About how many different languages does South America have?

star_gazer

2 offical languages - Portugese in Brazil, and Spanish in the other nations. Also numerous native languages are spoken. Jun 06 07, 9:40 PM

zbeckabee

A total of 34 language families and over a dozen isolated stocks with about 1000 individual languages have been identified in South America. This represents a high level of diversity on the level of language family compared to other continental areas. All of Africa, Asia, and Europe combined have only 21 language families, some of which have many more languages than any South American language family. Spanish is the most widespread language of the continent, as Spanish is the official language of most South American nations. However, the majority of South Americans (51%) speak Portuguese, the official language of Brazil. Dutch is the official language of Suriname; English the official language of Guyana; and French the official language of French Guiana. Indigenous languages of South America include: Quechua (in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador); Aymara (Bolivia, Chile and Peru, and Chile); Guaraní (in Paraguay and Bolivia); and Mapudungun (Chile and certain pockets of Argentina). Other languages to be found in South America include: Hindi and Indonesian in Suriname; Italian in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay,Venezuela, Colombia; German in certain pockets in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela,Colombia and Paraguay; Welsh remains spoken and written in the historic towns of Trelew and Rawson in Patagonia, Argentina; small cluster groups of Japanese speakers in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador; Arabic speakers, often of Lebanese and Syrian descent, in Arab communities of Chile, Brazil and Argentina. http://www.athenapub.com/salang1.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_america#Culture_and_Language Jun 07 07, 3:28 AM

Baloo55th

The Hindi of Guyuana (and probably Suriname too) is most likely to be Bhojpuri, but the speakers of it there refer to it as Hindi. Jun 07 07, 4:33 AM