Why do the people who live in Latin America speak Spanish, and not Latin?

Question

Obviously they used to speak Latin, hence the name of their country, but what prompted the change to Spanish? My friend Oscar said he thinks it was because the people were having too hard a time doing math with Roman numerals. This kinda makes sense, because I can't even tell what year some movies and TV shows were made when they show the date with those letters. I can't even imagine trying to ADD letters or mutliply them and stuff.

Plus, Oscar is usually kinda full of crap, so I don't trust him on this.

Answer 1

Can we please all for once accept that languages evolve over time, and sometimes the name of the language changes. For ex., Dutch is the same word as Deutsch 'German', because they were once the same language but over time they have diverged through natural evolution. In Dutch itself the name has changed to reflect this. The language is called Nederlands or Hollands, but in English we kept the old name.
In the case you ask about, in the middle ages Spanish was often still called Latin by its own speakers because Spanish is nothing but the evolved form of Latin spoken in Spain. This usage was preserved longer among Jews than Christians because the Jewish form of Spanish was long called Ladino.

Answer 2

Because the british conquered North America... and the spaniards conquered the region we call Latin America. Except for Brazil which was conquered by Portugal. In Latin America you don´t have to speak both english and spanish, just the primary language, but learning english can be very useful and also learn more than 2 languages...

Answer 3

Hey, bubbles, where have you been ? Asleep for the last 2,000 years and just woke up today ? Welcome !
Happy to update you.
Spanish is a Latin derived language, same as Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian, and others.
When the Roman empire fell, in 476, from the countries that composed the empire new languages came, like those above mentioned.
In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus, in the name of Spain, discovered America, and therefore, the Spaniards spread their language all over.
Now, since Spanish comes from Latin, the current countries that speak Spanish are called Latin America.
Nevertheless, that should include also Brasil that speaks Portuguese, and Haiti, that speaks French, both also coming from Latin.
People stop speaking Latin 1500 years ago, except the Catholic church, and some scientists

Answer 4

They never did speak Latin, tell Oscar. They were colonised by two countries speaking modern versions of the Latin language, i.e. Spain and Portugal, and that is how they obtained the name Latin America. It distinguishes them from English and French speaking America and is a useful shorthand to cover both the Spanish and Portuguese languages. Although, to be strictly accurate, French is also a modern version of Latin.

Answer 5

It's called "Latin" America because Spanish, along with Portuguese, French and Italian, are "Latin"-based languages. They all have latin roots. If you understand Latin, you can read pretty much all of those above languages.

Answer 6

Because most of these places were conquered and colonized by Spain. Other areas were colonized by other countries like Portugal, France, and even some Caribbean islands by England.

Spanish, portuguese, and french languages are romance languages derived from Latin.

Answer 7

"Latin" america refers to the countries conquered by the southern European nations (Spain, France, Portugal) which were part of the roman empire or speak romance languages. It includes some countries that don't speak Spanish

Answer 8

I have no idea why they speak Spanish but I'm guessing it has something to do with television. I don't think there are any Latin television stations but I KNOW there are several Spanish stations. They probably changed it so they could watch television.

Answer 9

I'm pretty sure they call it Latin America because they like Latin music there. Now why they stopped singing Latin music in Latin is probably the real question.

Answer 10

Watching tv is easier but I enjoy reading catalogs more