A Shortage of Spanish Speakers in Miami?

If you're asked to think of a U.S. city whose employers could use more Spanish speakers, chances are that Miami isn't one that would come to mind. After all, Miami has long been recognized as the most bilingual city in the United States, and it has even been called the economic capital of Latin America.

But, surprisingly, Miami's status as a Spanish-speaking city could be changing, according to a recent article in the Miami Herald. The problem, reporter Enrique Fernandez wrote, isn't that Miami has a shortage of people who speak Spanish. The problem is that there aren't enough who speak it well, or at least well enough for the many international businesses in the Florida city. Finding someone who speaks Spanish well enough to cash checks is easy; finding someone who speaks Spanish well enough to write high-level business correspondence is not.

The reason, writes Fernandez:

Researchers such as [University of Miami linguist Andrew Lynch], who specializes in language use and education, have a term for what's happening to Spanish in Miami.

"In linguistics we don't call it 'language loss' but 'incomplete acquisition,'" he says, "because the new generations can't lose what they never had."

"Kitchen Spanish" is one term for what many second- and third-generation Hispanics speak — good enough to ask abuela for a galleta but not to conduct business.

Many studies have been done on the tendency of immigrants to not pass on the ability to use their mother tongue. Usually, there are few economic consequences as a result. But that's apparently not the case in Miami, where fluent Spanish use is still a necessity for many employees.