When Christopher Columbus arrived, what language did the Native Americans speak? Did they speak any language at all?
2007-10-16 15:24:40 · 11 answers · asked by . 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Columbus' first landed in Guanahani (San Salvador) and had approximately 3-4 voyages all together which included Kiskeya & Aiti (Dominican Republic, Haiti) and Bori'ken (Puerto Rico). The natives of the Carribean Islands spoke an arawak based language known today by some as Island Arawak,Tainey or Dialecto (spanish word meaning dialect). Tha Language branched off from the Tainos' relatives in the Amazon and Orinoco basins who speak arawak. Infact many people today use the segments of the language without realizing it: barabacoa (bbq), Huracan (hurricane), maracas, nagua (used in spanish as a slip), bori'kua (boricua), banana, hamaca (hamack), canoa (canoe), koki (coque-puerto rican frog) and so forth.
2007-10-16 17:14:09 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
When Columbus came to this land he was lost of course , the Indians spoke their language that was given to them by the Creator to the Elders. They spoke with hand language around the whites so they didn't understand what we were saying and had to use interpreters to speak what we were saying to them. We spoke words and the whites took them and formed other words with them that didn't even mean the same thing and these are still here today like How. They used it for a greeting but we used it as Ho-ah which means we are where we belong. Now I ask you does that sound like how please watch THE 500 NATIONS on DVD and you will learn the true stories of the Indians they are great. I use them in my teaching of others so they can understand things in the right way and not from TV.
2007-10-16 16:33:44 · answer #2 · answered by Darrell Red Wolf Pierce 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If a tree falls in the forest and no white man hears it fall, does it still make a noise?? OF COURSE the native peoples of the Americas had Language. There were many languages, depending on where they lived, be it Alaska's north shore of the southern tip of Patagonia! Did you really think about htis question before you asked it?
2007-10-17 07:34:42 · answer #3 · answered by awasosqua 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Each native tribe which was in essence a seperate nation spoke their own language. much like South American and Central America before the spanish came and made them all speak spanish.
They call them primitive but in Europe there was Germany with it s language. France with its language. and so on.
So why was it so hard to believe that these people didn't have a well developed language.
Each tribe had its own dialect.
They were seperate nations just like Europe.
It is as if someone more powerful came and made all of Europe speak English. They tried it in Africa but today hundreds of languages are being spoken all over Africa.
2007-10-16 15:53:31 · answer #4 · answered by Steven 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Since Christopher Columbus never reached North America, the question has no meaning. Of course, the natives of the islands spoke some language, they were not prehistoric cavemen afterall.
2007-10-16 15:35:40 · answer #5 · answered by Wiz 7 · 5⤊ 2⤋
I don't know what language they spoke. He first landed on Puerto Rico so I might guess boriquen. but i really have no idea. maybe they spoke taino? I don't know the name of the language.
Why is everyone talking about cherokees and sioux indians and other natives of north america? the question does not say anything about north america. it is the americas, so native americans could be from south, central, north american or the caribbean.
2007-10-16 15:37:44 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
They had very well developed languages and they used them in the war effort to get messages back and forth that no enemy could decipher. Just as Europe has many different counties so did the North American Continent.
They were Sioux Indians, Cherokee and Choctaw and Seminole. Actually many tribes and many languages.
2007-10-16 15:44:39 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
Here's a list of the languages of the USA. Ignore the ones like English, French and German, and you'll see that there's over a hundred indigenous languages. There used to be more.
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=US
2007-10-16 15:44:23 · answer #8 · answered by ganesh 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
"Any language at all?"
No...they only spoke in facial expressions and magically developed their own languages after whites showed up...
*note sarcasm*
They did and do have their own languages, MANY languages to go along with the many tribes (Nations).
2007-10-17 09:41:34 · answer #9 · answered by Indigo 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Of course they spoke languages. There were (and are) hundreds of thousands of languages spoken throughout the Americas.
2007-10-16 15:32:32 · answer #10 · answered by CelloGirl 2 · 3⤊ 3⤋