Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, followed by the United States, where more than sixty million speak it to a greater or lesser degree. There is debate here, however: some say that Spanish speakers who reside in the United States eventually lose their language, with English replacing it. The evidence isn’t clear. I’ve heard that there are families where Spanish stubbornly abides across the generations the way muscle clings to bone.
So let us give the conquistadors this one thing: where else in the world can you travel from one extreme of a continent to another, understanding everything the people say and being understood by everyone? Can you do that in Africa, in Asia? In Europe, it’s a known fact that you either learn languages or you’re condemned to silence when you leave your home country.
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