Question on South American people and languages.?

Question

What languages are widely used in South America.

Is it Spanish? Then why are those people called Latina or Latino?

Isnt Latin is from Europe?

Tell me more abt them please. Thank you.

Answer 1

Portuguese is spoken by more South Americans than Spanish.  There are 190 million Brazilians, so it is not a modest amount.

Latin means that the language is a Romance language and is based on Latin, the cultures of people who speak Romance languages as a primary language have been grouped as Latins (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan etc etc etc)

Answer 2

Latin is a dead language, it used to be the language of the Roman Empire, but now it is not the language of any particular culture (except perhaps scientists :-)).  Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian and others (romance languages), descended from Latin and have many similarities.  The Spaniards were mainly the ones who colonized South and Central America, that's why most countries speak Spanish (18 countries total if we include all of the Americas and the Caribbean islands).  Portuguese is spoken in Brazil, which is the largest country in S.A, so a large population also speaks portuguese even though it is just one country. Dutch, French, English and several other dialects are spoken in the Guianas (Suriname (Dutch Guiana), French Guiana and Guyana (British Guiana)).

There are many other native dialects like Quechua, Guaraní etc. that are spoken by natives of several countries.

Go to the links below to see % of each language or dialect spoken in each country and the origins of latin languages.

Answer 3

It's almost 50% Spanish, 50% Portuguese (exceptions are some natives (not more than 10 million) and People in Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana (not more than 1 million), that are very small countries). Curiosly, the 50% that speak Portuguese live in a single country, while the 50% that speak Spanish live in 9 different countries.

They're called Latin Americans ("latino" is a politically correct term invented in the US, there is the "latino" word in Latin America, but with another meaning) cause they speak all speak latin-derived languages (Spanish, Portuguese and France). It's a way to lump similar countries together, like "Wester Europe" or "SubSaaharian Africa".

Answer 4

Yes Spanish is most widely spoken over all of the countries in South America.

You have to also remember though that Brazil is Portuguese and so Portuguese is more widely spoken there.

Actually there are many different languages spoken in South America when you take into consideration the vast number of indigenous native Indians who live there.

The vast majority of the people living there live in poverty and only the more wealthy can afford to be educated or to live outside of the poverty scope.

For the most part the people are hard working and basically honest and mainly Catholic by faith.

Answer 5

I'll give you the benefit of doubt here on this being a joke.  Spanish is spoken in almost every South American country due to the previous imperialization of the continent by the Spanish.

Portguese (Brazil) and French are also spoken to a modest extent there.

Latino (Latina...feminine) refers to those of Latin countries.  Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian are all languages derived from Latin.  Albeit they carry a distant sound and tone, they all have the same grammer rules and the written form of each respective language looks strikingly similar.  Since the primary languages of South America are Spanish, Portuguese and French, they are all considered Latin countries.

Answer 6

Spanish is the official language of almost all of the countries in South America.  Brazilians speak Portuguese but if you travel there almost all speak both Spanish and Portguese because they are surrounded by Spanish speakers and pick it up easily. There are smaller countries in South America where they speak dialects of French. In a lot of South American countries you will find a lot of Indigenous people who speak either Mayan, Aztec or another type of Indigenous language. A lot of them will know Spanish as well but some only speak in their native tongue still.

Answer 7

Spanish and Portuguese are the main languages of latin america. French is also spoken to a smaller degree.

They are called Latin because the languages evolved from Latin.