# Why Don't Mexicans Speak English **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988 "2012-12-14T02:05:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/41 "2012-12-14T21:18:08Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > They are getting there. My daughter got a Masters in International Business in Germany which was totally taught in English, and she was involved in a committee of schools from six countries, none English-speaking, where all discussions and output was in English. She got to go along as the only native English speaker to clean it up. > > So Americans being too dumb and bull headed to learn furrin languages seems to be working. As much as I am in favor of learning other languages I don’t think it’s us who are forcing those types of situations to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/42 "2012-12-14T23:19:44Z")
Let’s just all switch to Esperanto and be done with it. Or Klingon… ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/43 "2012-12-15T00:28:53Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > From my experience it seems that English is taught rigorously in Northern Mexican schools. While vacationing on South Padre Island I met a lot of Mexican Nationals who spoke no English but would yell for one of their children to come and act as interpreters. > > The kids seem to have a good working vocabulary of English by the age of 10. I spent a few days in Ecuador last August (in Cuenca, specifically); I encountered only one non-English speaker, a beggar. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/44 "2012-12-15T01:04:28Z")
> [@CC](#): > > I fear this doesn’t add much to the matter, but Americans appear to be among the only people who insist that everyone speak their language, either when there are visitors here or when Americans visit someplace else. I understand that English is a widely spoken language, but language is also culture. The insistence on English only is, in my view, an expression of a xenophobic nature. I think it has more to do with the fact that the US is a very large, populous, and isolated country combined with the fact that you can basically get away with it. English is the only language that is an official language for some country on every continent in the world (excluding Australia, which has only 1 country and no official language, although English is quite obviously the de facto language there). It’s also the language with the greatest amount of speakers when including those who speak it as a second language, and it’s largely because of the economic benefits that it has become so largely spoken as a second language. It’s certainly odd in that the number of people who speak it as a second language outnumber those who speak it as a first language, perhaps by as much as 3 to 1. It’s also somewhat embedded into international law, with official treaties designating English as the official language for aeronautical and maritime communication. According to the EU, more than 2/3 of their populace consider English to be the most important language to learn. > [@](#): > > When analysing the results at the country level, the weight of English becomes even more apparent. In 26 out of 29 countries covered in this survey, English is rated as the most useful language to know. The shares range from 97% in Sweden to 59% in Portugal. [http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/pdf/doc631\_en.pdf](http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/pdf/doc631_en.pdf) > [@](#): > > When respondents are asked which languages they think that children should learn the place of English becomes even more visible. 77% of Europeans consider English to be the language that children should learn According to the EU report (which is about 6 years old), 38% of Europeans self-identify as speaking English, so it really that odd to expect Europeans to speak English when the majority of people that Americans interact with are those that would be more predisposed to speak a foreign language, particularly English (those working in tourism or international business)? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/45 "2012-12-15T01:23:52Z")
AIUI, Tagalog itself for a majority of the population in the Philippines is a learned _common_ language, not a true mother tongue. Spanish was the language of a small elite, who promptly took to English during the US occupation as the “prestige” language-of-opportunity. Something similar seems to apply to Swahili in Africa - mother tongue of a minority, but adopted as _lingua franca_ because of trade. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/46 "2012-12-15T03:34:42Z")
Two things come to mind. 1. Switching language takes time. Do you expect the Mexican economy to just up and grind to a halt as citizens turn there efforts away from productive work to help the economy and instead spend their days studying English until they achieve fluency? The country would collapse! What about all the law books that need official translations? What about all the old Mexican movies of the 1990’s? They have to be dubbed or re-filmed and that’s expensive. 2. Language is tied in with culture. Think about your favorite books in your native language. How would you feel if your children were to be raised in a different language and you aren’t sure if they ever will be able to read those books naturally like you can except in translation? Isn’t that disturbing? One way it could happen is over time by first encouraging wide bilingualism. For example, most Old Order Amish in the US speak German at home but also can speak enough English to speak to non-Amish Americans. Theoretically, the Amish could decide that all children born in 2013 or later will be taught English as their first language and will be taught some German later so they can talk to grandma. Then, a few generations later when German has been relegated to second language status, they could drop it. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/47 "2012-12-15T04:12:57Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Urdu in Pakistan; it is near universal now, but in 1947 in what is now Pakistan, the first language of 90% (as is the case now) was something else. Israel has been mentioned. I believe that Italian was not the language if the majority of Italians in 1860. Urdu in Pakistan is a fairly good example. But all over the northern subcontinent, as far east as Bangladesh, Urdu had been studied and used by literati for centuries, even when they didn’t speak it natively. I’d bet a higher proportion of pre-Pakistan Movement north Indian literati used Urdu as a literary language than pre-Zionism Jews used Hebrew as a literary language. Yiddish, however, was a thriving literary language until it took a one-two beating from the Nazis and Zionists. In its structure and history, Yiddish is a good match for Urdu, in that an Indo-European base language took on heavy influence, including its alphabet, from a religious and intellectually prestigious Semitic language. Then you got tons of _muhajir_ Urdu native speakers added on top. Most of them were north Indian or Hyderabadi Muslims, weren’t they? The people who spoke Urdu as a native language. Did you get a significant number of muhajirs from south India? ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/48 "2012-12-15T17:10:08Z")
Give it time. Lots of time. (Maybe a few hundred years) We’ll all look similar, think (More or less) alike, and speak a language that will evolve over time. Some things can’t be rushed. Some things shouldn’t be. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/49 "2012-12-15T17:33:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > So Americans being too dumb and bull headed to learn furrin languages seems to be working. It also helps that we have a language so easy to learn that even _we_ can manage it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/50 "2012-12-15T17:59:24Z")
> [@Jake](#): > > Give it time. Lots of time. (Maybe a few hundred years) > We’ll all look similar, Almost certainly not. > [@](#): > > think (More or less) alike, Not sure what this means, but unlikely. > [@](#): > > and speak a language that will evolve over time. If you mean the same language, almost certainly not. > [@](#): > > Some things can’t be rushed. Some things shouldn’t be. And some things are a matter of opinion, not fact. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/51 "2012-12-16T00:19:34Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > We’ve visited Chicago a few times, and there is a fairly large Mexican district there where many people do not speak English and most of the businesses had signs and advertising in Spanish only (except the restaurants, which were usually bilingual). My wife is a professional interpreter/translator and makes her living off the fact that a lot of Mexicans in Chicago (and larger US) don’t speak English. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/52 "2012-12-16T04:04:00Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Urdu in Pakistan is a fairly good example. But all over the northern subcontinent, as far east as Bangladesh, Urdu had been studied and used by literati for centuries, even when they didn’t speak it natively. I’d bet a higher proportion of pre-Pakistan Movement north Indian literati used Urdu as a literary language than pre-Zionism Jews used Hebrew as a literary language. Yiddish, however, was a thriving literary language until it took a one-two beating from the Nazis and Zionists. In its structure and history, Yiddish is a good match for Urdu, in that an Indo-European base language took on heavy influence, including its alphabet, from a religious and intellectually prestigious Semitic language. Then you got tons of _muhajir_ Urdu native speakers added on top. Most of them were north Indian or Hyderabadi Muslims, weren’t they? The people who spoke Urdu as a native language. Did you get a significant number of muhajirs from south India? True, but it was a literary language, not an everyday language, except for a few. As for S Indians, yes quite a few actually. However, it was only really in Karachi that Muhajirs formed a distinct community, everywhere else they assimilated. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/53 "2012-12-16T04:21:04Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > We’ve visited Chicago a few times, and there is a fairly large Mexican district there where many people do not speak English… Ummm, there’s a large, well known Polish ‘district’, also in the Chicago area, in which the same thing is true. I’m functionally illiterate when I go there, despite my Polish ancestry. It would surprise me if someplace as big as Chicago _didn’t_ have _several_ such ethnic enclaves. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/54 "2012-12-17T22:06:49Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > Let’s just all switch to Esperanto and be done with There’s an old joke about the everyone speaking Esperanto when the Esperanto club was meeting. Then afterwards, they all hung around outside speaking that true international language: Yiddish. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/55 "2012-12-18T03:01:21Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Two things come to mind. > > 1. Switching language takes time. Do you expect the Mexican economy to just up and grind to a halt as citizens turn there efforts away from productive work to help the economy and instead spend their days studying English until they achieve fluency? The country would collapse! What about all the law books that need official translations? What about all the old Mexican movies of the 1990’s? They have to be dubbed or re-filmed and that’s expensive. The 1990s? More like think back to Cantinflas… María Félix (I’ve heard her called “a national treasure”)… and those are the two that this Spaniard can come up with at 4am and off the top of her head. Then you have the music: change the language, and suddenly a ton of songs which are instantly recognizable to half a billion people become “foreign-language”. The pronunciation of the country’s name is different in English and Spanish! “Mexico pretty and beloved if I die away from you let them say that I’m asleep and bring me here” needs some serious work before it can fit the original rythm and rhyme… (Original lyrics of what may be the utmost Mexican homesickness song: _México lindo y querido si muero lejos de tí que digan que estoy dormido y que me traigan aquí_.) ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/56 "2012-12-18T05:11:36Z")
Spanish is the new _lingua franca_. I like saying that because of the three levels of irony in that statement. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/57 "2012-12-18T12:15:44Z")
Irony? Didn’t the original Lingua Franca include a Spanish component? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/58 "2012-12-19T08:12:23Z")
I think there’s a similar situation in Ireland. The English subjugated the Irish for centuries, yet English and Irish are co-official in Ireland. Tourists have reported that the Irish countryside is bedecked with signs urging the cutting of the last bond with England, and the use of Irish instead of English–but the signs are all in English! Also, an Irish delegate to a conference in Geneva, when asked why he spoke French at the conference, said, “I can’t speak my own language, and I’ll be damned if I’ll speak English.” ---
**Author:** ![smokey78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@smokey78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smokey78)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/59 "2012-12-20T21:48:47Z")
I’ll tell you the dopiest story: I was interning for my pharmacy degree down in South Texas. One of the pharmacists there chastised me for knowing little Spanish beyond a year in high school as she said there are so many Spanish speakers “even up to Chicago and Wisconsin” who spoke no English. I didn’t retort back, but the next day I mentioned how the pharmacy school in Houston (from their syllabus, as I didn’t go there) had a patient counseling class where Vietnamese counseling was taught. She laughed and was shocked there was even such a class. Jeez, and I swear there were Vietnamese folks all over the U.S. too! \*\*\*Note, the school no longer teaches that course in Vietnamese, dunno if cuz there wasn’t anyone to teach it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988/60 "2012-12-20T22:31:24Z")
Actually, a lot of Vietnamese fishermen settled in the Gulf Coast of the US. That covers parts of Texas. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-mexicans-speak-english/643988.md?page=2)