Wednesday, 1 October 2025

The Contribution of Indigenous Languages to Spanish

Diversity and Hybridity in Latin American Spanish

On Friday, October 12, 1942, Christopher Colombus arrived in the Americas, specifically at the island of Guanahahí, which he renamed San Salvador in honour to Jesus Christ. This island belongs to the archipelago of the Bahamas, where the official language today is English, rather than Spanish.

According to a BBC article, the American continent at that time was home to an estimated 40 to 60 million people, indicating that it was a densely populated region. Within this vast territory, approximately 1,200 distinct languages were spoken, grouped into about 120 language families. However, other sources suggest that linguistic diversity may have been even greater.

The chart below illustrates the number of languages that continue to be spoken in the present.

 
Source: Instituto Cervantes vía el Observatorio Regional de Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas (2024)

The expansion of Spanish in the Americas was a phenomenon driven by the migration of Spanish settlers to emerging urban centres, as well as by the process of mestizaje that developed within the first nuclei of colonial society. In regions where Spanish presence was less significant, indigenous languages managed to survive and, in many cases, have endured to the present day. Another decisive factor in the diffusion of Spanish was the process of evangelization, which sought to transmit the Christian faith to Indigenous communities.

Although linguistic diversity in the American continent was extraordinary, certain languages gained particular relevance due to their association with the major empires of the period. Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, was widely spoken across much of Mexico and Central America. In the same region, Mayan languages also held a prominent place, used by the various Mayan peoples.

In the Caribbean and the Antillean islands, Taíno was spoken. In the Andes, the Inca Empire controlled territories that today correspond to Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Within this area, the most widely spoken languages were Quechua and Aymara.

Further south, in the region that now corresponds to Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay, Guaraní predominated, while in the central and southern Andes, the Mapuche people preserved their language, Mapudungun.

Valero (2022) points out that, while Colombus’s travel diary contains more than a dozen indigenous words, the first Spanish-Latin dictionary, published in 1495 by Antonio de Nebrija, included only one indigenous term: canoa. The same source notes that in Décadas del Nuevo Mundo, written between 1494 and 1496 by Pedro Mártir de Anglería, several indigenous terms were incorporated, such as batata, bohío, guasábara, guanábana, iguana, yuca, maguey, maíz, mamey and Manatí. It is noteworthy that these words remain current in modern Spanish.

The indigenous languages of the Americas exerted a significant influence on the development of Spanish, particularly Nahuatl, Quechua, Guaraní, and Taíno, among others. Their contributions are most evident in vocabulary related to flora, fauna, food, cultural objects, mythology, geography, agricultural practices, and everyday life.

It is estimated that between 200 and 400 words of indigenous origin are part of contemporary Spanish usage. Representative examples include tomate, aguacate, and chocolate, whose diffusion has transcended borders. Nevertheless, the use of certain terms varies by region: some are frequent in Mexico but rarely used in South American countries such as Argentina, and vice versa.

The following table presents examples of words incorporated into Spanish from different indigenous languages.

  

Indigenous languages not only enriched Spanish with new vocabulary but also contributed significantly to its phonetic diversity, giving rise to the wide variety of accents observed across Latin American countries.

Moreover, the colonizers themselves came from different regions of Spain, and the process of mestizaje during colonization, along with subsequent waves of immigration, fostered the fusion of these accents. This dynamic gave rise to multiple ways of pronouncing the same word, thereby reflecting the social and cultural variation inherent in the language.

In addition, the vocabulary of each Latin American country displays regional variation, which adds another dimension to the richness and diversity of the language.

In short, the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas not only transformed the political and social landscape of the continent but also profoundly shaped its linguistic diversity. Indigenous languages left a lasting imprint on Spanish, both in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation, reflecting the cultural wealth and regional particularities of each Latin American country. This linguistic legacy demonstrates how the interaction among peoples, cultures, and languages gave rise to a living, diverse, and ever-evolving language that continues to preserve the memory of its original roots.

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By Isabel O'Donoghue at

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