Does Orlando Bloom Speak Spanish?
Orlando Bloom has filmed movies all over the globe, and seems to have a soft spot for Spain, as he’s been multiple times. He has vacationed here with his fiance Katy Perry, and it was here that he allegedly punched Justin Beiber. Does Orlando Bloom speak Spanish?
Orlando Bloom considers himself monolingual and therefore doesn’t speak Spanish fluently. His parents ran a language school in England, and some sources have misrepresented in saying that he is fluent in French. He has cleared the air by stating he understands French but doesn’t necessarily speak it fluently.
He may not speak any real languages, other than English, but he had to learn a fictional language, or languages, for Lord of the Rings. His character, Legolas Greenleaf, speaks multiple Elvin dialects.
Monolingual Stats
There are many studies showing a range of how many people are monolingual or can only speak one language, in the world. Some have the number as low as 25%, though many agree that it is somewhere around 40%.
Of the 75% of Americans who only speak in their native tongue, 80% of them only speak English. American English, especially in written terms, is different than British English, with the most obvious differences being the difference in using s vs. z in some words, such as civilization, and dropping the u in words such as behavior and neighbor.
Many Americans, in addition to other prominent English countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, feel there’s no need to learn another language, as most of the various aspects of the business world all speak English.
Bilingual Stats
There are many studies showing a range of how many people are bilingual, someone who can speak two languages fluently, and though world statistics are not kept it is estimated that 43% of the world’s population is bilingual.
Several countries around the world have more than one official language, which is why the number of polyglots, or people who speak more than one language, is so high. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the United States and Mexico, neither of whom have an official language, though they each have their own popular language.
Over 41 million Americans, which is approximately 13% of the population of the United States, speaks Spanish, making it by far the second spoken language in the country, behind Engish. Though exact numbers are hard to determine as the number of students learning the language rises, and there are no statistics for undocumented Spanish speakers within the country.
Spanish Language
Spanish, or Castilian, is the world’s second most spoken language, behind Mandarin Chinese. There are ten main dialects of the Spanish language, and most are named after a region in which the native speakers come from.
Spanish is an official language in eight countries, and one territory, throughout the globe. Over 8% of the European Union population speak it natively, with another 7% of the E.U. population learning it as an additional language, on top of their native language.
As with most languages, Spanish came about by evolving from another language, in this case, it was Vulgar Latin around 210 B.C. The first written documentation that has been found to use the precursor to today’s Spanish was found to be from the 9th century.
World Traveled
Bloom has spent a lot of time in places that do not speak English as a first language. Being a UNICEF UN Ambassador, he has traveled to places such as Niger and Ukraine. He seems to have no problem communicating with people wherever he goes.
Although he may have hung up his Elvin bow, he continues to act, and could pick up parts of other languages for different roles. Though I continue to cross my fingers that he’ll play Legolas again. I mean, they’re coming out with the 6th Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so it’s possible, right?
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