Using The Terms Correctly: Hispanic, Latino, and Spanish
Most of the time the terms, Hispanic, Latino, and Spanish, are getting mixed up and they end up being incorrectly used in sentences.
Here are some pointers to help everyone who is having difficulties using these three terms in a sentence.
Hispanic
Based on an article, Hispanic is referring to a person who originates from a line of Spanish speaking people. This means that not all countries in Latin America are Hispanic because it refers to the people who speak the language. Base on the definition, non-Spanish speaking countries such as Brazil whose people do not speak Spanish are not Hispanic.
Also, Hispanic can refer to someone who is well-adept in the Spanish language. It means that Hispanic refers to people and their ability to communicate using the Spanish language.
Additionally, people who speak Spanish may be of different ethnicity. It makes Hispanic being a broader term than what ethnicity connotes.
Furthermore, the article reveals that many of the people today usually determine their ethnicity by identifying the country where their ancestors grew up.
However, the article also reveals that the U.S. government had been using the term Hispanic to describe ethnicity while some other people who see themselves as Hispanic see it as a race. It means that it may be confusing for many people on the use of the term.
So, to make easier for everyone to understand it when it is used in a conversation or a sentence. When an announcement, a document, or any record from the U.S. government uses the term Hispanic, this means that it is referring to an ethnic group and for many, it refers to a race.
Latino
Based on an article, Latino refers to those who were born from any Latin American country and those people who have ancestors who were born in any Latin American nation. Latino is the shorter version of Latinoamericano which translates to English as Latin America.
According to an article, anyone who traces their origins in Latin America and the Caribbean is called Latinos.
Spanish
In general, Spanish can refer to the nationality of a person, says an article. Also, it can refer to people from Spain. Furthermore, Spanish can connote the language spoken by a group of people anywhere in the world.
However, even if the majority of a country speaks the Spanish language it does not mean that they are Spanish.
Many people in different Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru speak Spanish but they are not called Spanish people. It means that the term Spanish can be a language, the people of Spain, or the nationality of people in Spain.
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The Three Terms
With the definitions provided above, we can says that someone who was born in Brazil but cannot speak Spanish can be categorized as Latino but not Hispanic and not Spanish while someone who lives in Mexico who speaks Spanish can be categorized as both Latino and Hispanic and not Spanish.