Languages of the Americas

Thousands of languages, classified in dozens of language families, were spoken throughout the Americas prior to the arrival of the Europeans. These languages covered a geographical area stretching from Alaska to Greenland and from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. The most widely spoken language group stemmed from the Quechua family and includes Aymara, Guarani, and Nahuatl. Several pre-Columbian civilization such as the Maya, Olmec, and Zapotec had also developed writing systems; Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, and China are three places where writing developed independently. The number of languages and the vast differences between the languages spoken throughout the Americas suggests several waves of migration had occurred over a long period time. This explains the wide distribution of the many unrelated languages spoken in the Americas.

Languages of the Caribbean

In the history of the colonization of the Americas, isolated occasions occurred in allowing native languages to co-existed with the language of the European colonizers. The Europeans understood how learning the language of the indigenous people could ease the communication barrier and make their presence acceptable or at least tolerable. It also allowed the Europeans to bring a comprehensive message to the native population in their attempt to subvert the indigenous people. The tolerance of native languages was rare. The common tactic used by the Europeans in subjugating the native populations was by destroying every aspects of their culture; primarily their ability to communicate. By the 18th and 19th century, the use of Native American languages fell into decline or became extinct; they were replaced by the languages of the European conquerors.