Just How Latin is Latin America?
During a recent trip to Guatemala I was surprised to discover how large the indigenous population of that country is - by some estimates nearly half the population is classified as “Native American”, or indigenous. What surprised me even more was the prevalence of people who spoke and used traditional Mayan languages such as Tz’utujil, K’iche and Kaqchikel in daily life. Some people I spoke to said that many of the older people spoke only a Mayan language and did not know Spanish at all. According to the CIA World Factbook, 40% of the population speaks on of 23 Mayan dialects.
Leaving aside - if just for a moment - the political and sociological implications of this type of language use, I began to consider just how “Latin” Latin America is. Latin America extends from Mexico, through the Caribbean and down to the tip of Argentina. In nearly all cases(with the exception of Portuguese speaking Brazil, and Peru where Quechua is also an official language), Spanish is the official tongue.
However, underneath that official language there are many others. It was amazing to here these languages spoken in the street(even with Spanish-Tz’utujil code switching), even if they are not always able to be accommodated by outsiders or have to struggle to be accepted by society at large.
According to the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America, millions of people speak an indigenous language in Latin America, which represents a sizeable portion of the population. Aside from the major languages, there are hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Latin America, as a quick a quick browse through the Ethnologue language index for the Americas will show you.
I will probably come back to this topic regularly on this site, but wanted to take a basic look at the linguistic diversity of Latin America here as a basis for future discussions.
January 7th, 2008 19:51
Thanks for the “ping,” but I needed to point out an error in your article. Spanish is the “de facto” official language of Mexico, but Nahuatl and several other languages are — and for some time have been — recognized legal languages. The official language of Paraguay is Guaraní, though Spanish is used by the courts and legislature (much as English is used by the Irish Republic, where Erse is the official language.
January 7th, 2008 20:38
good points - I knew I would be opening a big can of worms once I started pointing out the exceptions to the Spanish as official language rule.
Thanks for your comments - I am just getting started with this new site, and I appreciate the feedback.