Spanish accent

[Federico Escobar]

There was something in The Economist's Johnson blog about how Spanish also
recedes in the States, after immigrants settle into English:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/06/immigrants_america

Still, it was recently calculated that by 2045 the States will be the
country with most Spanish speakers in the world. (It was recalculated down
from 2050.)

That helps explain why Stanley Fish had this to say in his recent article on
the demise of the humanities in universities: "Now Spanish is the only safe
department to be in." More fully:

"[O]n Oct. 1, […] George M. Philip, president of SUNY Albany, announced that
the French, Italian, classics, Russian and theater programs were getting the
axe.

For someone of my vintage the elimination of French was the shocker. In the
1960s and '70s, French departments were the location of much of the
intellectual energy. Faculty and students in other disciplines looked to
French philosophers and critics for inspiration; the latest thing from Paris
was instantly devoured and made the subject of conferences. Spanish was then
the outlier, a discipline considered stodgy and uninteresting.
Now Spanish is the only safe department to be in. Russian's stock has gone
down, one presumes, because in recent years the focus of our political (and
to some extent cultural) attention has shifted from Russia to China, India,
Pakistan, Iran, Iraq. Classics has been on the endangered species list for
decades. As for theater, the first thing to go in a regime of bottom-line
efficiency are the plays."

Fish's article is here:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/the-crisis-of-the-humanities-officially-arrives/

Whatever one thinks about the rise of Spanish in the States, I certainly am
not going to be celebrating the massive spread of Univision programming.

F.




On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Spanish accent
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101026/tv_nm/us_univision
> =20
> NEW YORK (Adweek) =96 With double-digit ratings growth this season=2C
> Spani=
> sh-language broadcaster Univision is off to a better start than any of the
> =
> major English-language networks=2C and the future is promising as well.
> The new census is expected to show a nearly 45% increase in the number of
> H=
> ispanic Americans since 2000=2C to a total of 50 million. This couples
> with=
>  continuing audience erosion at the major networks and Univision's recent
> d=
> eal with Mexican programer Grupo Televisa=2C which locks up the source of
> m=
> uch the network's popular programing for at least another decade.
> Just a few years ago=2C the notion of Univision catching and surpassing
> the=
> m would have had mainstream network executives rolling with laughter.
> They'=
> re not laughing now.
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas=2C USA - CT20=2C TN3=2C NJ33=2C FL7+=20
> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>
>
>                                          =
>
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