Notes on Latin America
In learning a language, it is important not only to understand the language itself, but the culture and people who utilize it. Without this knowledge, an understanding of the language is incomplete and often allows for biases to develop. In order to avoid this, I decided to research on four main guiding questions, which I've bulleted below.
- How many countries are in Latin America?
- There are twenty independent countries in Latin America, and thirteen dependencies. Of those dependencies, the majority are owned by France, while several American and British ones exist, followed by one Dutch dependency.
- What languages do they speak in LA?
- Though the conception is that Spanish is the most spoken language in Latin America, this is not true. Portuguese is the slight majority, followed by Spanish, English, French, and Dutch as federally listed languages. Indigenous languages have millions of speakers scattered across nations, some passing through borders.
- What do immigrant populations look like in LA?
- Immigration to Latin American nations has declined sharply in recent years, due to a variety of reasons, such as conflict, economic turmoil, and slow development, all of which is not helped by sensationalized media reporting. However, this has not always been the case, and is changing now. For example, a lot of Catholics, fleeing persecution or opposition in their home nations, chose Latin America, which is majority Catholic, as an area to resettle in. A precise example of this can be seen by the Arabic Diaspora living in South America, which first arrived in the 1870's during religious and colonial conflict in Lebanon. During the Interwar period between 1918 and 1939, over 130,000 immigrants from Lebanon and Syria settled into Brazil, Argentina, and other Latin American countries. Some members of this diaspora include several leaders, such as current Brazilian President Michel Temer. Though conflict, rule of force and tighter immigration laws has impacted immigration, Latin America remains a very favored target by some groups. For example, there has been a large influx of foreign business in recent years, as businessmen from Eastern Asian nations such as China and Singapore seek to expand trade relations. As a consequence, the face of immigrants and immigration in Latin America is ever changing.
- What do language barriers look like in LA?
- Before colonization in the 1500's by European powers, language was a very diverse spread in Latin America, as different tribes, civilizations, and empires each spoke various languages. In modern times, though European originated languages are the primary spoken language, there has been some mixing. Words, phrases, and even minor tonal changes have been made to Latin American Spanish or Portuguese that do not exist in Spain and Portugal, and likewise rulings from those two nations which do not exist in LA. As a consequence, one could say "dialects" have developed, but the differences are very small and usually very easy to pass around in discussion. Unlike North America, there is a thriving community of indigenous languages in LA, such as Zapotec, Nahuatl, Mixtec, and other native languages housing millions of speakers. Some are federally recognized and are supposed to be given proper benefits as such. The diversity in languages can be seen with Mexico, where over two hundred and eighty two indigenous languages exist, while the forty eight largest are recognized by the government. In other nations, there is little recognition provided to these languages, but the face of law and public attitude is shifting as developments happen, and this can easily change within the next several years.