Latino or Hispanic? What's the difference? - BBC News

More than 400 million people in the world speak Spanish and 10% of them live in the United States, according to the Cervantes Institute.

But when do you classify a person as Hispanic or Latino? BBC journalist Angélica Casas explains the difference between the terms and why it matters.

Filmed by Chloe Kim.

[bayrexsanchez]

The term in English "Latin" is already gender neutral. No need to "fix" my Spanish from an anglophone perspective.

[UnRandomYNadaMas]

Call me latinx one more time and you will see why i am still alive in the streets of argentina

[juanse]

"We recently adopted the term LatinX" ? who made this decision?

[checcozalone]

If you expect me to understand the difference after watching this video, you must be very confused yourself!

[koalitaDormilona]

They could just resurrect the neuter gender from Latin, and call everyone "Latinum" or some such :D

[daniel_]

i’m puerto rican and they way she said “puerto rico” irritates me. also, “latin x” ?
get that shit out of here 🤨

[marioeskivel]

Both of those terms I never heard outside of the USA.

[inigoacha]

Latino is a despective anglo-saxon word.
As Spaniard. Right ? My Britards?
Is called Iberoamericano.
And its funneh to see a person who barely speaks spanish, working for the BBC, to lecture me about my country and my culture.
Greetings from Hispania and Lusitania, aka IBERIA.
I didnt expect less watching your anglo museums, fullfilled with Brittish history and pieces of the brittish culture.

[danielburriss]

Yeah, I’m never saying Latin x. Ever.

[Alejandrosoprano]

Latin x sounds like something I watch a 3 am and deleted the evidence 🤦‍♂️🥴😅

[usssanjacinto]

Hispanic comes from the word Hispania which was the Roman Region of the entire Iberian peninsula. So Hispania encompassed both Portugal and Spain. And even within Spain, several different languages are spoken apart from Spanish, i.e, Aranese, Basque, Catalan, and Galician.

[joaopaulosilverio]

Latino: Pre-Roman people who lived on the Italian peninsula.
Hispanic: People who lived in the Roman province of Hispania (Iberian peninsula).
The rest is American invention ...

[raberuo_dobida]

I would argue that Spaniards are also Latin; not Latin American, but Latin European, like the French, Italians, Romanians, and other peoples who speak Latin-derived languages.

[IndysGarage]

This is stupid, very stupid . Latin can be found originaly in Europe and these are the real Latinos: Italians (where is coming from), French, Romanians, Spanish and Portuguese are the real latin country's . The rest are just impersonators especially coming from American continent where the "Indians" lived.

[sergiotorres]

You forgot the people from the former Spanish colonies that are now part of the contiguous US: southwest, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. We're still alive!

[daniellebullen]

The mispronunciation of Guyana and Suriname made me cringe

[erickvarela]

It is incredible that a media like the BBC makes these kinds of mistakes. Latino is NOT a geographic reference, it is a reference to the language a person speaks. A Latino is a person who speaks a language that comes from Latin. The original Latinos are from Europe.

[emmanuelwood]

The French politician Michel Chevalier is often credited with popularizing the term "Latin America" in his 1836 book "Des intérêts matériels en France, en Espagne, et surtout en Belgique" (Material Interests in France, Spain, and especially in Belgium). Chevalier used the term to distinguish the countries of the Americas from Anglo-Saxon America, referring to the English-speaking countries.

[Eusantdac]

So that's why it is confusing to use "Latino" just for those in Central and South America. Latinos logically are any people who speak a Latin language like: French, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, or Spanish.

[andreribeiro]

That is almost true. Portuguese people are Hispanic as well. Also, latin people can also speak other latin languages like french, italian, galician, catalan, romanian, occitan, etc. Therefore, if we are being very rigorous, the only countries in latin america who are not hispanic are Haiti and Quebec. Portugal, Spain and Andorra are Latin and Hispanic. And France, Italy, Romania, Moldova, Vatican, Monaco, part of Belgium and San Marino are only latin. The only way to isolate spanish speaking countries is to call them hispanophones as oposed to lusophones or francophones, because hispanic also includes Portugal and its colonies