Before the Spanish invasion, did all the countries in Latin America have their own proper official language?

Question

I've seen Spanish films (or Castellano films, whatever) from Spain, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and also some Venezuelan and Colombian soap operas. They all speak Spanish with various accents (which is fascinating by the way). I often wonder if the Spanish didn't invade these countries, what language would everybody there speak today?

And my country has been under the British, Dutch and Japanese rule for 490 years, still, we didn't lose our national language and it stays as beautiful as ever (albeit some borrowed words from Dutch and English). So how did all the Latin American languages became extinct?

Answer 1

ummm, there weren't actually countries established before the Spanish colonized the area.

Answer 2

First, the countries were not defined until after the Spanish were expelled from their colonies.
But yes, there were many civilizations in Latin America which had their own languages before the Spanish invaded. That's why even though Castillian Spanish is spoken all over Latin America (except for Brazil) each country tends to have a different accent, slangs and regionalisms. In Peru, which is my home country, the Constitution recognizes Spanish, Quechua and Aymara as the official languages in the country. There are many more regions that still speak their own languages, specially in the rain forest. The same happens with the other countries in Latin America.

Answer 3

There are many indigineous languages spoken in South America, those are derived from the languages spoken at the time of the invasion. The local population was killed by the colonial armies (not only Spanish) and by viruses brought by the Europeans. The languages of the Inca or the Aztec could have become leading languages on the continent if the European did not decimate them. Some languages are still widely spoken in Latin America like Maya, Aymara, Quecha or Guarani. The latter is even official language in Paraguay.

Answer 4

The Mosquito Coast, and they speak latin. Ergo, Latin America. LOL, I don't know of any. Actually the Inca spoken language might still exist, but the Jesuits stepped pretty hard on that whole society. I know a friend wasn't able to communicate with a tribe in Guatamala using spanish, but identifying the language was real iffy.

Answer 5

Actually Spain was not the only European country that invaded "Latin America", so I'll talk about the "European invasion", instead of the "Spanish invasion".

Before the Europeans there were no Latin American countries as we know today, but hundreds of native tribes, lots of them were still in a very primitive stage.

Before the Europeans there was no "Colombia", "Brazil", "Mexico", whatever.

The population of Latin America is not aboriginal, like in your country. Only 10% of the Latin Americans are pure or almost pure Native Americans. I don't see why should whites, blacks or mixed Latin Americans start to talk native languages. Unlike your country, many Europeans migrated to Latin America, the descendands of those Europeans were the ones that fighed against the Portugueses and Spanish for Latin American independence. Many slaves from Africa were brought. In Argentina and Uruguay most of the population is of European descend, in lots of Latin American countries the indigenous population is irrelevant, less than 1% or nonexistent.

But native Latin Americans do speak native languages. The most important ones are Guaraní (in Paraguay), Aymará (in Bolivia) and Quechua (in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador)

Those countries mentioned above have a large native american population, so they have native languages as oficial language together with Spanish. But most people on those countries speak Spanish as the first language, only the natives don't speak Spanish as first language.

There are 2.2 million people that speak Aymará
14 millions that speak Quechua
4 millions that speak Guaraní

You can't talk about Latin American languages, if you know the meaning of "Latin", but yes, native languages from Latin America are not extinct yet.

I don't see why you don't ask this same question about US and Canada. It's the same situation.

Answer 6

there where no countries, hundreds of languages were spoken.

If it weren't for Spain, we'd be speaking either Portuguese or Dutch or French or English.

Much of the pre-colombian languages were extinct because the spanish and the portuguese exterminated much of their populations.

When the native environment was devastated to make room to agriculture, the remainder indigenous peoples could not longer maintain their traditional lifestyles, and could only survive if they served as slaves to the europeans.

Answer 7

The answer to your question is NO, as you said "proper and official language". Everyone spoke something that could be understood by the locals. Most languages were dialects of other languages, and none were printed languages. These were quite backward people, very superstitious, and quite blood thirsty, no matter what modern day ancestors would have you believe. Most of the written "language" was in hieroglyphics of some sort or another, and are still quite open to a broad interpretation, even after the discovery of major clues into the workings of the language.
Languages have generally involved...or died.

To think that the city states/ kingdoms/ areas of domination were on any level near to England of the 1400-1500s is too far fetched to consider, except by those who want a make believe world for their ancestors who were so violently and unrighteously conquered by the bad old Europeans. Making pyramids to enshrine corpses, or to use as altars for murder, doesn't exactly mean that it is a higher civilization than the one who conquered them (no matter what injustices were also done by certain of those men doing the conquering and converting).

Don't forget that Portugal is spoken in the largest of the South American countries....Brazil. English is spoken in Belize. Mexico was conquered by France, but little French is spoken there, except by the very educated.

I think you'll find the same in another "late to develope" continent, Africa. There were languages, but quite primitive languages, no alphabets or writing, except for the areas in the extreme north of the continent, of course. (Eqypt, and all those more advanced areas).

Answer 8

In Latin America the various languages were geographically different. The many different tribes or groups of people had their own independent language and dialects. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs all spoke their own.

Answer 9

There were no national languages since there were no such thing like a nation, not in the way we know this today . There were a multitude of Indian languages spreading all over the continent, nothing a unique major language. If Indians kept or not their languages untill today, who knows? I bet not.

Answer 10

The boundaries of th ecountries would have been very different, and they would have spoken their own language or dialect.