Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, with nearly 500 million speakers, and is recognized as the fourth most powerful language globally. The Spanish-speaking world marks Spanish Language Day on April 23 to honor Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote.
The significance of this day lies in recognizing the broad impact and evolving nature of the Spanish language. Marco Antonio Lovón Cueva, a linguist and faculty member at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM), provided detailed data on the reach of Spanish worldwide and reflected on its cultural importance.
Lovón said more than 24 million people study Spanish as a foreign language across 111 countries, with about 30 million new learners each year. He also noted that it is the third most used language online after English and Russian, which affects its frequency in artificial intelligence queries. “Specifically, its use in conversational AI ranks fifth after English, Polish, French, and Italian. It is almost the only language spoken across an entire continent as well as various archipelagos. Its future lies in Latin America due to its large population,” Lovón said.
He added that more than 500 million Spanish speakers are concentrated in America alone—excluding over 57 million in the United States—and around 50 million reside in Spain. Lovón explained that for Latin Americans this day underscores how “Spanish is a mixed language” influenced by words from many origins including indigenous languages such as Nahuatl, Guarani, Quechua, and Aymara.
According to Lovón, Peruvian cuisine has contributed terms like ceviche or camu camu to global vocabulary; even Czech has adopted words like alpaka for alpaca or vikuňa for vicuña from indigenous roots. In Peru’s version of Spanish there are Andean borrowings such as yapa or yapear: “No Peruvian writer or communicator has failed to use localisms like pucho or puma,” he said.
In scientific publishing, Lovón pointed out that among over 26,000 active journals indexed by Scopus database systems worldwide, those published in Spanish mainly focus on social sciences and humanities disciplines. At UNMSM itself there are leading journals such as Lengua y Sociedad and Letras ranked highly internationally; some even include abstracts not just in English but also Quechua.
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos promotes cultural well-being through initiatives supporting responsibility and inclusion according to its official website. The university operates multiple campuses throughout Peru according to official information and leads public universities nationally based on international rankings as reported by UNMSM. It functions autonomously under Peru’s constitution according to university records, offering diverse undergraduate programs along with research opportunities as described by UNMSM while focusing on sustainable development goals according to university sources. The institution remains dedicated both academically and socially within national education efforts according to UNMSM’s website.
“Today we not only commemorate our language at schools but reflect on what defines us,” Lovón said. “It is an opportunity to question our use of Spanish and celebrate being speakers who recognize our monolingual or bilingual identity.”
The growing prominence of Spanish reflects ongoing changes shaped by migration patterns, technological advances such as artificial intelligence usage trends worldwide—and continued integration with local cultures.
