Is there any explanation why so many people here don't know Latin from Spanish?

Question

Do they really think that because the countries to the South of the US are called "Latin American" that they speak Latin?

Answer 1

I've noticed that too, and realized that it's because they didn't have Latin in school, or generally poor linguistic training leads to this. I've heard people here ask about Europe as one country, Swiss and Brazilian language and many more misconceptions. But you're right: the Latin/Latino thing is the commonest:)

Answer 2

Who here thinks Latin and Spanish are the same?

"Latin American" refers to the fact that the languages that people speak there originated from Latin, from what I've heard.

The explanation is that most countries of the world teach a second language all through school, and many offer Latin at least a bit during schooling.

Most U.S. citizens only take a basic foreign language class in high school, and they don't get much out of it. And Latin is hard to come by until college years.

Answer 3

Well, I think that those who believe that are the yanks.
About the explanation you ask for, I never thought that somebody in a sane mind would ask that, but that explanation is very obvious: From Latin, the language spoken by the Roman Empire, come the romance languages:
1 - Spanish
2 - French
3 - Italian
4 - Portuguese
5 - Romanian
6 - Romansh, spoken in a certain area of Switzerland.
But since this happened approximately 1,500 years ago, the romance languages have become very different from the Latin root, although they still bear a certain resemblance, which is barely enough to allow a half understanding of the Latin sentences.
It would be like pretending that people from the USA spoke the Anglo Saxon from the times of king Alfred the Great

Answer 4

I don't know of anyone who thinks Latin Americans speak Latin. What do Hispanics speak? Hispanic?

Answer 5

Ignorance? I don't understand it, either. It throws me for a loop when someone asks a question about Latin, and they get an answer in an Hispanic language.

Answer 6

Who knows?Certainly I know Latin from Spanish.I find it strange you'd have to ask such a question.Most of the time I hear people confusing Latin with Italian,not Spanish.

Answer 7

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You're in an English speaking room. We don't need to know anything about Latin or Spanish. Some of us choose to not learn any other language. Some of us choose to not learn the history of every country in the world. Many of us choose to learn French or Italian or Russian or Polish or any or all of the above and more. Many of us choose to learn the history of one or several other countries, not involving Latin America.

What is the matter with you, asking such a question? Is there an explanation? That is like me asking why so many people in here seem to know nothing about the wave equation. Why the h*** should they?
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Answer 8

...I think it has to do with the same people who don't know the difference between "from Spain" and "Spanish-speaking". After all, people from the US whose first tongue is English don't refer to themselves as British, do they?

My Spanish friends - i.e. the ones from Spain - get very irked at the insistence of people on the other side of the Atlantic on referring to people whose native tongue happens to be Spanish as "Spanish", even though they may be from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico or even the USA itself.

Answer 9

I dont think they have ever been exposed to it, or care about it.