico], as everybody is Mestizo". In general, the authors conclude that Mexico introducing a real racial classification and accepting itself as
14490-500: The consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v . Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboring Gascon extending as far north as the Gironde estuary , and found in a small area of Calabria ), attributed by some scholars to a Basque substratum was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it
14651-581: The country as well as the social dynamics and inequalities between them. Also known as the "Revillagigedo census" due to its creation being ordered by the Count of the same name, this census was Mexico's (then known as the Viceroyalty of New Spain ) first ever nationwide population census. Most of its original datasets have reportedly been lost, thus most of what is now known about it comes from essays and field investigations made by academics who had access to
14812-404: The country's constitution. In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language, and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system, with over 7,000 students studying the language in
14973-460: The country's population. A Jewish, specifically Sephardic , population has existed in Mexico since the start of the Spanish invasion and occupation of Mexico. The current Jewish population in Mexico mostly consists of those who have descended from immigrants from the 19th and early 20th centuries with nationwide totals estimated between 80,000 and 90,000, about 75% of whom are in Mexico City. The exact numbers are not known. One main source for figures
15134-460: The country, with states located in south and south-eastern Mexico having both, the highest percentages of population that self-identifies as Indigenous and the highest percentages of Amerindian genetic ancestry. However this is not the case when it comes to European Mexicans, as there are instances on which states that have been shown to have a considerably high European ancestry per scientific research are reported to have very small white populations in
15295-670: The country. According to 20th- and 21st-century academics, large scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native indigenous peoples would produce a Mestizo group which would become the overwhelming majority of Mexico's population by the time of independence . However, according to church registers from the colonial times , the majority of Spanish men married with Spanish women. Said registers also put in question other narratives held by contemporary academics, such as European immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of
15456-454: The deliberate efforts of post-revolutionary governments the "Mestizo identity" was constructed as the base of the modern Mexican national identity, through a process of cultural synthesis referred to as mestizaje [mestiˈsaxe] . Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity based on the aforementioned cultural policies, which were designed with
15617-415: The distinctions between Indigenous peoples and Mestizos: while the term Mestizo in English has the meaning of a person with mixed indigenous and European ancestry, this usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure Indigenous genetic heritage would be considered Mestizo either by rejecting his indigenous culture or by not speaking an indigenous language, and a person with none or
15778-561: The education of the masses and sought to make the nation's education on secular, civic, and Pan-American ( americanista ) lines. He ran for the presidency in 1929 but lost to Pascual Ortiz Rubio in a controversial election, and again left the country. He later directed the National Library of Mexico (1940) and presided over the Mexican Institute of Hispanic Culture (1948). José Vasconcelos died on June 30, 1959, in
15939-547: The failed attempt of anti-Huerta regime to find a political solution, split the factions. The leader of the Constitutionalists, Venustiano Carranza , and General Álvaro Obregón split with more radical revolutionaries, especially Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata . Vasconcelos chose the side of the Convention and served as Minister of Education during the brief presidential period of Eulalio Gutiérrez . Villa
16100-471: The final part of his life, he gradually fell into a deeply Catholic political conservatism. Before the Second World War, he had begun writing sympathetically about Francisco Franco , and he retracted some of his earlier liberal positions. One of his last published works, Letanías del atardecer (1957) is a pessimistic tract that hinted that the use of nuclear weapons might be necessary because of
16261-683: The following table: Spanish is marked by palatalization of the Latin double consonants ( geminates ) nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año , and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo ). The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably " fortified " to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with
16422-511: The formal, positivistic education at the National Preparatory School, formerly under the influence of Porfirian thinkers like Justo Sierra and Gabino Barreda . A second period of productivity was fed by a first disappointment in the political field, after Madero's murder. In 1919, he wrote a long essay on Pythagoreanism , as a dissertation on the links between harmony and rhythm and its eventual explanation into
16583-466: The former British colony of Belize (known until 1973 as British Honduras ) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2022 census, 54% of the total population are able to speak the language. Due to its proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existing native Spanish speaking minority, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government launched
16744-415: The frequencies of blond hair and light eyes in Mexicans are 18% and 28% respectively. Surveys that use as reference skin color such as those made by Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination and Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography report percentages that range from 27% to 47%. The use of skin color palettes as the primary criteria to estimate the ethnoracial groups that inhabit
16905-416: The general Mexican population. Studies that focus on Mexicans of predominantly European descent or Afro-Mexicans have not been made. Mexicans who self-identify as Mestizos are primarily of European and Native American ancestry. The third largest component is African , in coastal areas this is partly a legacy of the slavery in New Spain (200,000 black slaves). However, the authors of this study state that
17066-429: The general ancestry of Mexicans. However, Native American X chromosomal ancestry exceeded 50%, and other studies found that approximately 90% of Mexicans carried a Native American maternal haplogroup. The authors suggest that this is consistent with the ethnogenesis of Latinos , through intermarriages that mostly involved European men and Native American women. Extant research suggests that geographic location plays
17227-428: The goddess of maguey . The majority of Mexicans have varying degrees of Spanish and Mesoamerican ancestry and have been classified as "Mestizos". In the modern meaning of the term this means that they identify fully neither with any indigenous culture nor with a Spanish cultural heritage, but rather identify with the uniquely Mexican identity which incorporates elements from both Spanish and indigenous traditions. By
17388-604: The grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire." From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America . Miguel de Cervantes , author of Don Quixote , is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). In
17549-469: The inhabitants of the colonized settlements. Other example would be the censuses made by the United States , that did not include Indigenous peoples living among the general population until 1860, and indigenous peoples as a whole until 1900. Made right after the consummation of the Mexican revolution, the social context on which this census was made makes it particularly unique, as the government of
17710-627: The inner walls of the most important public buildings in Mexico (such as the National Palace in Mexico City), creating the Mexican muralist movement. "[T]he leaders of Latin American independence ... strove to free the slaves, declared the equality of all men by natural law; the social and civic equality of whites, blacks and Indians. In an instant of historical crisis, they formulated the transcendental mission assigned to that region of
17871-684: The language from the Kingdom of Castile , contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician , Basque , Asturian , Catalan/Valencian , Aragonese , Occitan and other minor languages. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole of Spain, in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. "the other Spanish languages "). Article III reads as follows: El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. ... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas... Castilian
18032-549: The language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward. Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken include Gibraltar and Andorra . Spanish is also spoken by immigrant communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and Germany . Spanish is an official language of the European Union . Today,
18193-447: The largest genetic component of Mexicans who self-identify as being Mestizos is indigenous, although the difference in incidence between the indigenous and European composites is relatively small, both representing well over 40% of the genetic composition of Mestizos. In two studies of Mexicans from Mexico City and the United States, researchers noted that Mexicans had mostly European ancestry, with Native American ancestry making up 44% of
18354-472: The last time the Mexican Government conducted a comprehensive racial census with the breakdown by states being the following (foreigners and people who answered "other" not included): When the 1921 census' results are compared with the results of Mexico's recent censuses as well as with modern genetic research, high consistence is found in regards to the distribution of Indigenous Mexicans across
18515-569: The latter gradually increasing as one travels northwards and westwards, where European ancestry becomes the majority of the genetic contribution up until cities located at the Mexico–United States border , where studies suggest there is a significant resurgence of indigenous and African admixture. In southern Mexico there is prevalent indigenous Meso-American, but also European admixture, and a small but higher than average African genetic contributions. According to numerous studies, on average,
18676-649: The main goal of "helping" indigenous peoples to achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society by transforming indigenous communities into Mestizo ones, eventually assimilating them into the Mestizo Mexican society. As the Mestizo identity promoted by the government is more of a cultural identity, it has achieved a strong influence in the country and has caused many people who may not qualify as "Mestizos" in its original sense to be counted as such in Mexico's demographic investigations and censuses, with many people who may be considered " White " being historically classified as Mestizos. A similar situation occurs regarding
18837-782: The majority being Otomi ; Puebla with 25.2%, and Guerrero with 22.6%, mostly Nahua people and the states of San Luis Potosí and Veracruz both home to a population of 19% indigenous people, mostly from the Totonac , Nahua and Teenek (Huastec) groups. Afro-Mexicans are an ethnic group that predominate in certain areas of Mexico such as the Costa Chica of Oaxaca and the Costa Chica of Guerrero , Veracruz (e.g. Yanga ) and in some towns in northern Mexico, mainly in Múzquiz Municipality , Coahuila. The existence of individuals of African descent in Mexico has its origins in
18998-424: The majority of African ancestry in Mexicans is of North and Sub-Saharan African origin and was brought by the Spaniards themselves as a diluted part of their genetic ancestry. According to the average of various studies, Mexicans are on average 50% European, 45% Amerindian, and 5% African. However this varies greatly by methodology and study, some point toward a greater Amerindian admixture whereas others point toward
19159-694: The majority of the Spanish speakers live in Hispanic America . Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure —of Argentina , Bolivia (co-official with 36 indigenous languages), Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , Cuba , Dominican Republic , Ecuador , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua , Panama , Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní ), Peru (co-official with Quechua , Aymara , and "the other indigenous languages"), Puerto Rico (co-official with English), Uruguay , and Venezuela . Spanish language has
19320-415: The majority of the people not having native admixture or being of predominantly European ancestry. In the north and west of Mexico the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller and unlike those found in central and southern Mexico they were mostly nomadic, therefore remaining isolated from colonial population centers, with hostilities between them and Mexican colonists often taking place. This eventually led
19481-433: The mid-to-late 19th century, spurred by government policies of Porfirio Díaz . Although a good number of them took advantage of the liberal policies then valid in Mexico and went into merchant, industrial and educational ventures, others arrived with no or limited capital, as employees or farmers. Most settled in Mexico City, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Puebla . Significant numbers of German immigrants also arrived during and after
19642-468: The military was one, but the other was education. Creating the Secretariat entailed changing the Constitution of 1917 , and so Obregón's government had to muster support from lawmakers. Vasconcelos traveled throughout Mexico while he was rector of the university to seek that support. His effort succeeded, and Vasconcelos was named head of the new cabinet-level secretariat in July 1921. His tenure at
19803-512: The mixing of races, as a natural and desirable direction for humankind. That work, known as La raza cósmica ('The Cosmic Race'), would eventually contribute to further studies on ethnic values as an ethic and for the consideration of ethnic variety as an aesthetic source. Finally, between 1931 and 1940, he tried to consolidate his proposals by publishing his main topics organized in three main works: Metafísica (' Metaphysics '), Ética ('Ethics'), and Estética (' Aesthetics '). In
19964-567: The most powerful of the country's elite are located. Despite Mexico's government not using racial terms related to European or white people officially for almost a century (resuming using such terms after 2010), the concepts of "white people" (known as güeros or blancos in Mexican Spanish ) and of "being white" didn't disappear and are still present in everyday Mexican culture: different idioms of race are used in Mexico's society that serve as mediating terms between racial groups. It
20125-581: The much debated Toltec people who flourished around the 10th and 12th centuries AD, and ending with the last great indigenous civilization before the Nahuatl language was a common tongue in the region of modern Central Mexico during the Aztec Empire, but after the arrival of Europeans and the Spanish Conquest , the conquest of the Aztec empire (13 March 1325 to 13 August 1521) the common language of
20286-535: The northeast region of the country to become the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period albeit recent migration waves have been changing its demographic trends. The 2003 General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples recognizes 62 indigenous languages as "national languages" which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken. The recognition of indigenous languages and
20447-734: The northwest of the African mainland. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands traces its origins back to the Castilian conquest in the 15th century , and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas, which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish. The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as
20608-408: The original intent of eliminating divisions and creating a unified identity that would allow Mexico to modernize and integrate with the international community, this policy has not been able to achieve its goal. It is speculated that this is due to the identity's own internal contradictions, as it includes in the same theoretical race people who, in daily interactions, do not consider each other to be of
20769-587: The overall population now. There is a low level of intermarriage with the general Mexican population, with only 3.1% of marriages being mixed. Although the Jewish community is less than one percent of Mexico's total population, Mexico is one of the few countries whose Jewish population is expected to grow. German Mexicans ( German : Deutschmexikaner or Deutsch-Mexikanisch , Spanish: germano-mexicano or alemán-mexicano ) are Mexicans of German descent or origin. Most ethnic Germans arrived in Mexico during
20930-746: The percentage of said ethnic group at 23%, with a similar methodology the American Sociological Association obtained a percentage of 18.8%, having its higher frequency on the North region (22.3%–23.9%) followed by the Center region (18.4%–21.3%) and the South region (11.9%). Another study made by the University College London in collaboration with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History found that
21091-480: The percentage of the Mexican population defined as "indigenous" varies according to the definition applied. It can be defined narrowly according to linguistic criteria including only persons that speak an indigenous language. Based on this criterion, approximately 5.4% of the population is Indigenous. Nonetheless, activists for the rights of indigenous peoples have referred to the usage of this criterion for census purposes as "statistical genocide". Other surveys made by
21252-597: The population in the country. According to the latest intercensal survey carried out by the Mexican government in 2015, Indigenous people make up 21.5% of Mexico's population. In this occasion, people who self-identified as "Indigenous" and people who self-identified as "partially Indigenous" were classified in the "Indigenous" category altogether. In the 2020 Mexican census 19.4% of the country's population self-identified as indigenous and 9.36% were reported to live in Indigenous households. The absolute indigenous population
21413-481: The population. Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla. Spanish also has a presence in the education system of the country (through either selected education centers implementing Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, or the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education). In Western Sahara , formerly Spanish Sahara ,
21574-459: The possible imprecisions related to the counting of Indigenous peoples living outside the colonized areas, the effort that New Spain's authorities put on considering them as subjects is worth mentioning, as censuses made by other colonial or post-colonial countries did not consider Amerindians to be citizens/subjects, as example the censuses made by the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata would only count
21735-429: The postwar order. Vasconcelos is often referred to as the father of the indigenismo philosophy. In recent times it has come under criticism from Native Americans, because of its negative implications concerning indigenous peoples. To an extent his philosophy argued for a new, "modern" mestizo people, at the cost of cultural assimilation for all ethnic groups. His research on the nature of Mexican modern identity had
21896-460: The process of forging a national identity that fused the cultural traits of Indigenous pre-Columbian origin with those of Spanish and African ancestry. This led to what has been termed "a peculiar form of multi-ethnic nationalism" which was more invigorated and developed after the Mexican Revolution when the Constitution of 1917 officially established Mexico as an indivisible pluricultural nation founded on its indigenous roots. Mexicano (Mexican)
22057-502: The protection of indigenous cultures is granted not only to the ethnic groups indigenous to modern-day Mexican territory, but also to other North American indigenous groups that migrated to Mexico from the United States , such as the Kikapú in the 19th century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s. The category of indigena (indigenous) in Mexico has been defined based on different criteria through history; this means that
22218-416: The reason for these inconsistencies may lie in the Mestizo identity promoted by the Mexican government, which reportedly led to people who are not biologically Mestizos to be classified as such. Since the end of the Mexican Revolution , the official identity promoted by the government for non-indigenous Mexicans has been the Mestizo one (a mix of European and indigenous culture and heritage). Established with
22379-656: The region became Spanish. The Spanish re-administered the land and expanded their own empire beyond the former boundaries of the Aztec, adding more territory to the Mexican sphere of influence which remained under the Spanish Crown for 300 years. It has been suggested that the name of the country is derived from Mextli or Mēxihtli, a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Mexicas, Huitzilopochtli , in which case Mēxihco means "Place where Huitzilopochtli lives". Another hypothesis suggests that Mēxihco derives from
22540-524: The relationship between individual and society." After graduating from law school, he joined the law firm of Warner, John, and Galston in Washington, D.C. Vasconcelos joined the local Anti-Re-election Club in Washington, D.C. It supported the democratic movement to oust the longtime President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz in 1910 and was headed by Francisco I. Madero , the presidential candidate of
22701-525: The report, the oldest generation had an averaged total of 91.14% Spanish ancestry. Spanish language Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe . Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in
22862-496: The results of the 1921 census however, have been contested by various historians and are deemed inaccurate nowadays. Other sources suggest higher percentages: Encyclopædia Britannica estimates them at around 30% of the population; field surveys that use the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as white such as one by the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico calculated
23023-419: The same race and have little in common biologically, with some of them being entirely Indigenous, others entirely European, and including also Africans and Asians. Today, there is no definitive census that quantifies Mexico's white population, with estimates from the Mexican government raging from 27% to 47%, with this figure being based on phenotypical traits instead of self-identification of ancestry. The lack of
23184-452: The slave trade that took place during colonial times and that did not end until 1829. Historically, the presence of this ethnic group within the country has been difficult to assess for a number of reasons: their small numbers, heavy intermarriage with other ethnic groups, and Mexico's tradition of defining itself as a Mestizo society or mixing of European and indigenous only. Nowadays this ethnic group also includes recent immigrants from Africa,
23345-588: The son of a customs official. José's mother, a pious Catholic, died when José was 16. The family moved to the border town of Piedras Negras, Coahuila , where he grew up attending school in Eagle Pass, Texas . He became bilingual in English and Spanish, which opened doors to the English-speaking world. The family also lived in Campeche while the northern border area was unstable. His time living on
23506-537: The term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Occitan word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin * hispaniolus ('of Hispania'). Hispania was the Roman name for the entire Iberian Peninsula . There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal suggested that
23667-444: The theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal , local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos , and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo , where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century. In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese , and, according to some authors,
23828-768: The third most used language on the Internet , after English and Chinese. Spanish is the official language of Spain . Upon the emergence of the Castilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred. Hard policies imposing
23989-405: The time was in the process of rebuilding the country and was looking forward to unite all Mexicans under a single national identity. The 1921 census' final results in regards to race, which assert that 59.3% of the Mexican population self-identified as Mestizo, 29.1% as Indigenous and only 9.8% as White were then essential to cement the "mestizaje" ideology (that asserts that the Mexican population as
24150-421: The top. Hitler's power is not owed to the troops, nor the battalions, but to his own discussions... Hitler represents, ultimately, an idea, the German idea, so often humiliated previously by French militarism and English perfidy. Truthfully, we find civilian governed 'democracies' fighting against Hitler. But they are democracies in name only". (" La Inteligencia se impone ", Timon 16; June 8, 1940) Vasconcelos
24311-594: The total population of modern Mexico, they are nonetheless a notable minority. Due to the historical and contemporary perception in Mexican society of what constitutes Asian culture (associated with the Far East rather than the Near East ), Asian Mexicans typically refers to those of East Asian descent, and may also include those of South and Southeast Asian descent while Mexicans of West Asian descent are referred to as Arab Mexicans . Asian immigration began with
24472-566: The total population range from 3,799,561 to 6,122,354. It is concluded then, that across nearly three centuries of colonization, the population growth trends of Europeans and Mestizos were even, while the total percentage of the Indigenous population decreased at a rate of 13%–17% per century. The authors assert that rather than Europeans and mestizos having higher birthrates, the reason for the Indigenous population's numbers decreasing lies on them suffering of higher mortality rates, due living in remote locations rather than on cities and towns founded by
24633-441: The two groups. Additionally the presence of considerable portions of the population with African heritage further complicates the situation. In practice the classificatory system is no longer biologically based, but rather mixes socio-cultural traits with phenotypical traits, and classification is largely fluid, allowing individuals to move between categories and define their ethnic and racial identities situationally. Even though there
24794-596: The world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which the language is also known as Castilian ( castellano ). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in
24955-725: Was defeated by the Constitutionalist Army under Obregón in the Battle of Celaya in 1915, and Vasconcelos went into exile again. Venustiano Carranza became President (1915–1920), but was ousted and killed by the Sonoran generals who had helped put him in power. Vasconcelos returned to Mexico during the interim presidency of Sonoran Adolfo de la Huerta and was named rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1920) As rector, he had
25116-581: Was developed in the cities of Toledo , in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid , from the 1570s. The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages , including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida ). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o —which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in
25277-446: Was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages ). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista , and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus , much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic -derived words, make up around 8% of the language today). The written standard for this new language
25438-713: Was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h- , still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects, it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and neighboring Romance languages, there are many f -/ h - doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, though fondo means "bottom", while hondo means "deep"); additionally, hacer ("to make")
25599-416: Was made in 1793, being also Mexico's (then known as New Spain ) first ever nationwide population census. Of it, only part of the original datasets survive. Thus most of what is known of it comes from essays made by researchers who used the census' findings as reference for their own works. More than a century would pass until the Mexican government conducted a new racial census in 1921 (some sources assert that
25760-454: Was opposed to Anglo cultural influence but also emphasized the redemptive power of education. The Ateneo de la Juventud had a diverse membership, composed of university professors, artists, other professionals, and students. Some other members included Isidro Fabela and Diego Rivera . Opposed to the Díaz regime, it formulated arguments against it and its emphasis on positivism by employing French spiritualism, which articulated "a new vision of
25921-462: Was revoked by Michel Temer after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff . In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during the Spanish colonial period . Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in
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